Another... First Basketball Game (56k warning)

[drisley]

Hehe, I've seen so many "this is my first bball" game threads, I decided to throw my hat into the ring.
These are from the women's national championships. This was my first university bball game, and it was very fun... there was so much electricity in the air!
Since I wasn't allowed on the court, like those lucky press guys, I picked a spot in the first row, last seat on the end. I had shot volleyball here before, and the lighting was great. But, since most shots were in the corner, the lighting was mixed, and I had to bump up the ISO to 3200 (luv the 20D). There was a bit of a green tinge to the skin tones that I tried fixing in PS later. Colour isn't perfect, but I decided after much work to keep it simple.
Shot Raw, converted with PS CS, added a velvia action, and saved.

Btw, I should add that for the first half of the first game, I was wondering why my AF on the 20D didnt seem very responsive. I was missing alot of shots. Well, it took that long for me to figure I had AI AutoFocus enabled instead of Servo! Argh!:o Once I switched to Servo, the 20D didnt miss a shot.

Let the games begin!
135.0mm, f/2.2, 0.0012 s (1/800), iso3200
http://images2.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/bbnationals2005/IMG_5728.jpg



Did I forget to turn my oven off at home?Hmmmm...
135.0mm, f/2.2, 0.0012 s (1/800), iso3200
http://images2.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/bbnationals2005/IMG_5801.jpg



The MONEY SHOT!
135.0mm, f/2.2, 0.0020 s (1/500), iso3200
http://images2.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/bbnationals2005/IMG_5948.jpg



Gotta LOVE half-time!
135.0mm, f/2.2, 0.0025 s (1/400), iso3200
http://images2.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/bbnationals2005/IMG_5959.jpg


135.0mm, f/2.2, 0.0020 s (1/500), iso3200
http://images2.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/bbnationals2005/IMG_6049.jpg


Tough sport...
135.0mm, f/2.2, 0.0020 s (1/500), iso3200
http://images2.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/bbnationals2005/IMG_5720.jpg


Yes, Tough sport! [broken nose]...
135.0mm, f/2.2, 0.0020 s (1/500), iso3200
http://images2.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/bbnationals2005/IMG_6067.jpg


Winners... and off to the finals!
135.0mm, f/2.2, 0.0016 s (1/640), iso3200
http://images2.fotop.net/albums/sharpnsmart/bbnationals2005/IMG_6150.jpg

[22littlereasons]

All pics pretty good. However, the first pic - well, shots with players dribbling and the ball frozen on the floor are a pet peeve of mine. I prefer the ball frozen in or close to the hand.

[drisley]

22, thanks for pointing that out.
At this point, I was happy if the ball was in the frame at all :)
But, I will keep that in mind next time for sure.

[maderito]

Drisley,

You've been around the block a few times with that 20D and 135/2.0. Even though this is your "first bbal" - we have VERY high expectations.

Your shots look terrific. Colors are excellent (as usual). Action good and you have a couple of real keepers.

Are you sold on bbal? I suspect volleyball is more challenging - any thoughts?

[drisley]

Thank you very much maderito.
Lately I've been questioning my workflow a lot. I've been wondering about over-saturation, and perhaps worrying too much about preserving highlight and shadow detail at the cost of contrast (making my images look flat).
I actually like basketball MUCH more than volleyball. As someone here mentioned before, volleyball gets a little boring for photographs because since it's relatively static, and there only so many types of shots you can get. With basketball, there are so many more options. The only problem I had was that the arena was packed, so once I picked my spot in the front corner, I was unable to move to try different angles. This will be my next challenge... trying pictures closer to center of court. Also, exposure was a little more difficult. I couldnt just lock exposure in M mode, like with volleyball, because lighting near the center of the court is much brighter than the ends of the court. In addition, at center court there was a brightly lit billboard (see image #2) that would constantly cause severe underexposure. Basically I had to predict before hand what part of the court I planned on getting pictures from, and adjust the the exposure accordingly.

The good news is, I just got an email from the university national basketball website, and they asked to use some pictures on their site :)
Btw, there are more at http://www.fotop.net/sharpnsmart/bbnationals2005 (http://www.fotop.net/sharpnsmart/bbnationals2005)

[3oh6]

as maderito stated above, color is excellent and the shots look great. they dont look at all over saturated IMHO on my monitor. for your first game i think you came back with very very above average shots. being able to walk into a sport and get the type of shots you got is no small feat, congrats on excellent work!

[drisley]

Thanks 3oh6. I really do appreciate that :)

[schmoelzel]

WOW!!! Awesome shots!! I love the first one where the ball is squished on the ground......ball in mid-air is what you always see! These are really really good......all of them. Love the colour and of course, that lens!! Makes me yearn for mine which is somewhere in the Ottawa valley. :( Maybe I should start taking some shots of sports since my 1D can rattle off a lot of frames per second!! (sounds like a machine-gun)

[schmoelzel]

oh yeah.....what exactly is #20 from SFU protecting with her hands in the 2nd pic??? :)

[drisley]

Thanks schmoelzel :)
That's very nice of you. The one thing I forgot to mention is that I did little/no cropping on these.
I was shooting very tight to the action, which I often do. Friends tell me it would be easier to take wider shots and then crop, but to me the loss of background blur isnt worth it.
Also, this was my first shoot using ISO3200 only, and no noise reduction was needed except on 1 severly underexposed shot (bleeding nose above). I now have absolutely no hesitation using any of the ISO's on the 20D.
oh yeah.....what exactly is #20 from SFU protecting with her hands in the 2nd pic
I was wondering when somebody would mention something about "that" *lol*

[cmM]

drisley, these are amazing!
I think you did an awesome job capturing the action.

[drisley]

Thank you very much cmM.:cool: