Knocking the rust off of my sports photo skills

[Destin]

So I've been wanting to start shooting sports again, but I'm still saving for my 70-200 at the moment so I've been very limited by my short focal lengths. It's been about 4 years since I last did any real sports photography, however high school basketball is easily photographed with shorter focal lengths so I had a go at it a few days ago!

These are all taken using my D7100 and either a 17-50 2.8 or a 50 1.8. Lighting was 2 speedlights, clamped to the end of the stands and aimed about 10 feet above the key in a crossing pattern. Couldn't find my green gels to correct for the lighting, so the white balances are somewhat mixed.

I'm aware that the motion isn't completely frozen, but it doesn't necessarily bother me. Let me know what you think!

1.)

2.) Foul

3.)

4.) Wish I'd framed the scoreboard better in this one, but their defeated body language didn't last long enough

5.)

 

[hokies2379]

Very nice!


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[Derrel]

Good timing on these. I kind of LIKE the look of strobes for H.S.basketball...when I shot H.S. games, I preferred two strobes in the balcony, running off of a Quantum battery and PW trigger on the camera. I LIKE the crisp shadows the strobes throw, especially for 4-color pictures that will be run on newsprint. Also, looks crisp in black and white on newsprint too.

The slight ambient + flash exposure on the first shot...I do not mind that look, at least in color. But...I've seen it in-print on newsprint, and if the ghost image is much wider, it can look awfully blurry/fuzzy in B&W. But at the degree of blur your image #1 has, not a big deal, especially on-screen.

27-4. OUCH!

Shots 2 and 3 are good. Nice push in the back on the foul! "Doha!!!" Now that's a foul!

Again, I personally LIKE the look of balcony strobes, as in #3. I like the net shadows!

 

[Destin]

Again, I personally LIKE the look of balcony strobes, as in #3. I like the net shadows!

Thanks, Derrel! I've always like this look for high school basketball as well. Without it most of the gyms around me are about 1/200th, F/2.8, iso 4000. When you combine the noise that produces with the direct overhead lighting of a gym, you get very noisy shadow areas in the players' faces and I don't like that.

I'm going to experiment with better placement of the strobes, maybe bouncing them off of the wall to soften them up a little.

 

[Derrel]

I like strobed HS basketball as well. I know that David Hobby's Strobist blog has an article or two about lighting HS basketball with balcony-mounted strobes, either for fill, OR as key lighting. I know what you an about the dismal f/2.8 at 1/200 at ISO 4,000 type gymnasium lighting. Sports-Illustrated has AMAZING NBA B-ball shots, made with big packs and flash heads in the rafters.

One thing you can do is to set the flash to an AUTO-mode, so it will shoot really short-duration flash and also will recycle quickly too. On old flash units like Vivitar 285HV, the AUTO-thyristor settings are color-coded clicks; the f/4 or Yellow colored setting will always think, "Fire enough flash for f/4 at ISO 400. That means at ISO 800, f/5.6 will be well-exposed; at ISO 1600 f/8 will be generously exposed." One of the nice things about old, dumb-tech flash is that it can be "lied to". And you can set the ISO and camera at different settings. This AUTO-thyristor output method works easily out to 50 feet--and more, actually.

At half-power, the yellow mode sends out flash for f/2.8 at ISO 400, out to 50 feet, and the recycle time is VERY fast off of a Quantum battery 1 (which has outlets for two flashes), or even fresh AA alkaline. I aimed two strobes, one at each key, from the center court line, which will throw the shadow onto the end walls of the gym from mant shooting angles. Shooting in AUTO at half-output reallllly cuts recycle times! ( So at f/2.8 at 400 ISO at half-power output in AUTO mode, that means at ISO 800, the stop is f/4, and at 1600 ISO, the main light f/stop is f/5.6).

The flash will fire, and will squelch when enough light gets back to THE FLASH; this will stay very consistent, unless a person stands up right in front of it. You can adjust exposures at the camera, via f/stop, or ISO used, or both.

There are multiple ways the flashes can be placed, depending on your shooting position/lens length/desired result,etc.. Sure...bounce if you'd like to!

You can expose however you like with the flash as fill, or main, depending on the ISO levels, and you can get a lot of DOF for focus security within the entire Key region, and both baskets, and with the distance from flash to the floor being 40,45 feet from the balcony, far enough that there is not much fall-off in exposure, due to the sheer distance the light has already travelled!

