Friday, December 4, 2009

Week 32, Day 225, December 4, 2009, "The First Basketball Game of the Season"


This is the best action shot that I got this evening was during the Junior Varsity Game.  I don't remember the results of this play.

I had a few challenges tonight when I was taking photographs at the basketball game. I'll talk about them in my lessons learned section.

Lessson Learned:
  • In the past I've always used one of the preset settings for the White Balance.  Tonight I adjusted it manually until it looked about right to my eye.  I don't have a white board, or a grey board to shoot to set the white balance.  The manual setting seemed to work quite well.  I was happy with the results.
  • The Auto Focus Mode was set to single shot instead of servo when I first started shooting.  Many of my photos were blurry because of it.  I did realize it part way through the second game, and reset it to Servo.
  • Tonight I set the ISO to 1600 (highest setting), the Aperture to f2.8, and the shutter speed to 1/200.  I think it worked fairly well for most of the shots in this gym.

Photo details: Exposure time 1/200 sec, Aperture f/2.8, ISO 1600, Focal Length 110 mm, 35 mm equivalent focal length 269mm (picasa calculation), Lens Canon 70-200mm f2.8L USM, handheld.

5 comments:

Andrew said...

Sweet shot! I I love the expressions and the two people frozen in air.

Also, what's the difference between single shot AF and servo? Is it similar to the difference between single shot and burst mode in exposure?

Gary's third pottery blog said...

quite a challenge, but great shot Stevo!

Nicki said...

I love the action in this shot! Wonderful job!!!

webruci said...

You are the best in this action shots! It si amazing how you captured the highes moment. Fantastic, Steve.

Gallow said...

Thank you for all your comments.

Andrew,

When using the single shot AF setting the camera will focus on a subject when the shutter is pressed 1/2. That focus setting will remain until the shutter is pressed completely.

When the camera is set to servo, the camera continues to focus on the subject until the shutter is pressed completely. So if the subject is moving the camera continues to adjust the focus.