Basketball match with the 7D

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Well title says it all. This is one of my first basketball matches with the 7D. I was actually sitting in a good place, not so comfy but quite near to take advantage of my 70-200 F4L.
Trying to get the most out of this lens, I was shooting in shutter priority mode between 1/400 and 1/500(wish I could do higher). I had a decent keeper rate so I'm quite pleased taking into consideration the speed of the lens and the shooting conditions. I used expanded AF and zone AF.
So I'd like to know your opinion on some of these shots.
Of course any recommendations are more than welcome, regarding the technique and the PP. Thanks in advance

Nice and sharp and whilst I realise the inherent problems shooting the sport, they look a tad too busy for me. There also seeems to be a colour balance issue which could just be an optical illusion.

corkneyfonz wrote in post #11771748
Nice and sharp and whilst I realise the inherent problems shooting the sport, they look a tad too busy for me. There also seeems to be a colour balance issue which could just be an optical illusion.

Thanks for the feedback. Yes indeed they are "busy" and some of them not so good in terms of composition, but I think at least that's because I didn't have the time & the necessary reach in many shots to shoot "tight" . I was surprised to see that even 200mm won't cut it for a basketball game, if you're not on the sidelines of a stadium like this.

Thanks again.

Nice shots! I am somewhat new so don't take anything I say to heart, I could be wrong, but I think there's a pinkish color cast on the first few from all the red around them.

Basketball is not easy.

As you already mentioned, getting much closer helps a lot. Even with a 1.6 crop camera 200mm only gets you so far. If you can't get one of the coveted spots under the basket, take anything you can get on a sideline and wait for some action to come to you.

You might also want to push your ISO up even higher than 1600 so you can get down below 1/1000. A noisy razor sharp image still looks very good with noise reduced.

Good shots from where you were. My only thing is most of the pics look like there crooked an not in a on purpose since... if wrong then sorry just the rails on the bleachers make it look really off

What I've learned from shooting volleyball indoors:

1. Crop. I am guessing that you'll get a very decent web-size image by cropping 3 and 4 tight.
2. There's no reason NOT to shoot manual exposure, since light is constant.
3. There appear to be WB issues (possibly due to cycling lights). I don't know of any easy way to fix this aside from shooting RAW and then setting WB manually in post.

Thanks all for your feedback. I think the WB/color is off as many of you stated (I'll try & see what I can do for this), but shooting @higher ISOs is not my cup of tea.. That's why the 70-200 2.8 IS II is on its way, so I can achieve better,quicker and more accurate focus along with better shutter speed.. Shooting manual is my purpose.. I'll keep on experimenting..

Set your camera to Av and shoot as wide open as possible, in your case f4. Use your ISO to control your shutter speed and don't be afraid of some motion blur. It can significantly add to the feel of the photo. The wide open aperture will help you separate your subject from the background which I see as your biggest problem here.

two40 wrote in post #11774197
Set your camera to Av and shoot as wide open as possible, in your case f4. Use your ISO to control your shutter speed and don't be afraid of some motion blur. It can significantly add to the feel of the photo. The wide open aperture will help you separate your subject from the background which I see as your biggest problem here.

I guess I can try that but since I'm not a big fan of motion blur for team sports, I'm trying to shoot in shutter speed priority, so I can freeze action given the relatively slow aperture of the lens for indoor sports. Theme isolation would be tougher since I think I'd need either shooting tighter(not enough reach for this even on crop) or having faster aperture.Thanks for the recommendation though

Then why not use a flash. It will stop the action and separate the background.

Qbx wrote in post #11774938
Then why not use a flash. It will stop the action and separate the background.

I'm not so fond of flash to be honest. I like natural light wherever I can use it..Besides it's not so polite to have a flash keep firing when inside spectators.

As it was said, nice shots. Good set of freezing motion. The photos just look like they have a tint of red to them. The last one looks the best for color.

orbitechgr wrote in post #11773966
Thanks all for your feedback. I think the WB/color is off as many of you stated (I'll try & see what I can do for this), but shooting @higher ISOs is not my cup of tea.. That's why the 70-200 2.8 IS II is on its way, so I can achieve better,quicker and more accurate focus along with better shutter speed.. Shooting manual is my purpose.. I'll keep on experimenting..

And it wouldn't do any harm to shallow up the dof.

orbitechgr wrote in post #11774437
I guess I can try that but since I'm not a big fan of motion blur for team sports, I'm trying to shoot in shutter speed priority, so I can freeze action given the relatively slow aperture of the lens for indoor sports. Theme isolation would be tougher since I think I'd need either shooting tighter(not enough reach for this even on crop) or having faster aperture.Thanks for the recommendation though

I just threw in motion blur as an afterthought to be honest. My main reason for posting was to point out that you probably should be shooting in Av at f4 and use your ISO to get whatever shutter speeds you desire. Isolating your subjects via shallow dof will make your basketball photos a lot more interesting.

All the best.