Expodisc for Indoor Sports?

[jmcgurn@kc.rr.com]

I am trying to shoot indoor sports like volleyball and basketball at the gradeschool and highschool level, where lighting is bad and changes from gym to gym, but is constant if in the same gym. Would an Expodisc help? I know I need speed, so I am shooting at around 500 shutter speed, with a 70-200 Canon L series f2.8, usually around 800-1600 ISO, but am not happy with the color. I am attempting to use different W/B settings for best results.
I am going to start shooting RAW to see if that gives me more control. Any thoughts?

[NordieBoy]

RAW allows more post-operative fixing but getting the WB as close as possible to start with is a better idea.

I'd use an ExpoDisc and RAW for a while and if it proves itself then switch back to JPG (or stay RAW).

[Hoonga]

I am trying to shoot indoor sports like volleyball and basketball at the gradeschool and highschool level, where lighting is bad and changes from gym to gym, but is constant if in the same gym. Would an Expodisc help? I know I need speed, so I am shooting at around 500 shutter speed, with a 70-200 Canon L series f2.8, usually around 800-1600 ISO, but am not happy with the color. I am attempting to use different W/B settings for best results.
I am going to start shooting RAW to see if that gives me more control. Any thoughts?

I love this site. I've been reading everything in here for a couple of weeks and had the same questions. Check out the tutorials at the top this forum. It's very informative and tells about shutters/ap/ISO's and raw. The folks in here are great and I hope to learn a lot and already have :D

[mspringfield]

As with most questions the answer would be "it depends". If it is under nothing but fluorescent lighting it may help a bit. The problems with fluorescent lighting is that they cycle and you have to catch them at the right point in the cycle to get the correct exposure. In 3 shots you can get one that is correct, one with a yellow tint and a third with a blue tint. To make matters worse the age of the bulbs also effects the length of the cycle. I shot a gymnastics competition several years ago and the lighting was do bad that we ended up shooting a 1D in 3 shot bursts and deleting 2 of the 3 images. Shooting RAW will help you correct for this.

Michael

[cecilc]

The problems with fluorescent lighting is that they cycle ... Shooting RAW will help you correct for this.

Michael

Yep ... Mike's correct .....

It's the cycling of the lights that's going to throw off your color balance indoors. You can shoot RAW and correct it to a degree in post.

The ONLY way that I know of to overcome the lighting shortcomings of shooting indoors is to strobe the venue. And that's not always possible ....

[emurph2]

My experience with the Expodisc in the HS gym has been very good. I looked back at my files from this summer and there is a bit of color variations, but it's very subtle and acceptable to me. I'm sorry I don't have a before to compare. I set it before the game started and left it alone for the entire game. The before shots with AWB had a lot more yellow. I shot jpgs all summer and had no color issues using the Expodisc. I just finished a flash class and found I could use the Expodisc with my flash to get very nice color. That's about all I've used it for so far, but just for the shots in the gym, it's been worth it to me.