saturday night boys varsity basketball

ohiofalcon

Been reading the tips and learning from all the posts. Still don't have a flash but used everything thats been said by the really good shooters. Shot with a Canon XTi with 50mm @2.8 1/500th set at ISO 1600 in RAW. Only have the Canon DPP for processing and eliminated the noise with Noiseware community edition. Any suggestions and comments appreciated.

#1

#2

#3

bikingbets

Hi ohiofalcon!

Nice action in your shots! I think you did well with DPP, except (unless it's my monitor) the oranges in the uniforms, backboard, and stands are a little distracting to me and seem to take away from the ball. My favorite is #3.

If you're like me, you're shooting and shooting as much as possible. Sports shooting is pretty addicting because of the feeling you experience when you get a good one! Keep posting!

Betsy

SirGeorge

Color cast
Hi,
Welcome and I am glad you are having fun.

The shots appear to have a bit of a color cast - I am presuming because you used Average White Balance? This can be corrected by adjusting the color temperature in PP (the purists will inform you that you should set you White balance first but one step at a time). Once done if your software permits it you may want to push the vibrance of the colors.

One thing to consider is to shoot at a wider aperture to blur out the distrating audience in the background using a shallow depth-of-field. If this shot was taken at f.2.8 the get closer to the action...if possible!

Practice makes perfect and I think I'll be practising forever!!

George.

ohiofalcon wrote:

Been reading the tips and learning from all the posts. Still don't have a flash but used everything thats been said by the really good shooters. Shot with a Canon XTi with 50mm @2.8 1/500th set at ISO 1600 in RAW. Only have the Canon DPP for processing and eliminated the noise with Noiseware community edition. Any suggestions and comments appreciated.

#1

#2

#3

jonh68

Your shots look good. I would add it looks like you are standing when you take your pictures. It's personal preference, but I like shooting while sitting or kneeling on the floor. I think shots taken that way isolate the players more from the background and it makes the angle more interesting. It makes even the smallest player on the court look bigger and makes it look like the viewer is on the court.

ohiofalcon

Bikingbets: that's pretty much the team colors. Our team is brown and orange, the visiting team was black and orange. Both schools have almost a hunter orange for their orange.

SirGeorge: I'm still trying to figure out the custom white balance for the gym where I am shooting. They are those sodium whatever lights. When I shoot in a burst I get one good exposure, one bluish exposure and one dark red. Saw a post somewhere about using a slower shutter speed to get the "right white". Gonna try that tomorrow at the girls game. I've had three pictures in the sports section of our newspaper here in cleveland. The comments I got were telling me how mom and dad or some other relative was in the picture and the kid thought it was really neat. But I agree the stands can be distracting.

Jonh68: I was standing. Took a few pictures when I was first shooting kneeling but I was worried that I couldn't get out of the way of the players if they were to come out of bounds. I'm pretty much standing just behind the ref on the baseline.

Everyone: Thanks for the comments and advice. I'll keep it all in mind Wednesday night.

SirGeorge

Aeb?
Hey Ohiofalcn,

Quickly...If you are getting three different results in one burst, I presume that you may have your AEB - Auto Exposure Bracketing set. Cancel AEB and you will get consistant results
Time for bed.

ohiofalcon wrote:

Bikingbets: that's pretty much the team colors. Our team is brown and orange, the visiting team was black and orange. Both schools have almost a hunter orange for their orange.

SirGeorge: I'm still trying to figure out the custom white balance for the gym where I am shooting. They are those sodium whatever lights. When I shoot in a burst I get one good exposure, one bluish exposure and one dark red. Saw a post somewhere about using a slower shutter speed to get the "right white". Gonna try that tomorrow at the girls game. I've had three pictures in the sports section of our newspaper here in cleveland. The comments I got were telling me how mom and dad or some other relative was in the picture and the kid thought it was really neat. But I agree the stands can be distracting.

Jonh68: I was standing. Took a few pictures when I was first shooting kneeling but I was worried that I couldn't get out of the way of the players if they were to come out of bounds. I'm pretty much standing just behind the ref on the baseline.

Everyone: Thanks for the comments and advice. I'll keep it all in mind Wednesday night.

johng

SirGeorge wrote:

Hey Ohiofalcn,

Quickly...If you are getting three different results in one burst, I presume that you may have your AEB - Auto Exposure Bracketing set. Cancel AEB and you will get consistant results
Time for bed.

Not necessarily. Some sodium lights just plain stink - if there isn't enough overlapping fields of light from one to the other you can get a different color temp for every shot in a burst. But the key is - don't worry about the walls - just the players. You'll see that a lot along the back walls of a shot because the light fields don't overlap - especially toward the ceiling.

Maybe 1 out of 10 gyms behaves this way - at least in my experience.

To the OP - try setting custom WB with a shutter speed of 1/60. If you're using that custom setting and still getting differing color casts you will likely have to resort to RAW.

Also - what school is the Meteors? I live in NE Ohio so just curious.