First HS Basketball this year

Some ambient light high school basketball shots from Friday night. These were from my first time really using a camera (or post processing) again in over 3 months, it's amazing how rusty one gets

1 My neighbor's kid, 6'7" high school freshman dunking the first shot of the game

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nice shots, i wont rate b/c im still new to b-ball photos my self and learning! They look good though!

WOW that kid is tall, i bet MSU would be looking at him!

Very nice, Mike. Great action, good WB, beautiful color, meaningful shots. Couple of observations: 1) Were you at 1/640 or better? Looks like a couple of the shots had some motion blur. Your focus looks spot on but maybe just one stop slow on the shutter speed? 2) Something that helps my ambiant light shots is simply reducing color saturation. The dark(er) uniforms bleed enough to create less than sharp images. Just a thought ... both of them!

Post more. Good work!

dave

DJ Paris wrote in post #9418192
nice shots, i wont rate b/c im still new to b-ball photos my self and learning! They look good though!

WOW that kid is tall, i bet MSU would be looking at him!

Thank you for the kind comments DJ! This is only my second partial season shooting basketball, so I'm still learning too.

snyderman wrote in post #9418410
Very nice, Mike. Great action, good WB, beautiful color, meaningful shots. Couple of observations: 1) Were you at 1/640 or better? Looks like a couple of the shots had some motion blur. Your focus looks spot on but maybe just one stop slow on the shutter speed? 2) Something that helps my ambiant light shots is simply reducing color saturation. The dark(er) uniforms bleed enough to create less than sharp images. Just a thought ... both of them!

Post more. Good work!

dave

Thank you for the kind words and advice Dave, they're very appreciated! I'll give your suggestions a go next time out. These were all taken with my 40D and 70-200 f2.8L IS, at either ISO 1600 or 3200(H), at f2.8-f3.2, with shutter speeds of 1/400 or 1/500 sec. The lighting's not the best so I never could quite muster 1/600 without running into major noise issues because of under exposure. As it was I had to run all these through noise reduction.

Seems you were able to get under the basket. Your 85 1.8 should work great in that range, faster too and usually a recommended lense for indoor - basketball; volleyball. Great shots, good job. 6'7" Freshman?? how much taller is he going to get.

Nmura wrote in post #9420200
Seems you were able to get under the basket. Your 85 1.8 should work great in that range, faster too and usually a recommended lense for indoor - basketball; volleyball. Great shots, good job. 6'7" Freshman?? how much taller is he going to get.

Thank you! Last season I used the 85 1.8 for half the games, and the 70-200 2.8 for the other half, and after processing all the shots, it was really a toss up, they both had advantages and disadvantages. In the end I've been using the 70-200 more because of IQ issues, my 85 causes a terrible case of CA when I shot basketball with it in this field house last year, and the post processing took considerably less time with the shots from the L. I really wanted to upgrade to the 7D this winter for the higher ISO capability, but its not going to happen for the foreseeable future.

Yeah, 6'7" already, and a pretty good player, I think the coach is pleased...

I really like your shots. Focus is spot on with both great action and faces. And considering all this while using existing light - kudos.

nice shots and fascinating pix

Nice work and great captures. For me they seem slightly warm, but other than that great work!

That kid is a monster! Great work!

Boy, you were fast on the trigger. I usually miss the first shot because I have walked along the side of the court to shoot the tip-off. And regardless of which way it goes, I miss the action if I can't get back to the baseline in time. Otherwise I would get flare from my strobes.

Your pics look pretty good. Must be a well lit gym.

beacherz wrote in post #9422599
I really like your shots. Focus is spot on with both great action and faces. And considering all this while using existing light - kudos.

Thank you Wayne, glad you like them! At the game I thought they were all going to be cr@p, having been away from a camera for 3 months made my timing terribly off, I was just happy to be back shooting again.

yvangkwheng wrote in post #9422679
nice shots and fascinating pix

Thank you for your kind comments!

jpstewart19 wrote in post #9423014
Nice work and great captures. For me they seem slightly warm, but other than that great work!

Thanks! I processed these on my laptop so they very well may be warm. This gym is lit in a way that seems to reflect a lot of the orange-ish floor color into the white uniforms. Shots from this gym, and one other local gym (team color is mainly orange, so walls are orange and white, floor is orange-ish, etc.) always give me trouble getting WB right.

SquareOne wrote in post #9423240
That kid is a monster! Great work!

Thanks! Yeah, if he keeps growing for a couple years and bulks up a bit it'll be scary.

MT Stringer wrote in post #9423293
Boy, you were fast on the trigger. I usually miss the first shot because I have walked along the side of the court to shoot the tip-off. And regardless of which way it goes, I miss the action if I can't get back to the baseline in time. Otherwise I would get flare from my strobes.

Your pics look pretty good. Must be a well lit gym.

Thank you! His dad told me he was going for a dunk in the game but I didn't think it would be right away, so I wasn't really ready for it, things happen fast at the start. It's pretty much a "shot from the hip", I got 4 frames of the dunk but wasn't zoomed out far enough to get it as good as I'd have liked. The frame before this would've probably been the best one but it was zoomed too tight and cut off too much.

The gym is pretty well lit but could be better, it's a large building, and when the game starts they turn off all the lights except for the ones right above the court. If they left them all on I could probably go a stop or two faster. it seems having the only lights right above the floor reflects a lot of the floor colors back on the uniforms too.