 

[Derrel]

A few good links about small strobnes and prep and collegiate B-Ball from a former major metro daily newspapepr shooter, David Hobby's Strobist blog.

Strobist: On Assignment: Prep Basketball

Strobist: Lighting Basketball: Let's Trade Ideas

Strobist: On Assignment: Speedlighting a College Gym

Strobist: Q&A, Speedlighting a Gym

 

[Destin]

You can expose however you like with the flash as fill, or main, depending on the ISO levels, and you can get a lot of DOF for focus security within the entire Key region, and both baskets, and with the distance from flash to the floor being 40,45 feet from the balcony, far enough that there is not much fall-off in exposure, due to the sheer distance the light has already travelled!

David Hobby is responsible for large parts of all of my flash knowledge, not just basketball. The strobist website was really revolutionary for me when I first discovered it 5-6 years ago.

You actually just touched on one of the biggest problems I'm having.. I have massive fall off issues shooting in these gyms because they are rather small. High school gyms near me don't have balconies.. in fact it's only about 6 feet from the end of the court to the wall.

I'm getting perfect lighting from the free throw line to mid court, but my lighting under the net or in the corners is generally FAR too hot.

I'm shooting with yongnuo YN-685N flash units. Had them in manual mode at 1/4 power in these photos, but I'm going to *try* i-TTL for a bit of the next game and see how they handle it, as I really don't have room to get the lights far enough away to eliminate fall off.

Short of that, bouncing out of the corners or off of the end wall is about all I can think of to effectively eliminate falloff.

 

[Derrel]

YES--if the lights are 'close', the fall-off will be horrific!!! Moving them farther away, up to the balcony, makes the falloff very small. But, with no balcony that is not an option, but you have the right idea: make the light come from farther away. And since you're at 1/4 power, you will definitely have some freedom to moost either the ISO, or the flash outpit, to compensate for the longer "throw" of the light to the action.

You are 100% correct...by making the light source come from farther away, will indeed, make the fall-off much more manageable So, in these smaller gyms, definitely it would likely make sense to aim the flashes at the corners of the wall/ceiling juncture.

I think when bouncing the flashes off of the corners or ceiling/corner juncture of the gym, perhaps tele zoom, or normal zoom, would be best, depending on the building and ceiling height. Some gyms are all-white inside. We have one HS gym here locally that is likle a CAVE...recessed can lights (! awfffful!), and genuine WOOD paneling! Visiting teams often miss the hoop for the entire first half, one can barely see in there. Built 1963.

 

[John_Scarpa]

I'll chime in a little on the lighting end of this one since you both helped me direct my camera search a good bit.

When I shot daily for papers as a freelancer I had a setup very similar to yours with just a little bit more power. It was two alien bee 800s, two old pocket wizards, a newer transceiver, and some grip gear.

As far as setup went I would choose a side with outlets. Crisscross the bees with the inner most edge of the reflectors just behind the basket. Most of the time they were just running at 1/4-3/8 power, iso around 400, and f5.6 on a 70-200 2.8. If bleachers weren't available to throw a super clamp onto, I'd run my stands up as high as possible and tape them to a bleacher rail so no one knocked them over. The higher bleachers always helped a lot more to get an even pattern, but the stands also pulled out usable images.

This setup also works in wrestling as well to get some great shots, but you may have to compete for outlets and pocket wizard channels with other photographers lol.

Here's an old one from wrestling with the same setup:
JAS_7135

 

[Destin]

I'll chime in a little on the lighting end of this one since you both helped me direct my camera search a good bit.

When I shot daily for papers as a freelancer I had a setup very similar to yours with just a little bit more power. It was two alien bee 800s, two old pocket wizards, a newer transceiver, and some grip gear.

As far as setup went I would choose a side with outlets. Crisscross the bees with the inner most edge of the reflectors just behind the basket. Most of the time they were just running at 1/4-3/8 power, iso around 400, and f5.6 on a 70-200 2.8. If bleachers weren't available to throw a super clamp onto, I'd run my stands up as high as possible and tape them to a bleacher rail so no one knocked them over. The higher bleachers always helped a lot more to get an even pattern, but the stands also pulled out usable images.

This setup also works in wrestling as well to get some great shots, but you may have to compete for outlets and pocket wizard channels with other photographers lol.

Here's an old one from wrestling with the same setup:
JAS_7135

Awesome, thanks man! It's always interesting to see how other people shoot things