Div II V-ball

[troutstreaming]

Hi all,

Lsat week i solicited some advice for shooting college level volleyball - well here are the results (full gallery here http://troutstreaming.smugmug.com/gallery/1908279/1/96351508)

The lighting was such that I ended up at 1600 with the 85 1.8 at F2 and ISO 3200 with the 70-200 2.8 L IS at 2.8. If I had a 30D instead of a 20d I would have been able to back down a little bit with both, but without the 1/3 ISO stops the shutter speeds were getting too slow in certain areas of the court to go to 800 and 1600.

The match was a Division II GNAC league match between Seattle Pacific University and Western Washington.

http://troutstreaming.smugmug.com/photos/96351508-M.jpg

http://troutstreaming.smugmug.com/photos/96351564-M.jpg

http://troutstreaming.smugmug.com/photos/96351615-M.jpg

http://troutstreaming.smugmug.com/photos/96351681-M.jpg

http://troutstreaming.smugmug.com/photos/96351805-M.jpg

http://troutstreaming.smugmug.com/photos/96351945-M.jpg

http://troutstreaming.smugmug.com/photos/96352023-M.jpg

http://troutstreaming.smugmug.com/photos/96352064-M.jpg

http://troutstreaming.smugmug.com/photos/96352127-M.jpg

As always, comments and critiques are welcome.

Thanks for looking,

Andy

[stephiewilliams]

Andy, these look good. A number of really nice shots in this series and they really look good for being at such a high ISO, did you run them through a noise reduction program?

[johng]

Andy,

Really great stuff here!! Great timing and as Stephie mentioned they look very clean. I can't tell from this size whether or not they're "too clean" (i.e. too much noise reduction can remove too much detail). For the size posted, they look great.

The bump on the second-to-last photo is definitely the best IMO - great timing and nice tight, sharp crop!

[troutstreaming]

Andy, these look good. A number of really nice shots in this series and they really look good for being at such a high ISO, did you run them through a noise reduction program?

The first 4 shots (1st game) and last 2 images (3rd game) were at ISO 1600 with the 85 at F2. The middle images (2nd game) were at ISO 3200 with the 70-200 at 2.8. For the first two games I was shooting RAW, so those images saw ACR noise reduction, followed by Noise Ninja. The third game was shot as jpg's and saw only Noise Ninja reduction (plus whatever in camera reduction canon does when converting to jpg's.) Noise Ninja was run in autoprofile mode as part of a batch action.

Thank you for the kind comments - I need to figure out a way to better handle color rendition in these circumstances. I shot a grey card and tried some shots with that as my color balance, but the difference in the 'shadow' part of the court verus the middle of it created some weird casts - so then I went ahead and shot with the auto white balance and it too wandered all over. In post I tried to make a side panel of the ball 'white', but even then my colors are not what I would like. The heavy noise reduction does not help much either. If they invite me back I am going to have to figure out a few other objects true 'colors' (shoot the seats and the walls with a gray card and then with a flash?) so that I can better play with some color curves on the shots that are worth the effort.

It was an interesting experience - makes me covet a pro body even more as there were some shots that had great composition, but the AF just did not keep up (could not have been the technique...), and I am adding a 135 F2L to my wish list (along with the 200 1.8 and a 400 2.8...) Need to start buying lottery tickets! At least the 135 F2 is available for under $3500.

Thanks for looking and the comments!

Andy

[troutstreaming]

Andy,

Really great stuff here!! Great timing and as Stephie mentioned they look very clean. I can't tell from this size whether or not they're "too clean" (i.e. too much noise reduction can remove too much detail). For the size posted, they look great.

The bump on the second-to-last photo is definitely the best IMO - great timing and nice tight, sharp crop!

Thanks John,

There are definetely a couple that are too smooth at full resolution, so if anyone ends up wanting to use these for any real purpose I will need to go back in and hand tweak the noise reduction.

As for the last dig- if you can't be good, be lucky... I made a good guess on who to prefocus on off a back slide on a free ball and got lucky on the timing.

thanks again for the feedback!

Andy

[dbaker1221]

That's a great series .:clap