Start of Basketball Season

[JohnG]

Man I hate this gym - OK for volleyball but the cat walk creates nasty shadows at basketball hoop and without enough overlapping lights you get a decided cycling affect. AND, this school has both sets of cheerleaders (both teams) at one baseline so the entire baseline is taken up by cheerleaders. Still, it's something - and after 3 weeks of no sports I'll take what I can get.

C&C welcome:

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[spy]

Great positioning, facial expressions and shutter speed. 3 weeks of no sports!! I bet that would be like having no coffee for all that time! I'm glad you found yourself this photo opp.

[Andrew Waters]

No picture criticism butthe kid in the red uniform in picture number onelooks like he may have gotten afoul called on him for holding.

[JohnG]

Andrew Waters wrote:

No picture criticism butthe kid in the red uniform in picture number onelooks like he may have gotten afoul called on him for holding.

you would think so - but it didn't happen. I think the picture makes it look more flagrant than it really was.

[Trojansoc]

Nicely done, as always, John. I continue to be impressed by your use of available light. Having now started to shoot basketball, I can now understand why you, and others, consider it so tough. #24 is certainly an interesting-looking young man with his emotions gushing from his face--very intense, and you've done a nice job of catching it. I liked all of the photos, because you did such a good job of catching expressions. Alf the group, though, probably the one I liked least was #4 becasue the left arm blocks most of the face of the shooter and his lead knee/lower legis cut off.

I'm sort of like you with an enforced shooting layoff for a couple of weeks as our basketball teams are on the road, and I have to stick around till dark each evening for soccer practice. I have been trying many of your suggestions to improve my basketball shots. The one most useful has been to go full manual on exposure. I used that setting with Auto White Balance on my latest game, and got very consistent balancing that was easily adjusted in Paint Shop Pro. Light was far more consistent, in general. Two problems that I still ran into are both improving--AF adjustment (which I've decided is a matter of the shooter learning to anticipate better, allowing more time for the camera to auto focus) and distance (which is a matter of working with the FA-50mm 1.4's distance limitations--till I can afford a 77mm f1.8, I'm just going to have to live with this)

[JohnG]

Thanks coach!

I agree with you on #4 - good comment.

Keep at it - it takes practice. Having worked with 3 different DSLRs now, I'm a firm believer that the focus ability (both initial focus and servo tracking)of the camera plays a huge part in especially low light sports. But, I also believe working with gear that ISNT as quick to focus ends up making you better as a sports shooter. Because it forces you to improve your technique to compensate. Which then leads you to get more interesting shots. Sure it would be nice to have had the $$$ to start off with pro gear but I think having to stretch the gear I was able to afford made me a better shooter. Now, at the end of it all there are still some sports that simply require a ceertain level of gear. No matter how good your technique- if you want to shoot low light sports you're going to need fast lenses and high ISOs. If you don't have those the best technique in the world is going to yield very few usable shots.

Having a pro level DSLR now I can say it makes my job EASIER. The focus is faster, the tracking better and there are other nice to haves (incremental ISO, now up to 3200, custom WB registration so I can save 5 different custom WB settings, lens specific AF adjustments, 10fps etc....) So my job gets easier to take sharp photos with low noise and correct WB. But, the work over the years on my technique means the keeper rate is even higher (vs. a newbie with the same gear) and I like to think the shots are more interesting than what I was getting several years back.

[Trojansoc]

JohnG wrote:

Having worked with 3 different DSLRs now, I'm a firm believer that the focus ability (both initial focus and servo tracking)of the camera plays a huge part in especially low light sports. But, I also believe working with gear that ISNT as quick to focus ends up making you better as a sports shooter. Because it forces you to improve your technique to compensate. Which then leads you to get more interesting shots. Sure it would be nice to have had the $$$ to start off with pro gear but I think having to stretch the gear I was able to afford made me a better shooter.

John, I fully agree with you on this point. As frustrated as I sometimes got this year in football season with my 135mm f2.5 MF, it definitely forced me to improve my technique, just to be able to get anything marginally acceptable. I am desperately hoping to have a 70-200 f2.8 by the time soccer season starts in the spring, but even then, I'd kill to be able to shoot with acceptable noise levels at ISO 3200.

I went ahead and posted my latest experiments with the FA-50 f1.4 on basketball, shooting the girls' game with one set and the boys with another. If you get time, take a look and see what you think.

[lomitamike]

Sure wish the EXIF was there. That would be a big help.

[JohnG]

lomitamike wrote:

Sure wish the EXIF was there. That would be a big help.

What is it you want to know? The exif not showing is an unfortunate side affect of the site I use to host my galleries (smugmug).

Shot at ISO 2500, 1/400 f2.0 with Canon 1dmkIII and 85mm 1.8 lens.

[DRGSin]

As in almost all people photography, its all about the face...and you my friend nailed it!