More Volleyball (Better Pic Plus Better PP)

[DaDeuce]

Here are a few from the other night:









Comments? Critiques?

[livin4lax09]

i'd watch your exposure. Do you have a grey-card? If not, I suggest buying an 8x10 one. It won't cost you more than $10, and will improve your exposure greatly. get to the game 10 mins early, and take a reading from the center of the court, where your subjects are going to be. also use custom WB. a coffee filter works fine for it. if you need more details, feel free to ask. As far as photoshop goes, be careful with noise ninja or any noise reduction program. it can definitely help, but when too much is used it just makes the subjects look fake.

as far as shooting goes, you've got the ball in most of your shots, and that makes or breaks the photo for almost all sports, except for jube shots. watch your horizons and make sure your photo is straight. #2 for example is very crooked. watch that. and watch your focus as well.

from the looks of it, I'm guessing you were shooting at about 1/400 or faster, correct? don't be afraid to slow the ss down to get a better exposure. shoot with your lens wide open, and you can slow it down to even 1/250. sure you'll get some motion blur, but I'd much rather have a bit of blur in the hands or ball than a dark photo. also, noise tends to creep in less in light photos. so even overexposing a third of a stop at higher ISOs can yield a good quality image.

and what are you shooting with?

[Brian001]

wow, good post livin4ax09...not even my thread and i learned alot

[WsW-WYATT-EARP]

i'd watch your exposure. Do you have a grey-card? If not, I suggest buying an 8x10 one. It won't cost you more than $10, and will improve your exposure greatly. get to the game 10 mins early, and take a reading from the center of the court, where your subjects are going to be. also use custom WB. a coffee filter works fine for it. if you need more details, feel free to ask. As far as photoshop goes, be careful with noise ninja or any noise reduction program. it can definitely help, but when too much is used it just makes the subjects look fake.

as far as shooting goes, you've got the ball in most of your shots, and that makes or breaks the photo for almost all sports, except for jube shots. watch your horizons and make sure your photo is straight. #2 for example is very crooked. watch that. and watch your focus as well.

from the looks of it, I'm guessing you were shooting at about 1/400 or faster, correct? don't be afraid to slow the ss down to get a better exposure. shoot with your lens wide open, and you can slow it down to even 1/250. sure you'll get some motion blur, but I'd much rather have a bit of blur in the hands or ball than a dark photo. also, noise tends to creep in less in light photos. so even overexposing a third of a stop at higher ISOs can yield a good quality image.

and what are you shooting with?

some great information here !

could you explain the gray card / coffee filter usage a bit more ... i understand it is used to get the correct color balance .. but how is this managed ...

i shoot with a d-50 and use color balance in ps when i have white or black in the shot .. i never balance to gray since there is never an actual gray color in the photos ...

do you take pics of these items before your shoot ? then balance them in ps and use the settings for the pics that were taken in them conditions ?

i also don't mess with the white balance on the camera .. haven't gotten to that level yet i guess ...

thanks for the info .. greatly appreciated ...

Ben

[livin4lax09]

ok ill do my best to explain everything within the 5 minutes I have before I have to run off to german class.

The grey card isn't for white balance, it's just for exposure. your camera will expose the scene as if it is a 18% (I believe?) grey setting. so if you are shooting a very bright scene, it will darken it a lot. that being said, in sports photography you constantly encounter very rbight and very dark uniforms. the camera will underexpose white jerseys, and overexpose black ones. The easiest way to correct this is either a light meter or a grey card. metering off a grey card in a controlled light environment will give you the exposure for maximum efficiency.

As far as the coffee filter goes, I have found this is a very cheap way to accurately set white balance. what you do is put a coffee filter over the end of your lens, point it at one of the lights, try to make it so the entire frame is the same brightness, and snap a shot with AWB. then, go into your menu, select custom white balance, and use that photo as your base. The camera will correct for the color cast from the lights. This of course will not work for cycling lights, but in that case your only real answer is strobes.

and I recommend shooting with custom WB. It helps preserve the original colors much better than shooting with AWB and trying to bring it back in photoshop. My indoor photos improved drastically when i learned how to custom WB.

[WsW-WYATT-EARP]

learn something new everyday !!!

thanks for the explination !!

[JETA]

Thank you livin! I'm bookmarking this thread!