DIII basketball

I shoot for the athletic department of a local D3 school, the lighting in their gym is really, really marginal. I am getting better shots by setting up 2 AB800's behind each corner of the court, above the level of the hoop, pointed towards the opposite corner. I have them about level, thinking that the closer the subject, the more feathered the light- an effort to even the amount of light from the near end to the far. They are both on full power, and am shooting from the endline in between them.

Any C&C is welcome- I am basically happy with the results, but I'd like to see more even lighting if possible (I don't really expect to light both ends, but it would be nice!). The floor and bleachers seem to come out with some odd coloring this way also..... Any ideas to improve that would be welcomed.

Here's a few:

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They look a little hot, with 1 looking very hot do you have the option of bouncing off the ceiling?

I tried bouncing as I was setting them up. 0 light hit the floor, the shots looked the same as with no lights at all. I was surprised- the ceiling had some metal trusses, and was kind of a beige color- i thought some light would bounce back. It seemed to go up there and die.

LR's histogram is not all the way to the right, so there should be some detail in the shots. I know I could push the exposure slider down more, and the fill light up to even things out... I just get reluctant to push all of that too hard in post.

I am going to be back in the gym a few times this season- I am going to try to find something that will work as a bounce surface.

Have you tried just ambient light with a fast lens like a 85mm? With all that concrete, the strobes seems to be doing something odd, shadows, etc.

Here are a couple of ambient only shots from that same gym. This was a day game, so there was a little daylight coming in through the relatively small windows, but mostly this was under the normal gym lighting. These were shot with the 135 f2.0, I have the 85 f1.8 also, I just happened to use the longer one on this day. This comes with its own host of issues, as I will note after the photos.

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They don't look way too hot to me...sure there appears to be some blow out in #1, but not a lot. I would suggest doing what you don't want to do. I'll shoot to the right, then bring down the exposure until the skin tons look good, then bring up the fill. If you use LR, you can do that to the first then sync the rest and then just fine tune each one if needed.

You can play with your settings a bit more. I'll shoot with an f/4 or so, with my shutter set at the fastest sync speed then adjust the ISO. The below shot was shoot with the following settings:

Canon EOS-1D Mark IV, f/5.0, Shutter Speed 1/320, ISO 640

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Thanks dwarrenr... Your shots are certainly more evenly lit than mine, so maybe the PP is the way to go. A follow up question though...

Your second shot is the far end of the court- and you are adjusting your settings to allow a little more light in... Maybe 1 2/3 stops more between the iso and aperture. Your ss is a little longer, which, as I understand, shouldn't really affect the exposure from the flash.... You are still well above the ambient though? I am not seeing motion blur, so I assume that to be the case. I imagine the second shot is not quite as sharp as a result of the cropping? I'm not filling the frame at the far end with 200mm on the 7D.... 150mm has to leave your subject pretty small in the frame.

Thanks for the insight- I appreciate it!

sfinkernagel wrote in post #13450793
....Your second shot is the far end of the court- and you are adjusting your settings to allow a little more light in... Maybe 1 2/3 stops more between the iso and aperture. Your ss is a little longer, which, as I understand, shouldn't really affect the exposure from the flash.... You are still well above the ambient though? I am not seeing motion blur, so I assume that to be the case.

I'm really pushing it across the court...I'm probably not more then 1-1/2 to two stops above ambient. IIRC when I shot across the court with out the strobes I could see just a tad of ambient hitting the sensor. With that I'd get some motion blur on the ball and hand, but was fine with that as all I was expecting to get is some rebounding, picks and maybe a block shot or two. But if I would have more time I would have upped the power to the strobes, and closed down another 1/2 to 3/4 of a stop on both bodies.

sfinkernagel wrote in post #13450793
I imagine the second shot is not quite as sharp as a result of the cropping? I'm not filling the frame at the far end with 200mm on the 7D.... 150mm has to leave your subject pretty small in the frame.

Thanks for the insight- I appreciate it!

You're probably right. For across the court I use the sigma 120-300 OS. When that lens is on my second body, it's a bit of a challenge to switch back and forth so I probably did not have time to zoom in for that shot...I don't know. But it is pretty sharp. MaxPreps did not reject it either.