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Some of you may remember this thread in which I asked for advice for a sports gig Rooboy and I will be shooting at next month.

Today we went to a couple of the club Handball matches at the HK Ward Gymnasium at Sydney University to get a feel for where we might want to stand in relation to the court, and to practise anticipating play. We did the best we could with the kit lens and the 50mm 1.8 in very low light. All shots were taken wide open in AP mode, at ISO 1600. They've been run through noise ninja, some have been cropped, followed by USM.

Here are some of the best shots. The rest can be seen here.
First two by me, second two by Rooboy.




Below is my Dad giving someone a two minute suspension for what they did to the player on the floor.






Dad tells me the event will have much better lighting, not to mention tonnes more room.

Would love to hear what you think.

Hi Macka,
Not a bad first attempt, but I'd like to see some more close up action shots and facial expressions etc...something with a zoom perhaps. What WB setting did u choose here? I think they look a little on the pink/red side. The last shot is my fave, nicely done Rooboy.

Geoff wrote:Hi Macka,
Not a bad first attempt, but I'd like to see some more close up action shots and facial expressions etc...something with a zoom perhaps. What WB setting did u choose here? I think they look a little on the pink/red side.

Geoff, thanks.

For the event we will be loaning a 70-200 from Birdy. Had to make do with what we had today. We shot in RAW, and I know it loks a little pink, but we adjusted for the best skin tones. The lighting was funny in there, and was a little reddish because of the reflection from the floor.

Good lucking borrowing the 70-200 - once you used it you will soooooo want it!

he he, the bloke in green in the first pic looks like he is right out of "thunderbirds" the marionette show that used to be on TV

The 50/1.8 should manage but the kit lens won't give you the necessary speed for this. Not sure what you used for these shots as the exif has been lost. I would hope you could reduce the iso with the 50/1.8.
Mixed lighting like that is always a pain... I'd suggest using a grey card (or similar) on some test shots to sort out the white balance before the event. btw... another trick worth trying is setting a negative exposure compensation to provide you a higher shutter speed and then boosting the exposure in PP later... something I do to make up for slow lens.

Certainly the 70-200 will give you faster AF and more flexibility of range to play with for events like this. Good Luck !!!

Mj, exif was stripped by NeatImage (we only have the free version). The 50mm was wide open, ISO 1600, AND we were underexposing by 2/3-1 stop to get these results - simply put, poor lighting. Shutter speed with this setup was between about 1/300-1/640. Even at 1/640, there's often movement in the picture, the game really is that fast. Needless to say, noise and picture quality at ISO1600 & 1 stop boost isn't the best

I agree that the WB is a bit out, although it's very hard to tell exactly how much because of the mixed lighting. Case in point: #1 has pink/red light on left, and green light on the right . Difficult to deal with even shooting RAW and adjusting later.

Geoff, I think the close cropped images you're after are something more like these. With the longer lens and better lighting, we'll certainly aim for some closer shots with facial expressions etc.

Thanks for the comments everyone, keep 'em coming

Well... first step is going in earlier and changing all that lighting... simply will not do... then next step is coach the players to move slower and make sure they make good eye contact as they pass by your position.
They just have to get their priorities corrent.

Mj wrote:Well... first step is going in earlier and changing all that lighting... simply will not do... then next step is coach the players to move slower and make sure they make good eye contact as they pass by your position.
They just have to get their priorities corrent.

Hopefully the actual venue will be better. Mj, you're in the Hills District, ever been to Dural Leisure Centre?

looks like some goods moments there, maybe you could try to hook up a sb-800 wireless on a tripod stand outside the corner area to light up the goal attacks.

not should if an offical game would allow this though if someone trips over it and sues you.

Flash is a bit of an issue in general. Not only is there the potential hazard of a flash on a tripod, but also the distraction caused by flash while the players are shooting. We were told today that it's ok the use flash, as long as it isn't in the players eyes while they're shooting. That is, flash is ok while the play is on your side of the court, but when you're shooting cross court then no.

