NIU guard Xavier Silas

[fidgety]

A number of images of Northern Illinois guard Xavier Silas, who is sixth in the nation in scoring. Shot with ambient light at the Convocation Center at ISO 1600, manual at 1/400 and 2.8

[Old Timer]

Outstanding images as usual Chris. I particularly like the second one it really shows the elevation.

[Quadracer041]

How are you getting such good results? I'm using a Sigma 70-200mm f2.8. Mine dont even come close to that. What white balance are you using, manual? When I use ambient light no way I can get them that bright at 1/400. They straight from the camera or have they been edited? Great shot by the way.

[fidgety]

How are you getting such good results? I'm using a Sigma 70-200mm f2.8. Mine dont even come close to that. What white balance are you using, manual? When I use ambient light no way I can get them that bright at 1/400. They straight from the camera or have they been edited? Great shot by the way.

Thanks. I've been experimenting with the white balance in that arena as I can't seem to tune it in just right. I've tried custom white balance, Kelvins, the incandescent setting on my camera and all of them seem to give different results. You'll notice in the first snap it appears a tad cool as the whites in his uniform have a bit of magenta in them but in the others it seems a bit closer to normal. I think I was using the incandescent setting for those snaps.

I don't do a lot of editing as I dont't have time. These go to a wire service so I have to get the first half images uploaded, edited, captioned and FTP'd prior to the start of the second half. At the end of the game I have to get those images in right away as well. What I do is Noise Ninja based on the ISO setting I'm using, then tone down the yellow saturation from 10 to 40 points in Photoshop, color contrast and off they go. I think toning down the yellow saturation is most important, especially with African-American athletes as arena lighting can give their skin a nasty yellowish tint.

And unfortunately, I think Silas has dropped out of the top 10 in scoring. He's injured his ankle and his production went down the past couple of games. Still an exciting player to watch.