Virginia Easter Region Basketball Championship

[Merciez]

Attended the championship game for both Boys and Girls basketball for the eastern region of Virginia this past weekend. It was a packed house with 300 viewers getting turned away due to a capacity crowd.

The Hampton Crabbers won the girls title while Booker T Washington won the boys title. The boys game was one of the best high school basketball games I have seen played.

#1
http://www.mightymarchingbulldogs.com/photos/132569178-L.jpg

#2
http://www.mightymarchingbulldogs.com/photos/132570251-L.jpg

#3
http://www.mightymarchingbulldogs.com/photos/132571834-L.jpg

#4
http://www.mightymarchingbulldogs.com/photos/132572772-L.jpg

#5
http://www.mightymarchingbulldogs.com/photos/132575480-L.jpg

#6
http://www.mightymarchingbulldogs.com/photos/132579542-L.jpg

Comments and cirticism greatly appreciated in how I can improve these photos.

[dcmoon]

Nice shots, I like #2 and #6....what lens were you using for these and where were you standing? You must have been on the floor or the first row but these are really great shots.

[Merciez]

Nice shots, I like #2 and #6....what lens were you using for these and where were you standing? You must have been on the floor or the first row but these are really great shots.

I was using a 135L lens at f2.2 with a ss of 400 and iso 1600. The lighting was average. I was hoping for better lighting for a championship game. It would have been nice to have a shutter speed of 500 to try and minimize motion blur, but I was already pushing the issue at 400. I did shoot raw and the shots required about 1.5 to 2 extra stops of exposure in PP.

I was taking photos siting on the floor right off the corner of the playing surface, sandwitched between two tv cameras and the local paper photog. I personally prefer the angle of the photos from shooting from a low position vice standing. It helps to make basketball players look taller :).

[g2kev]

Great shots. Where was the championships played? My wife's best friend live in the Newport News so I am a little familiar with the area. One more question. Does adding exposure in pp add noise to the picture?

[Merciez]

Great shots. Where was the championships played? My wife's best friend live in the Newport News so I am a little familiar with the area. One more question. Does adding exposure in pp add noise to the picture?

The games were played at Churchland High School in Portsmouth VA.

Adding exposure in PP does have the potential to reveal quite a bit of noise pending on the amount of exposure added. The more under exposed the image is, the greater amount of noise will be present. I will usually run a noise removal program (Noise Ninja) in post processing to try and help minimize the evidence of noice. You do have to be carefull with the degree of noise removal performed by the software since they can easily give the image a "plastic" look.