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jspytek Offline • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #1 · First time shooting basketball First of all I realize I'm boxing well above my weight class considering the quality of photos I've seen in this forum. But I have to start somewhere, so I'm asking for suggestions on how to improve my shot. As a follow on question, is the lack of crispness in the photo due to user error (me) or can my equipment just not keep up with what I'm seeing other posters use? In the original photo I'm shooting with a D7000 and a Sigma 17-50/2.8 I had the shutter speed at 1/320 and ISO at 2000 - I had been reading earlier before the shoot where several posters had been using 1/800 and 10,000 ISO but those shots were to grainy on my setup. My software view shows that the focus is on the chest of the girl in white. One of my disappointments is - with that set up according to a DOF calculator that I use the DOF should be 2.7 feet so I was really expecting more crispness on my target and not to be able to read the walls in the background. Am I off base there? Photo as taken   NIKON D7000    50 mm    f/3.2    1/320 sec    2000 ISO    0.0 EV   Cropped and tweaked - I used the white balance dropper and sampled her shirt   NIKON D7000    50 mm    f/3.2    1/320 sec    2000 ISO    0.0 EV   Jan 09, 2013 at 10:06 PM

Marty Bingham Offline • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #2 · First time shooting basketball Hey John. My first suggestion is to forget the DOF calculator. It will make you want to shoot at a smaller aperture to gain depth of field. In reality, aperture plays the smallest role in the depth of field equation and you wind up sacrificing the light gathering capability of your lens for no appreciable gain in DOF. You have some great equipment and you will be pleased with the results you can get from it with a little fine tuning. Try f2.8 @ 1/500th and adjust your iso to get the exposure right. Anything under 1/500th and you lose sharpness due to motion blur, which can be almost imperceptible to the untrained eye and still cause a mysterious lack of sharpness. Let the action get a little closer so you don't have to crop much. Cropping magnifies noise. The original shot is a little under exposed which increases noise. All that should get you in the ball park. The rest is a matter of practice and tweaking. Give it a try next time out and post some shots. Thanks, Marty Jan 09, 2013 at 10:52 PM

rddayton Offline • • • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #3 · First time shooting basketball The D7000 has a ton of upside -- and if the settings are dialed in correctly -- there is no doubt it can handle what you are throwing at it. Here are a few samples I got with the D7000 last season. Notice the ISO levels are all significantly higher than the 2000 you used. Don't be afraid to push it. At least one of them is 6400. Bump the ISO. Lock the aperture at 2.8. See where you come out on the Shutter Speed. It can do it. Questions, feel free to shoot me a PM or email. Rick 1   NIKON D7000    70 mm    f/2.8    1/1000 sec    6400 ISO    0.0 EV   2   NIKON D7000    80 mm    f/2.8    1/500 sec    3200 ISO    0.0 EV   3   NIKON D7000    70 mm    f/2.8    1/500 sec    3200 ISO    0.0 EV   4   NIKON D7000    82 mm    f/2.8    1/1000 sec    6400 ISO    0.0 EV   Jan 10, 2013 at 01:46 AM

Scott Sewell Offline • • • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #4 · First time shooting basketball Marty Bingham wrote: Hey John. My first suggestion is to forget the DOF calculator. It will make you want to shoot at a smaller aperture to gain depth of field. In reality, aperture plays the smallest role in the depth of field equation and you wind up sacrificing the light gathering capability of your lens for no appreciable gain in DOF. You have some great equipment and you will be pleased with the results you can get from it with a little fine tuning. Try f2.8 @ 1/500th and adjust your iso to get the exposure right. Anything under 1/500th and you lose sharpness due to motion blur, which can be almost imperceptible to the untrained eye and still cause a mysterious lack of sharpness. Let the action get a little closer so you don't have to crop much. Cropping magnifies noise. The original shot is a little under exposed which increases noise. All that should get you in the ball park. The rest is a matter of practice and tweaking. Give it a try next time out and post some shots. Thanks, Marty Amen to ditching the DOF calculator!! I'm always amazed at the number of people who are evidently punching in numbers into some app or program to get a DOF. Just get exposure correct and you'll be fine. Seriously, at no level of shooting basketball--from youth to NBA--have I ever thought "wow, I wish I had used a DOF calculator before I shot this game to make better images." Not once. Oh yea, I also agree with everything else Marty said. f2.8, 1/500 and set ISO accordingly to nail center-line exposure. Also, shoot lower. Park your butt on the baseline and let that action come to you. Good luck and keep posting. Jan 10, 2013 at 01:49 AM

robby521 Offline • • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #5 · First time shooting basketball i have the same set up as you do.our gyms are ok on light but not good.i shoot at 1/400 f2.8 ISO 6400.still learning. boys girls Jan 10, 2013 at 02:08 AM

jspytek Offline • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #6 · First time shooting basketball Thank guys - I'll try 1/500 - 6400 the next time I can. I'll take a quarter and shoot lower / close in to the basket next game as well. I checked the DOF after shooting. So, I'll skip that and work more with the speed / ISO. Thanks for the ideas. John Jan 10, 2013 at 03:28 AM

robby521 Offline • • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #7 · First time shooting basketball i know around our small town people dont care about DOF they just want pictures of there kids.had one order from me and i new her and told her he was not even looking,she said i don't care cause i know who it is.lol Jan 10, 2013 at 04:06 AM

