First attempt at indoor basketball

[Ahmad.Sami]

Hi,
Nice shots at first. I know how much is difficult to freez fast moves in low lights ,,, the settings you mentioned is quite OK for such situation, however, DOF result in ur images is not as much shallow as it should be when opening the aperture to f/2.8 ,,, in sports shooting it is recommended to put your shutter on high speed continuous shooting mode, so at the end you will have much results.
One more thing I strongly recommend any sports shooter is to train himself to move the camera with the movement of the target, it is difficult specially with dynamic movements, I know, and it tooks weeks to be like the shadow of the moving subjects but it worth work on ,,, as much as you reach the shadow level of moving targets as much as you will get super sharp targets with beautiful motion blured background.
Good luck

[TheBrick3]

Even if you could shoot at f/9, you wouldn't want to because you want blurred background for subject isolation.

[psurrette]

Originally Posted by Cowtown_1

Well thank you everyone for your comments, that's exactly what i was hoping for. With the exception of shooting at 8.0 or 9.0. I am not sure how that works. I have another game today so I will try some different things. i appreciate all the input and hopefully they will get better.

Ignore the suggestion to shoot and 8.0 or 9.0,That is just plain wrong. If 2.8 is the fastest lens you have, you need to find the best setting in manual mode. f2.8 and 1/500 of a sec shutter speed with freeze the action at this level of players. Then adjust your ISO so you get a good exposure. If you get a proper exposure the noise level should be OK. DO NOT under expose or the noise will be more pronounced. These are a great start, good job.

[sch_photo]

Originally Posted by TacCPhotography

Choose a faster aperture when shooting sports. 2.8 is way to slow. I usually shoot around 8.0 or 9.0 for sports pics. It is just so hard to focus on them when the are moving that fast! It also looks like the white balance is a little off.

Umm exactly how is it the 2.8 is not fast enough, but f 8.0 and 9.0 is? you have your numbers flipped mate. At 8.0 you are getting 1/8th the light as you would at 2.8, so that means that you are shooting at 800 ISO @ 8.0 and I would be at 100 ISO @2.8.

[Cowtown_1]

Ok, I tried again yesterday and noticed that the light in this gym is all over the place. I tried to use a custom white balance and agree they did turn out a little better. My photoshop skills are not the greatest. These were shot at ISO 5000 shutter 1/640 and at f2.8. The white balance still seems to be inconsistent and I am not sure if my monitor is off a little. So here is a couple more to show you guys, once again let me know what I can do to make these better. They still seem a bit soft to me. Thanks again for all the helpful info.

[elrey2375]

Underexposed. And cycling lights will always make for tough WB. As for the softness issues, are these cropped at all?

[burnet44]

ok so shoot over exposed
thats a plus right?

excuse me for being an idiot

thanks again elray

[Cowtown_1]

elrey the last 2 shots have little to no crop on them.

[Quessy]

Am I right to say that the 80mm F 1.8 is worth about 530 $

[TeleFragger]

Originally Posted by Quessy

Am I right to say that the 80mm F 1.8 is worth about 530 $

id say it is worth a lot less used.. i have that lens and love it... not sure how it will work for you.. i pan left to right so it works.. if kids come at you.. then no zoom may make for challenging pics..

i tried a 2.8 for night deck hockey and it couldnt produce nearly as well as my 1.8..


so also want you to try something...
push your ISO higher.. i can go to 12800... the point being.. keep moving it up.. just because it is high ISO doesnt mean it will have noise (but we know it will..) get that exact exposure... you seem to have it close at iso 5000 but it feels as you are not locking on the subject..

can you use the canon digital photo professional and do a screenshot of your focus point...
then click the picture.. then view AF point..


CanonDPP by TeleFragger / RootBreaker, on Flickr

[TeleFragger]

^^ sorry i forgot to elaborate... when using a lower F.. you will find that you will see softness outside of the focal point... so im just curious where your focus was...

[sch_photo]

Do yourself a favor: buy a pair of Alien Bees B800 strobes and shoot that way.

[joeblack2022]

^That would only work if the gyms let him shoot with strobes...

OP, what camera and lens combo are you using? Also, what focus point?

[vitalboy]

Amazing photos!