Youth basketball and JPEG question.

[BEphoto]

Friday I have an interview/training with a local youth sports photography company. The take action shots all around the area at different sporting events, then sale the discs immediately after the game to the parents.

All fine and dandy for outdoor sports right? Sure. ISO 100 and still get 1/1000 or so.

Okay, here is my issue. Of all the sports for me to get my "interview/training" for, it had to be basketball. Not that I dislike basketball by any means, it's just one of the hardest to shoot due to the poor lighting.

I have no problem bumping to ISO 1600 and firing away, going home and running them through some noise reduction and all is well. The only problem is that they shoot JPEG and the pics get cropped and burned on the spot. Are they just going to be noisy and that's that? Is there any type of NR software that works well with JPEG that they could have installed?

I'm not at all concerned about my ability to get the shots, just concerned that the outcome, due to lighting conditions I can't control, may not be all that great since you are pretty much forced to shoot at ISO 1600 for indoor sports.

Would you suggest using flash? I don't think it would do anything to help my ISO since it would mostly be just a fill.

Thanks, and any info is greatly appreciated.

[Zivnuska]

The answer is going to be dependent on the venue. Can you shoot ISO1600 and stop the action? If you shoot with your 70-200 f/2.8, that may or may not be possible. Shutter speeds of 1/400 is a minimum and 1/640 is better. The prospective employer should be able to tell you what settings they need to make it work where they shoot. Do you own the 85mm f/1.8? That is an inexpensive, fast focusing lens that is popular and gives an edge over a f/2.8 lens.

Fill flash? That won't work. High speed sync is not good for action photography and you still need to get fast shutter speeds (from the ambient) to stop the action. If you need supplemental lighting, it should be powerful enough to get 3 stops over ambient. The flash stops the action, gives lower ISO, has better quality light, and dominates over ambient to avoid ghosting. That is the ideal situation. I realize this explanation is getting more complicated but that is why you need to talk to your future employer about how they have made things work in the past in their venues.

I shoot a lot of basketball and the frustrations of shooting ambient in dark gyms led me to get strobes and pocket wizards.

[AdamLewis]

High Speed NR in camera could be worth a shot. Other than that, invest in some lighting equipment or faster glass (85/1.8, 135/2)

[S.Horton]

I think that's going to be tough.

Do they edit/crop/straighten/color correct on the spot, or just crop?

And, do you have to do that work there, with them?

[BEphoto]

from the way it sounds, ill shoot all through the game then just hand over my CF card to them and they do the rest. I guess i'll just find out tomorrow.

One plus is that i just found out that its at a brand new (1yr old) gym, so hopefully the lighting is better than most.

[clarence]

Originally Posted by BEphoto

Is there any type of NR software that works well with JPEG that they could have installed?

I use the batch NR in Neat Image for JPGs from my 40D at 1600 & 3200. Love it.

They have 3 versions...
- demo (free, but for single images only, no batch)
- Home ($29, batch up to 50 images at a time)
- Pro ($59, unlimited batch size)

http://www.neatimage.com/download.html

[S.Horton]

Originally Posted by BEphoto

from the way it sounds, ill shoot all through the game then just hand over my CF card to them and they do the rest. I guess i'll just find out tomorrow.

One plus is that i just found out that its at a brand new (1yr old) gym, so hopefully the lighting is better than most.

Ah, then it is all skillz.

You'll be fine!

[cdifoto]

Do a CWB, nail the exposure, and let in-camera NR do its thing.

[AdamLewis]

And kiss your buffer goodbye

[cdifoto]

Originally Posted by AdamLewis

And kiss your buffer goodbye

The buffer with JPEG is awesome compared to RAW...

[AdamLewis]

Originally Posted by cdifoto

The buffer with JPEG is awesome compared to RAW...

High Speed NR is murder though...

[cdifoto]

Originally Posted by AdamLewis

High Speed NR is murder though.

Didn't know there was such a thing. I'm on old tech.

[clarence]

Originally Posted by AdamLewis

And kiss your buffer goodbye

With in-camera NR, the 40D buffer holds 7 shots before it slows down...

http://www.komar.org/faq/camera/cano...hooting-sound/

Originally Posted by komar

On my Canon 40D, it does 6.5 frames/second ... which while quieter than the XTi (even more so in real life than the video suggests) it sounds like a machine gun! As shown, I was able to shoot 50 frames at large JPEG ... but this was at ISO3200 ... it turns out the burst depth is highly dependant on ISO, and I was able to shoot 89 frames with ISO100 - WOW!
After that, it then drops to about one/frame second - i.e. the camera keeps shooting as it writes out data to the card. Note that high ISO noise reduction - CFII.2 - is turned OFF - if this is turned on, the 40D shows I only have six shots and with writing to the CF card, I was only able to get 7 shots off before the 40D slows down... in ISO100 or ISO3200. Note that even if you show RAW, you still get those 7 shots ... so this implies that the camera is CPU limited by processing the noise reduction algorithms.

So as long as you're not a "spray and pray" machine-gun shooter, a 7-shot burst isn't too limiting.

[AdamLewis]

Originally Posted by cdifoto

Didn't know there was such a thing. I'm on old tech.

You said "let in-camera NR do its thing" ?..

[AdamLewis]

Originally Posted by clarence

With in-camera NR, the 40D buffer holds 7 shots before it slows down...

http://www.komar.org/faq/camera/cano...hooting-sound/


So as long as you're not a "spray and pray" machine-gun shooter, a 7-shot burst isn't too limiting.

7 shots is pretty limiting. You dont have to hang a motor drive either to make it happen.

Say someone drives to a basket and you take a modest 3 shots.
Shot gets blocked and goes to the floor and you take 2 more shots.
Players fight for a couple seconds and you take 4 shots...er...wait...

You cant.

Because you hit your 7 shot buffer two shots ago.

Now you cant shoot the outcome of the grapple, the reaction from the players, the coach, or the fans.

When everything really starts unfolding and you document it all, you cant hit your buffer very quickly. There doesnt have to be any "spray and pray" to it.