BillP57 Offline • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #8 · First time shooting basketball I am not familiar with Nikon equipment, but judging from Rick's photos your camera can handle ISO 6400 fairly well. Correcting an underexposed photo will generally add more noise than a high ISO will, so you need to get the exposure right in the camera. When you crop a photo you not only increase the size of the person in the photo you also increase the size of the noise in the photo. The result is that photo looks much noisier or less clear. The closer you can get to the action (less cropping) and the closer your exposure is in camera (less PS brightening), the better your end results will be. I hope this makes sense and helps. Bill Jan 10, 2013 at 03:07 PM

jspytek Offline • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #9 · First time shooting basketball I shot at a different gym tonight (I'm returning to the first gym Saturday morning to try the new settings). I shot about 400, kept about 175, liked about 7, and am posting my best 4. Interestingly I favored the telephoto lens tonight, which I was thinking was too tight for such a close game. I positioned myself at the corner for the first three shots, and was under the basket with my wide angle for the fourth. Thanks for the ideas - I had it in my mind to shoot at 1/800 not 1/500 (didn't take my notes with me) But overall I was well pleased with shooting 1/800 - 6,400.   NIKON D7000    122 mm    f/2.8    1/800 sec    6400 ISO    0.0 EV     NIKON D7000    122 mm    f/2.8    1/800 sec    6400 ISO    0.0 EV     NIKON D7000    122 mm    f/2.8    1/800 sec    6400 ISO    0.0 EV     NIKON D7000    27 mm    f/2.8    1/800 sec    6400 ISO    0.0 EV   Jan 12, 2013 at 07:13 AM

jspytek Offline • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #10 · First time shooting basketball Sorry the pictures are so large. What size do you normally post? I re-sized them to under 750k, obviously that didn't work. Jan 12, 2013 at 07:15 AM

rddayton Offline • • • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #11 · First time shooting basketball When I resize I do it coming directly out of Adobe LightRoom. I tell it to make it 800 on the longest side. That works really well. The other thing you can do is use a re-sizer utility. Microsoft has a free one that allows you to resize photos on the PC side. Medium or Large works very well for here. As for the photos, wow what a transformation. The difference is HUGE. Great job of taking in all the information that people threw at you and making a gigantic leap forward with your shots. There are still lots of things to work on -- like capturing peak action (getting the ball at the instant it leaves a shooters hand) and framing (not clipping the fingers or toes of your subject if it is a full-body shot) but you have made tremendous progress. Nice job. Jan 12, 2013 at 01:07 PM

jspytek Offline • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #12 · First time shooting basketball Thanks rddayton - I totally agree with your comments of peak action and clipping - I didn't see any shots that really stuck me as having the complete "nailed it" look - but I'll keep trying. And yes, I'll keep it to 800 longest side. PS Thanks a ton for the positive CC! That means a ton! Jan 12, 2013 at 01:46 PM

CosmicCruiser Offline • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #13 · First time shooting basketball this may be a silly comment but are you using AI servo for focus tracking? Also thanks to the other comments I learned something too. Jan 12, 2013 at 02:24 PM

jspytek Offline • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #14 · First time shooting basketball I am using AF-C 3D tracking - I played around with the matrix today and with the exposure level a little. Actually I even played with manual focus on a static point - I had this idea to focus on the rim of the basket and then leave it there and shoot when the players jumped for a layup or rebound. Didn't get the shot I wanted but I'm going to keep trying that angle at least 4-5 minutes a game. Today I went back to the gym where I posted my original pictures and shot two freshman high school games (boys then girls). Same light, this time with 1/500th and 6,400 ISO. I ended up shooting 900 photos, 379 keepers, 14 better than the rest, and these are my only "2 star" photos. Still not excellent, that will take a while, but I was happy with the results of the camera. Of my 14 "better" photos I was pleasantly surprised that they were split 8 telephoto 6 wide angle. The first photo is just a pose that I like. I enjoy the player's concentration and it's a shot I can work on perfecting. The second, I call David vs Goliath - they must have been matched up because I have a shot of them guarding each other the other way as well. The third was on the wide-angle. Closer to the action.   NIKON D7000    122 mm    f/2.8    1/500 sec    6400 ISO    -0.7 EV     NIKON D7000    160 mm    f/2.8    1/500 sec    6400 ISO    -0.7 EV     NIKON D7000    34 mm    f/2.8    1/500 sec    6400 ISO    +0.7 EV   Jan 13, 2013 at 04:06 AM

James Broome Offline • • • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #15 · First time shooting basketball It's pretty damn refreshing to see someone here listen, absorb, and execute the suggestions provided by the pros on this forum. All too often I see someone ask for help, but then start to argue about why they're doing what they're doing or why the suggestions won't work. Kudos to you for listening and subsequently improving your work by a wide margin. Jan 14, 2013 at 04:20 PM

mkchang Offline • • • Upload & Sell: On p.1 #16 · First time shooting basketball Still looks like they are underexposed. Are you shooting manual or av? Jan 14, 2013 at 04:30 PM

MakoShark Offline • • • Upload & Sell: Off p.1 #17 · First time shooting basketball John VAST improvement and you really seem to be working hard and listening very well. Keep this up and you will be amazed how much better you can still do. Really nice job. I have a 7000 and when I shoot with it, which inst often any longer, I used AFC- 9 point (check manual how to change to this option) and received even better focus tracking and sharper shots. Yes you do have to pay a bit more attention to where the subject is on teh frame, but the camer I found keeps up better. Give this a try and see how it works for you. Also on my setting with the D7K I turned off all in camera noise reduction and Active D Lighting. In my experience turning these off and shooting RAW gave the software I used to edit a much better result to reduce noise after the fact. I am really looking forward to seeing your next post! Manny Jan 14, 2013 at 05:41 PM

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