High School Basketball--A bit more light

Well, our home gym refinished the hardwood over the summer, and it's much lighter. I think it's helping with the lighting, a bit. I'm also getting better at timing the shots. At least the balls are in the girls' hands! All shots w/my 85mm f/1.8. ISO 1600, f/2.2, and 1/640th.

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You have captured the action very well, The photos lack contrast however, here is a quick edit with some curves and color adjustment.

Thanks Pete!

Maybe it's my monitor, but your edits look pretty dark. I see little detail in the black jerseys. But, my pics do look a bit washed out. I guess a good test would be to print out one of these pictures.

I'll do a search on monitor calibration and see what I can find. Any hints?

Nice stuff Ed. I agree though the edit doesn't look right either. Somewhere in between the 2 would be good. Try USM 10/50/0 for de-haze and then 200/.3/0 for sharpening. I also straightened the horizon since I think one of the biggest differences between a pro looking shot and an amateur is the horizon (although I'm a bit of a hypocrite on this if you look at my site!)

I don't think you need calibrated. If your monitor was in need of it, you wouldn't see the washed outness. They'd look just fine to you. Not that calibrating would hurt if you haven't already done so. :P

Mount Airy Ed wrote in post #2533679
Thanks Pete!

Maybe it's my monitor, but your edits look pretty dark. I see little detail in the black jerseys......

The originals look better on my monitor. The girl in white looks like she is about to have a heart attack.

Mount Airy Ed wrote in post #2533679
Thanks Pete!

Maybe it's my monitor, but your edits look pretty dark. I see little detail in the black jerseys. But, my pics do look a bit washed out. I guess a good test would be to print out one of these pictures.

I'll do a search on monitor calibration and see what I can find. Any hints?

As I said it was not the best edit, just wanted to show what it would look like with a bit of color correction (white balance off in original) and some contrast. I agree that somewhere between yours and mine is where it should be. Good capture of action, keep em coming....

Pete

Here is my take on the edit I like keeping it a little warm

Here is edit

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Hey, thanks to all.

Yes, I like the most recent edit. I think that is a good balance.

As far as the USM 10/50/0 and 200/.3.0, are these Photoshop adjustments? I'm using RSE, but have Photoshop coming in about a week.

Damian:

I'm still new to this. I know I have a lot of flexibility with the RAW image, but you were able to do that well just editing my JPEG?? You can do that much with Photoshop? Wow, I have a lot to learn!!

Mount Airy Ed wrote in post #2535474
Hey, thanks to all.

Yes, I like the most recent edit. I think that is a good balance.

As far as the USM 10/50/0 and 200/.3.0, are these Photoshop adjustments? I'm using RSE, but have Photoshop coming in about a week.

Yeah sorry about that. USM is a photoshop thing Might be in other programs too but not RawShooter. USM stands for Unsharp Mask in this case. The 2 sharpenings that I performed would look better on an image that wasn't compressed so much for the web already.

when you get photoshop, don't use 300, .3, 0 for sports. usually you won't get enough light for iso less than 800 (with shutter faster than 500), so you'll end up shapening noise more than anything. instead, boost the contrast a bit with 20, 75, 0, and you'll get some dynamic contrast boost. since you saved for web, the exif tags where lost and i can't comment on your camera setup for the occasion, but from the looks of it, you may have underexposed and then boosted brightness, which would account for the dull look. since you said you got 1/640th, i'de say you can "gain" two thirds of a stop by changing to f2.0, 1/500. bring it back in raw conversion, and you got yourself better noise control and hopefully richer shadows... besides, shadow detail is only as good as the paper it's printed on. for newsprint, a well contrasted image will be better than one with dull details. for parents, go all out and blend exposures on that thing to get both detail and better contrast (harder to do, but should give you a kickstart into photoshopping)

my question is why shoot at 1/640 on your 85mm, you have plenty of room to bump down the ISO and still get a faster shutter speed.
Im new to sports photography.

I guess I wasn't sure of what shutter speed was adequate, so I took the 1/640 (along with ISO 1600 and f/2.2). The shutter does fluctuate based on the subjects, etc.

In my next shooting I'll go for ISO 800 and I'll see if I should stay with f/2.2 or maybe try f/2.0.