I shot the DU vs CSU game today with strobes. First time using strobes. I had some issues with the trigger falling out of the hotshoe so I used a sync cable on my d700 for the second half. I also shot with Mark Watkin's photo plate with my D90 mounted above and hand triggered via the MC-DC2. I shot that very wide and then cropped in. The D700 had the 70-200. Tomorrow I will be using a fisheye on the D90 and the 24-70 on my D700 as I like the 24-70 handheld as it focuses faster than my 70-200. Please provide me with C&C. I am unable to change the strobe set up as it is built in to the arena. I would've loved to have set it up so there were multiple zones but unfortunately that would require a good amount of changes to the current set up.
firsdt things first, if youwant c+c then number your photos
to be honest, all but #4 seem soft and oof.
the hoorizons in #1 & #2a are off
#6 does absolutely nothing for me, if you are gonna try to pull a shot like thta off you need to be a lot wider.
I don't know how to number my photos with using the image upload feature. Ill have to take a closer look at the photos. Blown up they didn't look soft. Aon #6 I would have loved to have gone wider but the widest I have is 24 ( and I shot that shot using my remote which was on a crop body. Thanks for the compliments on exposure and colors. I got lucky with WB, just did a totally random guess that turned out to be perfect which was nice.
Update on the softness. It looks like the front element of my lens is loose Going to try to get it repaired by Mack under warranty or maybe Nikon has a quick fix in El Segundo (doubt it, but its worth a shot). Never had gear fail on me before and not liking it. I'm renting a 70-200 for the weekend now.
Rick Denham wrote:
firsdt things first, if youwant c+c then number your photos
to be honest, all but #4 seem soft and oof.
the hoorizons in #1 & #2a are off
#6 does absolutely nothing for me, if you are gonna try to pull a shot like thta off you need to be a lot wider.
the exposure & colurs look bang on though
I agree with Rick on all points.
That last image might have worked if the athletes were lined up across the court, but the people in street clothes just doesn't work (especially with that gray-haired dude on the right with his hands in his pockets!)
Okay, thanks for that suggestion on the last one...going to make sure I improve upon that tonight by shooting on the other side. Shooting the Men's game and am going to be borrowing a friend's 70-200 and hopefully it is just my lens's loose glass that is causing the soft focus and not a focus problem with my D700.
skyvan: It's great you're taking the step of working with strobes. I imagine there's a bit of a learning curve. To what's already been said, I'll add that the colors seem off, as does your timing on most of these shots in that they are all 'awkward' moments between what I assume would have been more interesting ones. Timing has to be much more of an issue with strobes since you can't fire off a sequence and find the best of the bunch. That's going to take some work.
Yeah, I know timing is a real issue. Its only my 3rd time ever shooting basketball and was my first time shooting women's basketball so there is definitely a learning curve. Some of the stuff is actually out of focus while others it is motion blur (that i knew about) becuase i kept accidentally changing my settings from 250 at f/4 to 125 f/4 by accidentally knocking my shutter speed dial. Anyone know if there is a way to lock the dials in manual mode so they don't change.
Also Russ: What colors are off? The white on the jerseys of DU looks to have a red hue because the whole stadium is covered in red paint and the floor of the court is red around the edges so the strobes bounce off tons of red stuff and pick up a red hue, it is a known issue. If there is something else that is telling you the colors are off let me know and I'll check it out.
Shutter speed should have nothing (at least close to nothing) to do with shooting with strobes. The flash duration of the strobes is effectively your shutter speed. Your Aperture controls the exposure. Keep your shutter at 1/250 (if that's the max your camera can x-sync) and control the exposure with your aperture and/or ISO.
How many lights were you using? From the one pic, I see one at the end of the court, where are the others placed? Maybe they aren't bright enough to get above ambient to give you the desired effect. Crank up the strobes, and do some testing...
