Midwest Basketball Challenge

An old-fashioned holiday basketball tournament where one game ended with a scramble and a one-point win.

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

The first photo is very busy, mainly because of all the spectators. What aperture were you using? The WB also seems to be a tad warm.

Mind sharing what settings you used, and if you had flash/strobes?

geoff5093 wrote in post #9251231
The first photo is very busy, mainly because of all the spectators. What aperture were you using? The WB also seems to be a tad warm. Mind sharing what settings you used, and if you had flash/strobes?

Tell you what...all of those people in the bleachers who were in the way and messed up the background wouldn't leave. The officials wouldn't move the game into the parking lot, so I figured I might as well keep taking pictures. Believe that? Oh well...

That first image used a 50mm f/1.8 II at, well, f/1.8. The lens was mounted on a XTi that used the infamous firmware hack and was set at ISO 3200 to get the shutter speed way up at 1/640. All images used Imagenomic Noiseware.

The last two images came from a Tamron 18-200mm at the end of a close game (note the scoreboard in the second picture) when there was a big scramble for the ball. A friend who was using a Canon 70-200 went out and got a wide-angle lens because he thought something was going to happen in front of him at the end, and he was right. Second image was at 18mm, and the third, a few seconds later, was at 42mm. The players declined to keep the ball in the non-busy part of the court at the end; they were more interested in winning than in providing a better background.

(EXIF is still in the images for those who use browser plug-ins.)

One guy had a pair of White Lightning X1600's set up in the corners at one end of the gym. I just pulled out the camera and took pictures.

One manual white balance produced the colors in the images. Another manual white balance made people look grey.

DC Fan wrote in post #9251852
Tell you what...all of those people in the bleachers who were in the way and messed up the background wouldn't leave. The officials wouldn't move the game into the parking lot, so I figured I might as well keep taking pictures. Believe that? Oh well...

I know you have no control over that, but when I saw the photo it actually took a few seconds to differentiate the players from the spectators. Were there bleachers on both sides of the gym, or just one?

The reason I mention aperture is because in 3 shots the spectators (even on the other side of the gym), are still in pretty good focus.

Don't be so defensive. By posting them online you are obviously proud of your work and/or are looking for any way to get better images.
I suggest you try to be proud of your work and be open to help from another photographer. It will make you better, just lighten up a bit.

The action in the images is very good. Just a couple of things:
-As previously mentioned, its hard to tell the croud from the players. It looks like maybe the 50mm missed focus and you tried to remedy the out of focus shot by sharpening the rest of the image. A shot at 50mm on a crop body at 1.8 should yeild such a small dof that the crowd should be somewhat out of focus.


-Your crops are odd. They look almost square. Most of them except the last one are just a little bit wider on one dimension. I would crop to the original aspect ratio of the camera or to a 4X6 or a 5X7 ratio.

The good:
-Your noise reduction looks very solid. You handled the high noise very well.
-Your action is good. That was one of the hardest things for me to get down in shooting basketball is predicting where the play will be. And I get caught watching instead of shooting.

Keep it up and don't take our constructive criticism personally. We are just trying to help.