HS Basketball w/ Elinchrom Strobes

I normally use my SB-26's to light HS gyms. Last night I decided to try something different and used my Elinchrom D-Lite 4 strobes. I set them on the corners of the baseline and aimed them at the ceiling at about 85% power. Camera was a D3 with 80-200 1/250, f4, ISO 1000. Let me know what you think.

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Brilliant! Is the motion blur because of ambient light or are they simply moving faster than the flash duration?

Moving too fast for the flash duration. Im going to try some different things next time I shoot at a HS again. Not sure when that is going to be because I've got a bunch of college basketball stuff next week and I dont need my strobes for them.

What's the Max flash sync speed on the D3? Nice shots!!!!
Paul

The skin is too smooth. Noise reduction?

I like them Russell. I think the colors are awesome.

I don't know anything about using strobes, but I like the results. The colors really pop.

I like these a lot. You have a really special action shot in #3.

Thanks everyone for the comments. The link in my signature has the setups that I use for strobing gyms if you want to take a look.

canon rookie wrote in post #9402250
What's the Max flash sync speed on the D3? Nice shots!!!!
Paul

The D3 max sync is 1/250 unless you are using a speed light that is auto FP high speed sync capable (high speed sync explained here)

40Dude6aedyk wrote in post #9402420
The skin is too smooth. Noise reduction?

There is some NR done. What I do is in PS I copy the layer apply the NR and then drop the opacity of the layer with the NR on it down to about 40% so it takes out some of the noise but still leave most of the detail. Then i flatten the layers and do a slight sharpen.

Hey Russell, I never realized that you shoot Nikon. I'm thinking of making the switch to the D3s.

Nice shots but why do noise reduction. Too plasticy fo rme. I thought D3 was pretty good high ISO wise and these are at ISO1000 only.

SPORTshot wrote in post #9405224
Hey Russell, I never realized that you shoot Nikon. I'm thinking of making the switch to the D3s.

A good friend of mine has had once since the beginning of December and this is what he had to say about the D3s

"To be 100% honest, the Nikon D3S isn't really blowing my mind. Auto WB is not that great, lots of banding with the HD video, and high ISO is just OK...I mean, it's MUCH better than the D3, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing mind blowing. I haven't had any issues w camera noise... I wish this thing was as we say "all day, every day.""

bobbyz wrote in post #9407415
Nice shots but why do noise reduction. Too plasticy fo rme. I thought D3 was pretty good high ISO wise and these are at ISO1000 only.

I normally dont do any NR when I shoot to sell prints but when I edit for the newspaper I always do some NR because how they print the newspaper. A lot of time the printers get out of register and if there is a lot of noise in the images it really makes the photos look bad.