Inconsistant metering

[fotograph]

I am shooting my sons high school basketball team, I am using a canon 60d. I have been progressively upping the ISO and trying to expose to the right and when that happens it works out pretty well. My issue comes with inconsistent metering. I have been shooting in f/2.8 in AV Mode with my exposure comp set from +2/3 to a full stop overexposed and I still get underexposed or properly exposed photos. I am using spot metering, and constant focusing (back button).

Is there anything I can do to make it more consistant?

Sent from my ..........

 

[thetrue]

Generally speaking, gyms have bad, inconsistent light and that very well may be your issue. Could you post a couple examples?

 

[KmH]

What are you 'spot' metering on?

For action sports I usually metered on a players face, unless one team was wearing white uniforms which requires metering on the uniform and adding some EC.

Indoor court sports requires some mad skills and gear. Many who shoot indoor court sports regularly seek permission to put strobe lights at each end of the court.

 

[fotograph]

Generally speaking, gyms have bad, inconsistent light and that very well may be your issue. Could you post a couple examples?

I will post some this evening when I get home from work.

What are you 'spot' metering on?

For action sports I usually metered on a players face, unless one team was wearing white uniforms which requires metering on the uniform and adding some EC.

Indoor court sports requires some mad skills and gear. Many who shoot indoor court sports regularly seek permission to put strobe lights at each end of the court.

I am attempting to meter on the uniform, I shoot mostly home games and our team wears white at home.

I think attempting to meter on the face would definitely require more skill than I possess.

Sent from my .......

 

[Derrel]

STOP with the spot metering...spot metering can be exceedingly inconsistent when used under rapidly-changing conditions!!!! Spot metering is absolutely CRITICAL in terms of getting the exact, correct,precise "thing" metered...in a fluid situation, like indoor court sports, spot metering is probably going to lead to inconsistent metering. Switch to a center-weighted metering patttern and you will almost certainly find that your exposures are more consistent.

 

[fotograph]

STOP with the spot metering...spot metering can be exceedingly inconsistent when used under rapidly-changing conditions!!!! Spot metering is absolutely CRITICAL in terms of getting the exact, correct,precise "thing" metered...in a fluid situation, like indoor court sports, spot metering is probably going to lead to inconsistent metering. Switch to a center-weighted metering patttern and you will almost certainly find that your exposures are more consistent.

Thank you, I have a game on Friday, I will certainly give this a try.

 

[greybeard33 5]

This is what I do. If the light is fairly even all over the court, and in most cases it is, I set the ISO to 6400 and manually meter on a gray card under the court lights. I then set the camera lens to wide open (f/2.8) and adjust the shutter speed to conform to the gray card reading.
When you are shoot on a court, you can have all sorts of irrelevant things like over head lights, reflections from a tuba, etc., etc. in your frame throwing the meter off. Using a gray card is the same as using a hand held meter and taking an incident reading. It only looks at the light falling on your subjects and not the reflections.

 

[KmH]

Indoors the lighting isn't going to change.
Using spot mode, set your exposure values once at the beginning of the game.

I used spot mode/A mode outdoors, but watched the shutter speed in the viewfinder in case the lighting changed, like if a cloud passed over. I also let the ISO float (auto) but kept an eye on it too.

Which brings up another point. I changed the viewfinder settings so it showed me the ISO instead of how many shots the memory card could hold.

 

[thetrue]

KmH, I disagree. The (I think) metal halide lights that a lot of high school gyms use are bright, but it changes in color and intensity at a high rate of speed. This makes the light variable and definitely screws with WB and exposure.

 

[Light Guru]

I am shooting my sons high school basketball team

I have been shooting in f/2.8 in AV Mode

Why are you shooting sports in aperture priority mode? For sports you want a nice fast shutter speed. Use shutter priority mode.

 

[greybeard33 5]

Indoors the lighting isn't going to change.
Using spot mode, set your exposure values once at the beginning of the game.

I used spot mode/A mode outdoors, but watched the shutter speed in the viewfinder in case the lighting changed, like if a cloud passed over. I also let the ISO float (auto) but kept an eye on it too.

Which brings up another point. I changed the viewfinder settings so it showed me the ISO instead of how many shots the memory card could hold.

^^^^^^what he said! (err umm wrote)

 

[fotograph]

Thanks for the replies, I will try setting the exposure values before the game and see how that goes and see if adjustment becomes necessary. The lighting looks fairly even to me, but it is a very old gym and the only light we have are the big metal halide/sodium vapor, there is no flouresceant lights interspersed to even the lighting, as I see in some of the newer gyms in the area. So there is bound to be hot spots.

Edited to add a picture of the gym lights taken with my phone at practice today.

 

[weepete]

When I'm trying to get basketball shots I'll take a centre metered average on the court to set my exposure, which I'll do manually. I'll then switch to partial metering, and take test shots of the players during the warm up checking the exposure by previewing photos in the lcd in the camera zooming in and looking at skintones and muscle definition of the players, if its not right I'll adjust to the partial metering exposure, and then check again and dial in some exposure correction if I need it. I find any auto modes throw the exposure off for the players and lead to less consistant shots.

But that's just the way I do it, not saying its perfect or the way to go for you, it may give you an idea of somthing else to try though. Shooting basketball is a real challenge and a steep learning curve that I'm still on but seem to be improving gradually!

 

[table1349]

I am shooting my sons high school basketball team

I have been shooting in f/2.8 in AV Mode

Why are you shooting sports in aperture priority mode? For sports you want a nice fast shutter speed. Use shutter priority mode.

Because the OP is wanting to take sports photographs not sport snapshots. It makes no sense to shoot a wide variety of ways for the same thing and have to try an figure out what you are doing on the fly. AV does that TV does not.

The difference between a sports photograph and a sports snapshot is tight action that Pops. To get action that pops you want a large aperture with a shallow DOF. Capturing only the action in focus with all other people and objects in front and behind the action out of focus. If you shoot TV indoors that is not all that hard. Now move out doors and shoot TV at the 1:00 p.m. OU/OSU game in nice bright sunshine. Often too much light to open the lens up far enough to get a good sports photograph. In sports when your aperture is the automatic variable it is far to easy to forget about that variable. Also, indoors there is generally little difference in lighting across the expanse of a court. Once you determine you base setting with that wide aperture you shutter speed will not vary much if at all. Set the aperture, find the ISO for the shutter speed you need and you are good to go.

Now if you shoot in AV either indoors or out it is simple to control. Set you aperture to the desired DOF you want. Usually that is going to be wide open or close too. F 2.8 or faster virtually all the time. To keep you shutter speed up you adjust your ISO which on almost any camera can be done on the fly without ever taking the body away from your eyes. Works indoors in poor light and outdoors in extremely bright light. I will take a shallow DOF and a bit of noise any day over deep DOF with all kinds of people and objects in focus and little noise. So will those that I shoot for.

If you are not comfortable shooting manual when shooting sports the shooting AV will be quicker to learn and control on the fly.

 

[fotograph]

I wanted to say thank you for all the replies and advice. I shot our last home game Friday evening, I set the exposure at the beginning of the game and left it there, when we switched sides...and I flipped to the opposite end of the court adjustments were made. This method worked fairly well, certainly better than metering with spot. I am trying to go to the last game (away) on Friday, and if I can make it, I will shoot with the center weighted average metering and see how those results are.

Here are a few from Friday, I still got a ways to go, but I think I'm getting there.
I think this might be a foul....

And this one is my kid. I really dislike shooting wide open, at this end of the court I was shooting f/2.8 @1/400 at the other end I was able to get F/3.2 @1/500 that 1/3 stop made a difference in sharpness,