full day of college bball

[blinking8s]

good call. I dont have a 135 but it would probably be my lens of choice for womens bball if I did have one.

I am looking at selling my 70-200 f4 L sometime in the future and getting another solid prime. It only has enough use for good weather conditions...sort of a bummer cause its a damn nice lens, I just never use it.

[Jim R]

Very impressive shots - are you using a flourescent or any other filters?

[blinking8s]

no filters, CWB or AWB depending on the mood im in...after my first 3 games i was 100% convinced to never shoot jpeg again though. unprocessed RAW converted in PS gives me better contrast and color output over a quickly processed jpeg...and saves me ass when i need it...

[DenaKs]

I have just gotten a digital rebel for christmas, and I am very very new. However, I have 2 daughters playing a lot of basketball and would like to TRY to get some good shots of them. My first atempt didn't turn out to good.

Your shots are awesome....

I see you used various setting, but... if you don't mind sharing, could you share what some of those are? I need all the help I can get...

[blinking8s]

for the first time out...shoot on Av mode, iso accoring to the light, on avg gym lighting is very very poor, so you will be stuck with grainy photos...

i usually shoot between 2.2 and 2.8 but when trying to maintain iso800 will open to 1.8 if I know the DOF will cover what i want.

[mdude85]

it's sad that there are hardly anyone in the stands at the women's bball game. Nice shots though-- cool facial expressions and good lighting. Sometimes the referee in the shot is a good thing and sometimes not -- personally I am not a fan of intentionally or unintentionally getting the ref in the shot unless he is the focal pt of the photo. good luck!

[Jim R]

Well OK - I bought the 85 F1.8, but my shots don't look anything like yours. I am using a DRebel set on Av=1.8 or 2.0, ISO 1600, AWB and AF. I also tried the Sport and "P" modes, but the Av worked the best. This produces a shutter speed > 2000, but half my shots were out of focus, so I must not be "locking" on the subject long enough. Are you using any of the custom focus settings, or any other suggestions?

Thanks,
Jim

[3oh6]

Originally Posted by Jim R

Well OK - I bought the 85 F1.8, but my shots don't look anything like yours. I am using a DRebel

thats all you needed to say...see blinking8s is shooting with a 20D and for sports it is light years ahead of the drebel although the drebel is capable of producing decent photos, it is just a lot harder to get them. the biggest difference is simply the ability to accurately track a subject and keep it in focus through what is known as ai-servo mode. the drebel technically will try to follow a subject you have 'locked' a focus point on but it does it very very very poorly. and only with the hacked firmware can you put it in a dedicated ai-servo mode but takes a jimmy rig shutter actuation to get it to work.

i have shot a lot of highschool basketball with both 20D and drebel and the 20D is just better in every way, very noticable amounts of less noise at 1600, button push to shutter actuation is quicker, faster FPS if your bursting a few shots, and im almost convinced it focuses quicker but i have no way of proving as its prolly just in my head. the 20D is just more responsive in every aspect. to prove the drebel can grab decent pics when 'worked' properly and by worked i mean got lucky, here is a couple of pics...





now i know the WB is in left field, stoopid me was running short on disk space so i switched over to .jpg from RAW in the middle of the game and never set the WB prior as i planned on shooting RAW all day. but thats besides the point, these were shot with a drebel and 70-200 f/2.8L in the worst lit gym in the world. yes at 1600. noise ninja and some massaging in PS and they dont look that bad, aside from the whole yellow tint to them. fact is the action is stopped and the subject is in focus for the most part. which is what im trying to show, so it can be done but it just takes some time and lots of practice. i hope that sheds a little light on the situation, but keep at it with the DRebel and you will be able to pull a few good captures out of a game.

[kawter2]

Blink are you still using thos Magic Cubes you took from Radtech1 '

[blinking8s]

Originally Posted by kawter2

Blink are you still using thos Magic Cubes you took from Radtech1 '

haha wtf? i must have been drunk? its not some kind of photography roofie is it?

3oh6 - it took quite a bit of practice before I got the exposure right with the 20d, stopping the action, getting good WB and color in you r skin tones can just be a trial and error process...

[DenaKs]

Thank you for the tips... This weekend was much better than the one before. Still not close to the ones posted here, but at least now the action is focused and stopped. Still working on the lighting issue. Between my 2 I have about 6 games a week, so plenty of practice time!

[3oh6]

Originally Posted by blinking8s

3oh6 - it took quite a bit of practice before I got the exposure right with the 20d, stopping the action, getting good WB and color in you r skin tones can just be a trial and error process...

and it looks like that practice has paid off in full, i just saw you on the front page of SS as a new member, congrats. looks like all went well with the portfolio shots i guess

[maderito]

Originally Posted by 3oh6

and it looks like that practice has paid off in full, i just saw you on the front page of SS as a new member, congrats.

Another round of congrats. Your work only gets better week by week. No telling where you'll wind up some day!

[Jim R]

Hacked firmware? Is there a way I can upgrade my drebel firmware to get a better ai servo lock?

[blinking8s]

Thanks for the congrats! I am stoked to bump the learning curve up a little more...

Originally Posted by Jim R

Hacked firmware? Is there a way I can upgrade my drebel firmware to get a better ai servo lock?

I used to have a dreb...I never hacked the firmware and managed to get a solid % of in focus shots