Hey Mark, lighting looks pretty good on all of these. But I'd have to say that #4 is just about perfect. Ambient in #2 also looks good, though a tad noisy (duh!). It's hard to find fault with #3, but maybe just a bit too harsh with the shadow more obvious. #1 is hard to judge for some reason. Glad to hear you're liking the 135L. Looks like you've got multiple lighting options that can work for you.
!) I prefer the look of the flash balanced to the Ambient.
2) I prefer the look of bounced to direct. The ceiling eats up a bunch of light.
In #1, that gym is an absolute cavern. Ambient is pretty much ISO 3200 f2 1/200th
And if direct using on camera - you spend half your processing time trying to clean up demon eyes - (not redeye which you can fix with a click of the red eye tool, but completely blown out pupils which have to be cloned in.) from the same set of matches as #4.
Here's an example at ISO 400 with direct the shadows are just too harsh - especially with having the curtain so close. May have been able to get away with it in a big open gym. http://www.mjpetersphoto.com/photos/272699418_cLg9Y-M.jpg
3) Recycle time. In #4, the flashes were set at 1/3 stop under 1/2 power. To drop the ISO I would have been at full power and my recycle times (and battery comsumption) would be dramatically affected.
Russ, Thanks for the comments - #1 is soft in the face and pretty flat, but I like it for the double finger touch. Now if I could just shoot this gym each week, with it's low fairly white ceiling, I'd have it set. Unfortunatley, we don't come back here, and instead go to a couple of places with worse lighting than #1 has.