Strobes are pre installed in the stadium and fully cranked up. There are 8. 3 on either side of the the stadium and one on each end. I'm going to go and try to fool around to get some more power out of the strobes today, but the problem is the ambient is actually half decent there. I think I may end up just strobing my remote and shooting high iso on my other body. Whats a good shutter speed for basketball?
skyvan wrote:
Yeah, I know timing is a real issue. Its only my 3rd time ever shooting basketball and was my first time shooting women's basketball so there is definitely a learning curve. Some of the stuff is actually out of focus while others it is motion blur (that i knew about) becuase i kept accidentally changing my settings from 250 at f/4 to 125 f/4 by accidentally knocking my shutter speed dial. Anyone know if there is a way to lock the dials in manual mode so they don't change.
Also Russ: What colors are off? The white on the jerseys of DU looks to have a red hue because the whole stadium is covered in red paint and the floor of the court is red around the edges so the strobes bounce off tons of red stuff and pick up a red hue, it is a known issue. If there is something else that is telling you the colors are off let me know and I'll check it out.
-Andrew...Show more →
I tend to use gaffers tape to tape down my dials when I need to. After some fooling around with my new camera last night I think I am going to relegate strobes to my remote set-ups as well.
I was shooting at 1/500th Tv mode, in an iso safety shift mode with my 1DMk3 last night. If you want to take a look here is a link to those.
Cool shots Dave. Since only my remote will be using strobes tonight I won't be shooting manual on my primary camera so It shouldn't be a big deal (just choose my iso and aperture for an accceptable shutter speed. I think the fact that i never shoot sports with primes (unless I'm renting a prime) may also make it harder on me as i worry about zooming instead of concentrating on just grabbing the moment.
Paul, next time you shoot the storm crank your shutter down to 1/125th and tell me if you see a difference because you should.
Dave + Andrew as nice as the ambient may look, when yo combine it with cycling lights, high iso + noise, it makes strobes all that much better. from looking through the thumbnails on Dave's gallery link I could already see the cycling blue hues, didn't even need to see the full size image. And please do not ever shoot or post about shooting in TV mode inside an arena unless it has super amounts of natural light coming in. It's an arena, set it to manual and lock down the dials. Christ you might as well put it on the green box of sports mode if you are going to do that.
Andrew shooting strobes is a definite talent, and an acquired skill. When I first started shooting them I couldn't figure out why people would want to trade off 10fps for lights. Then I saw my images with the strobes and was hooked. It's a pretty simple routine, set your camera to iso 800, f5.6 at 1/250th, take a shot and see how it looks. If it is dark then turn down the f stop no lower than 4, if it is bright go up no higher than 8. If you hit either one of those numbers, adjust your iso accordingly.
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that your oof images were one of two things
1. the 1/125th could have something to do with it
2. you didn't have your camera on center point focus.
If you plan on setting up remotes using strobes, do some reading man. You thought shooting on strobes was hard, remotes are even trickier. To be honest, I don't even think you can shoot remotes on strobe with anything other than a PW, so you may be out of luck, unless you sit right next to it and use a hand trigger like you did in the posted game, which is kind of pointless as remotes are usually used to get a different perspective from where you are usually shooting.
Rick, my remote actually did get a different perspective than I had because I only had a 70-200 on my handheld. Also I have ordere PWs and plan to mount a remote behind the backbaord on the opposite end of the court from where I am shooting. And you may be right about the center focus point, I try to move it around to wherever they are. I'm going to try shooting higher iso this time, that was all shot at iso 200. Thanks for all the suggestions. I've only been shooting sports for about 2 months so I LOVE getting suggestions and critiques. I know it will take time to get good but i'm in it for the long haul
Rick Denham wrote: Paul, next time you shoot the storm crank your shutter down to 1/125th and tell me if you see a difference because you should.