Didn't use flash today at all, the lack of anything put pop-up flash on our D70s might have had something to do with that . Not too powerful, even at ISO1600, and forget about rapid recycling time

Hi Macka
That's one of the toughest games to photograph. It's very difficult to come away from that sport with brilliant images. Good luck!...maybe you'll prove me wrong.

Macka,

For a first effort these are fine.

Regarding your white balance: what in camera settings did you use?

Of course, as you shot these in raw, you can do anything you want after the event.

But you said that you tried to adjust for the skin tones. Whose? Your's? Mine? The Asian guy's? The guy with the great suntan? Or the guy with the nightclub tan?

Don't even try to match wb based upon skin tones. You'll only screw yourself up completely.

First of all, consider that these shots were all done under the exact same lighting conditioons. If you used auto WB, then that's an issue, because it's trying to set wb differently for each image, when there's simply no need for that to happen.

So make sure you set your wb to something other than auto. Preferably, use a preset.

Then in your PP, grab just one image that has a pure white in it. In these images you have the basketball backboards, and the white t-shirts to run with. Either would be fine, but I'd choose the t-shirts, and aim to get a clean white colour in the shadow areas of the t-shirts. If you can do that, you'll find the rest of the image will be fine.

And getting back to my first point, if you've shot everything with just the one wb setting in the first instance, whatever adjustments you make to the one image will be appropriate for all of the others as well, thus significantly simplifying your workflow for those images.

Am I making sense?

gstark wrote:if you've shot everything with just the one wb setting in the first instance, whatever adjustments you make to the one image will be appropriate for all of the others

It looks as though there's consistent lighting in that venue, in which case yeah, you've got it easy as far as white balance goes. The worst venues are ones with windows at one end that let the sunshine in... the WB changes continuously down the hall. But if it is consistent it's probably worth shooting a grey card/white card at the start just to make life easier.

Are they palying there again tomorrow by any chance? I'd quite like to wander down and have a look if they are.

Thanks for all the replies.

Gary, we were using auto white balance, but we converted them all using the same adobe raw white balance setting, which, on reflection, is probably a couple of hundred degrees too warm. Next time we will try taking a card along and preset the white balance.

Moz, I wouldn't exactly call the lighting consistent. Depending on where you were in there, there were different amounts of flurescent light. The venue for our event should have consistent lighting.

They are not playing tomorrow, but the club finals will be on there next week on Saturday from 10am. See http://www.nswhandball.com.au for details.

I will not be there, but anyone is welcome to go. Be warned that there's not much standing room, and that standing room is all there is.

macka wrote:I wouldn't exactly call the lighting consistent. Depending on where you were in there, there were different amounts of fluorescent light.

Amounts is fine, it's when the type of lighting varies that WB changes. Well, fine except for shutter speed, of course

the club finals will be on there next week on Saturday from 10am

Like to, but I'll be at Photo Imaging world next Saturday. Are you coming along?

Moz

Moz,

Rooboy and I would definately love to come along to a Sydney meet at some stage - just can't be this one, as we comitted ourselves to going to the zoo ages ago next Saturday.

macka wrote:Moz,

Rooboy and I would definately love to come along to a Sydney meet at some stage - just can't be this one, as we comitted ourselves to going to the zoo ages ago next Saturday.

Lucky devils! I'm looking forward to seeing those shots...

Macka,

You just need to realise that there's more than one zoo in Sydney, and just change the actual zoo that you'll be visiting.

Wow Macka - I wouldn't even try to take shots at one of these events ... I'd probably end up with a series of 'arty fart blury shots' . The girl with the ball in the third shot just looks scary (I'm going to kill you with this ball) !!!! And why is the ref giving everyone the forks in the second? LOL

Well done - can't wait to see the club final shots !

Rel