some more DII basketball

even though noone really ever comments on my shots i post anyway. had an off game, i blame it on thanksgiving and even the players were a little sluggish lol

heres a few shots that turned out well. i didnt have any super amazing keepers but here are some of the good ones

Brian,

those aren't bad. Great action. You've got a good sense of timing to get the peak action shot. Couple things I notice: they all appear a tad underexposed. the noise really rears an ugly head if you underexpose, then try to get exposure back during processing. The also appear a tad slow on the shutter. WB appears weird on all! Some have a green cast, others are just too cold on the WB number meter!

You're shooting with either the Sig 30 or the 50 f/1.8? If so, settings to try when shooting indoor ball with ambient light: f/2 on the lens, 1/640 on the shutter and raise ISO until you have GOOD exposure. Everything looks better if you get good exposure.

dave

thanks. i dont see the weird WB on my monitor and they look good in camera when i take them. i need to fine tune my WB i guess. unfortunately the gym i shoot in has mixed uneven lighting. im just unsure where to take a WB reading. i think maybe closer to the basket since i have more shots in that area and make a custom WB in camera to both the basket area and center court and see if there is a major difference. i think im way overdue to buy a gray card since my photos have improved to a level that can be taken serious as a new semi-ish professional sports photographer.

thanks for the tips im battling with poor lighting because im shooting with a 70-200 2.8 that belongs to the people i shoot for. i have not put my 30 or 50 to much use. the 30 seems to not be well suited for basketball as everything is at infinity focus for it and most of the time it missed focus in servo. ill start putting the 50 to some more use to get a better exposure. i have been keeping my ISO at 3200 at f2.8 because the noise at 4000 is just really rough but next tuesday ill crank it up anyway since either way im going to get a good amount of noise

I tried the 70-200 f/2.8L IS once for basketball, put it away and never went back to it. I guess it works fine if you're in a well-lit facility like a D1 college or NBA venue, but it certainly didn't work at the HS gyms. My 'go-to' lenses were the 85mm f/1.8 and actually did get decent results using the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 on the 7D as well.

As far as getting decent white balance, the little credit card sized Whi-Bal card held by someone near the basket usually works pretty well. As a first step in processing games shots is to pull all images into Adobe Camera Raw, (ACR software), select all, and use the Whi-Bal shot and sample the card itself using the eye-dropper to correct the WB on all images at the same time. Works great.

dave

thanks. i will be trying to the fix my WB problem that i never noticed lol

does this look different. i figured out how to custom WB in lightroom3 and select all and apply it. i used a shot of a player standing center court holding his jersey as the reading just to test it out.

here is one with the custom WB off that jersey

Have you ever thought about just taking a custom WB using a grey card? When I go to gyms that I'm not familiar with that's what I do and it usually works out alright.

elrey2375 wrote in post #13458357
Have you ever thought about just taking a custom WB using a grey card? When I go to gyms that I'm not familiar with that's what I do and it usually works out alright.

was discussed in the other posts in this thread and the fact that i have been needing to get one but never got around to doing it. i will be buying one very soon since it is extremely beneficial to have one

Brian, where do you position yourself on the floor to get your images? I will be shooting BB for the 1st time in a couple weeks and looking for some insight.

Thanks...Al

i generally shoot from the corners of the court. part of that is because i have a crop camera and like shooting with a 70-200. which at 70 on a 7D is pretty tight if you try to shoot from behind the basket, and i dont really spend too much time behind there except for maybe a minute or two because you dont get many good shots standing directly behind the basket. if im standing under the basket i shoot from the corner of the court to my right because most players are right handed and when they run towards you to shoot you will be able to get a nice shot of them especially when they go for a layup. on occasion you will miss layups as you can control which way the player turns in the air. but what i just said is pretty effective and even you can scoot like 2-3feet no more than 4 to your left towards the basket for a nice angle so if a player is near the corner you are at you can get a shot of him/her. hope that helps its a little wordy and jumbled but its in there

Yeah I understand what you are saying. Do you use strobes or ambient?

I plan to use 3 different lenses or experiment with them: 135 f2, 70-200 2.8 (maybe switch off with these 2) and the 85 1.8 will be the main lens.

Brian_R wrote in post #13467518
i generally shoot from the corners of the court. part of that is because i have a crop camera and like shooting with a 70-200. which at 70 on a 7D is pretty tight if you try to shoot from behind the basket, and i dont really spend too much time behind there except for maybe a minute or two because you dont get many good shots standing directly behind the basket. if im standing under the basket i shoot from the corner of the court to my right because most players are right handed and when they run towards you to shoot you will be able to get a nice shot of them especially when they go for a layup. on occasion you will miss layups as you can control which way the player turns in the air. but what i just said is pretty effective and even you can scoot like 2-3feet no more than 4 to your left towards the basket for a nice angle so if a player is near the corner you are at you can get a shot of him/her. hope that helps its a little wordy and jumbled but its in there

you should be really good with a 70-200 on a FF. the 85 will probably get a lot of use. i shoot ambient so if i had an 85 it would get aton of use.

i hesitate when using my 50 1.8 only because honestly its a great lens but its cheap and not 100% reliable. but there really is not another 50 out there that keeps up any better in servo mode. from what i understand the EF 50 1.4 and the sigma 50 1.4 while great lenses arent not meant for moving objects and shooting in servo. i hear but only from one person here on potn that the 50L works in servo very well but im not paying that kind of money for 1 lens right now lol

The 85 1.8 is really the way to go here. Can't beat it with a stick! By the way, Brian, I'm the king of messed up white balance and even your corrected one looks way off, even to me.