Dave + Andrew as nice as the ambient may look, when yo combine it with cycling lights, high iso + noise, it makes strobes all that much better. from looking through the thumbnails on Dave's gallery link I could already see the cycling blue hues, didn't even need to see the full size image. And please do not ever shoot or post about shooting in TV mode inside an arena unless it has super amounts of natural light coming in. It's an arena, set it to manual and lock down the dials. Christ you might as well put it on the green box of sports mode if you are going to do that.
Andrew shooting strobes is a definite talent, and an acquired skill. When I first started shooting them I couldn't figure out why people would want to trade off 10fps for lights. Then I saw my images with the strobes and was hooked. It's a pretty simple routine, set your camera to iso 800, f5.6 at 1/250th, take a shot and see how it looks. If it is dark then turn down the f stop no lower than 4, if it is bright go up no higher than 8. If you hit either one of those numbers, adjust your iso accordingly.
I am going to go out on a limb here and say that your oof images were one of two things
1. the 1/125th could have something to do with it
2. you didn't have your camera on center point focus.
If you plan on setting up remotes using strobes, do some reading man. You thought shooting on strobes was hard, remotes are even trickier. To be honest, I don't even think you can shoot remotes on strobe with anything other than a PW, so you may be out of luck, unless you sit right next to it and use a hand trigger like you did in the posted game, which is kind of pointless as remotes are usually used to get a different perspective from where you are usually shooting....Show more →
Rick Normally I do shoot in manual mode. I am still getting use to the 1D Mk3 it is quite a switch from the xxD series. The shots I took from that game I was testing the Mk3 as I have only had it for about a week now.
Normally I will meter the light and lock the camera in from that.
But anyway looking forward to seeing your stuff from tonight. good luck with the remotes.
Dave Hahn wrote:
Rick Normally I do shoot in manual mode. I am still getting use to the 1D Mk3 it is quite a switch from the xxD series. The shots I took from that game I was testing the Mk3 as I have only had it for about a week now.
Normally I will meter the light and lock the camera in from that.
But anyway looking forward to seeing your stuff from tonight. good luck with the remotes.
Thanks, I won't have a wireless remote until I shoot some games in December since I'm still waiting for my PWs to arrive and need to order a pre trigger cable. I think I may have fixed my lens. There was some space where the front element (not the filter...the 70-200 front 2 elements actually can be easily removed from the lens) was not fitting snuggly and was a little loose, just spent about 20 minutes moving it back and forth and seem to have it back focusing correctly. We shall see tonight. Also going to shoot with the 24-70 as well and try to get a shot or two of the huddle with the fisheye I'm renting.
Two months as a sports shooter, third time shooting basketball and you're already working with strobes, floor remote, multiple bodies, moving the focus point all over the place, backboard remote, PWs, etc.? Wowsa! Makes my heart race just typing that!
Nothing wrong with using all of those tools, but since you are new at shooting sports/basketball, maybe you could take a step back, slap a 70-200 on one body (keep the other body in your bag for now), put a PW on that one body, and get a handle on shooting basektball with the strobes.
It would seem to me you're throwing a lot into the mix here right off the bat.
Yeah i know i'm diving right in with a lot of stuff. I would stil only have one body if I would've been able to sell my d90 but i wasn't so I decided to just go all out. Honestly for me, I find that having a second body makes it easier (especially in Soccer where you have one super telephoto and one 70-200). Also one of the reasons i have all this gear is that it makes everything more interesting...and more fun. Even if I dont get the shot if I've enjoyed the experience of trying to get the shot and learning them I'm happy.
Just to be clear, I was talking specifically about basketball when suggesting to just use one body. IME, using two bodies for soccer is very different that using two bodies for basketball, especially when one of those second bodies for basketball is a remote.
Looks like you've got things under control. Good luck.
Going to try to get it repaired by Mack under warranty or maybe Nikon has a quick fix in El Segundo (doubt it, but its worth a shot). Never had gear fail on me before and not liking it. I'm renting a 70-200 for the weekend now.
Wowsa! Makes my heart race just typing that!
Good luck.