Basketball

High School Tournament game

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Love the action and composition of the image. Good job! Too bad that the image is a bit on the soft side with a tad of motion blurring. It looks like you were using the 85mm and that lens wide open has a razor thin DOF you have to be mindful of. The gym lighting conditions look pretty bad as well.

Keep shooting!!!

Great capture.... I see a hard foul coming

Good timing
Too bad the picture is soft.
It's also a bit underexposed

How can you prevent it from being underexposed? It shows f/0.6, 1/200 and ISO 1600. There's no more room to turn up the ISO, you can't get a wider aperture, and anything slower than 1/200 will have more motion blur.

nicmo wrote in post #5206578
Love the action and composition of the image. Good job! Too bad that the image is a bit on the soft side with a tad of motion blurring. It looks like you were using the 85mm and that lens wide open has a razor thin DOF you have to be mindful of. The gym lighting conditions look pretty bad as well.

Keep shooting!!!

Aaron, I respectfully disagree. This is simply and out of focus image. If there were a DOF issue, something would be in focus, but in this case, the entire image is OOF.

Welcome to the world of indoor sports shooting. You can't make up for there not being enough light.

Exposure Time: 1/200 sec
Exposure Program: Aperture Priority
ISO Speed Rating: 1600
Lens Aperture: f/1.8

First of all, shooting indoors is challenging. Take control of your camera and learn to shoot manual. Shooting Av can and will result in too many surprises. Learn to hate surprises.

Second, if there isn't enough light, either add your own light (flash or strobes), or pack up and watch the game as a spectator. Again, you can't fool Physics. Your shot looks about 2/3 of a stop underexposed, and what this means is with your camera, you have surpassed its limits for this situation.

Being able to go to ISO3200 (MkII - 40D) would help, as would obviously going to ISO6400 (MkIII), but this is some serious cash, so barring buying a new camera, the only real solution is to add your own light, but this opens up a whole new can of worms.

You might want to view the 2nd episode of the podcast listed in my signature.

http://www.sportsphoto​graphycast.com

Dennis

I'd say that....you've been given very good advice by dmwierz

Thanks alot guys

dmwierz wrote in post #5214047
Aaron, I respectfully disagree. This is simply and out of focus image. If there were a DOF issue, something would be in focus, but in this case, the entire image is OOF.

Welcome to the world of indoor sports shooting. You can't make up for there not being enough light.

Exposure Time: 1/200 sec
Exposure Program: Aperture Priority
ISO Speed Rating: 1600
Lens Aperture: f/1.8

First of all, shooting indoors is challenging. Take control of your camera and learn to shoot manual. Shooting Av can and will result in too many surprises. Learn to hate surprises.

Second, if there isn't enough light, either add your own light (flash or strobes), or pack up and watch the game as a spectator. Again, you can't fool Physics. Your shot looks about 2/3 of a stop underexposed, and what this means is with your camera, you have surpassed its limits for this situation.

Being able to go to ISO3200 (MkII - 40D) would help, as would obviously going to ISO6400 (MkIII), but this is some serious cash, so barring buying a new camera, the only real solution is to add your own light, but this opens up a whole new can of worms.

You might want to view the 2nd episode of the podcast listed in my signature.

http://www.sportsphoto​graphycast.com

Dennis

just curious Dennis, how would manual mode have helped the OP here at all?

Chad

Chad,

Av can often lead to improper exposure just by the nature of the way it can be fooled by things like a background that is markedly brighter or darker than the subject, etc.

Think about shooting a snow skier wearing a dark outfit, skiing down a snow-packed mountain. You want to get a shot of this athlete, and you're in Av. The camera doesn't know what you're trying to shoot - for all it knows you're TRYING to capture the snow and not the skier. In fact, since the snow represents a lot more of the surface of the image than the skier probably does, it's logical that the camera expose for the snow. However, if this happens, the camera will stop down its exposure to account for the very bright whites of the snows-cape, and when this happens, the skier will be underexposed.

By determining the proper exposure settings for your subject and using these in manual mode, you are telling the camera what to use and regardless of what is behind or around the actual subjects, your image will always be properly exposed relative to the subject.

There's more to it, but this is a basic description of why manual is preferred.

Now, if the light is changing vastly from one portion of the gym to the next, Av may be the only realistic way to expose. When I am faced with this situation, and when I still want to shoot manual, I will take meter readings with a handheld meter, around the gym, and will scroll my aperture up and down as the action and players move around. For a fast-paced game like hockey, or even basketball, this gets a bit challenging. However, it can be done, and is what I do when I strobe a venue, since even then the lighting isn't consistent.

Hope this helps.

Dennis

dmwierz wrote in post #5214411
Chad,

Av can often lead to improper exposure just by the nature of the way it can be fooled by things like a background that is markedly brighter or darker than the subject, etc.

Think about shooting a snow skier wearing a dark outfit, skiing down a snow-packed mountain. You want to get a shot of this athlete, and you're in Av. The camera doesn't know what you're trying to shoot - for all it knows you're TRYING to capture the snow and not the skier. In fact, since the snow represents a lot more of the surface of the image than the skier probably does, it's logical that the camera expose for the snow. However, if this happens, the camera will stop down its exposure to account for the very bright whites of the snows-cape, and when this happens, the skier will be underexposed.

By determining the proper exposure settings for your subject and using these in manual mode, you are telling the camera what to use and regardless of what is behind or around the actual subjects, your image will always be properly exposed relative to the subject.

There's more to it, but this is a basic description of why manual is preferred.

Now, if the light is changing vastly from one portion of the gym to the next, Av may be the only realistic way to expose. When I am faced with this situation, and when I still want to shoot manual, I will take meter readings with a handheld meter, around the gym, and will scroll my aperture up and down as the action and players move around. For a fast-paced game like hockey, or even basketball, this gets a bit challenging. However, it can be done, and is what I do when I strobe a venue, since even then the lighting isn't consistent.

Hope this helps.

Dennis

Dennis it does, now my question is this, can't you change the exposure with EC? while in Av mode would it not be easier/faster/less chance of completely blowing the exposure using this method? feel free to tell me if im wrong...I have ZERO experience and am just trying to learn about everything before I even get my camera.

this is assuming your using the cameras metering system. I understand the merits to incident metering and that manual is the preferred method.

Chad

Is the WB off or was the lighting in the gym on the yellow side?

i'm surprised there was a tournament in those conditions. assuming that f.6 was f1.8 and not f5.6, there's not much you could have done other than tried to do one stop under and bringing it back afterwards. it's better to have noise than blur any day of the week. next time shoot f2, 1/400, iso1600 with raw. if you preset the focus to the hoop, you'll be able to get most of the layups with reasonable sharpness