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First high school basketball game - please critique


german

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Hi,

 

I photographed my first high school basketball games this past Friday. It was

awesome!

 

Please follow these links to view some of the images and let me know what you

think.

 

Here's the boys game:

 

http://www.photoshelter.com/gallery-show/G0000OL0vNEA66a0

 

And here's the girls' game (last quarter):

 

http://www.photoshelter.com/gallery-show/G0000i9cLiKZi0UE

 

I used film for both. 3200 B&W (at 1600) for the girls, and 800 Kodak shot at

1600 for the boys.

 

Thanks,

 

 

Germán Silva

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The shots are well focused. I like the shallow depth of field. You must be using a wide aperture.

 

The color shots are a bit underexposed. I like your choice of film (but I'm really biased towards this particular film). Normally this film can handle one stop underexposure. Any chance the film is near its expiration date? With high speed film, fresh is better. If the expiration date is this year, then it is the older version. I don't recommend a faster color film--the grain would be even more prominent. Can you get some more exposure somehow? Can you open the aperture? Are you shooting faster than 1/500th? Another stop would open up the shadows and suppress the grain. Flash is an option, but it will change the look of the shots.

 

The only comment I have about composition is to keep taking more pictures. After shooting several games for the same team you will get to know the players and their favorite moves. When you can anticipate them, you will start getting great shots.

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German - You asked for a crit, so please take my comments in that light. I undertand this

was your first effort at hoops - coming home with any keepers is defintely a coup, so nice

job there! Additional thoughts below:

 

1. Tighter. Everything needs to be tighter. Edit tighter, shoot tighter. Show us fewer

photos (they got pretty redundant, both in the type of action and the composition) and

frame tighter. Much, much, much tighter. Even with a relatively short lens (50 or 85mm)

in HS hoops you can get plenty close to the action. Take some chances. You'll get a lot of

garbage, especially at first, but the keepers will be much nicer.

 

2. The crowd was really cyan on my screen. Not sure if it's the film or the post or what,

but it got distracting. Likewise the grain, but that may just be the nature of shooting

film...I haven't used those emulsions so there may not be much more you can do without

adding light.

 

3. I saw a lot of space above athletes' heads, while their legs were cut off at the knees.

Makes me think your were using center-point-only AF, with the AF point on their face.

Focus on their crotch. Crude way of saying it, I know, but you'll get a more balanced

frame...and one that includes their feet.

 

4. Crowd shots and cheerleaders - too many oblique angles, cluttered backgrounds and

backs of heads and shoulders. No doubt YOU saw something worth photographing, but as

a viewer, I had trouble knowing what that was. To focus our attention, first choose you

moments carefully - wait for a striking expression or telling gesture. If you see a nice

composition hold it and wait for your moment. Having a face in the frame really helps

here. (Not a necessity, but it sure helps a whole lot.)

 

5. Watch your corners and backgrounds. Even if they are OOF, bright spots and colorful

spots can pull the eye away from the subject. Shooting from low or high angles can clean

up backgrounds nicely.

 

6. Unless you're Bill Allard, avoid oblique angles. Very difficult to organize that sort of

space. Step around directly in front or directly to the side of your subject.

 

Like I said, for a first try, German, you did a nice job. And that really does say something.

I've seen many shooters go into a new sport and fail utterly. You avoided that fate and

came back with a variety of nice images. My suggestions are intended to provide food for

thought in your future endeavors. - B

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Hey Ron & Brad,

 

thanks for your comments and sorry for not replying sooner. I had stopped checking the post since I had seen no responses.

 

The film had expired somewhere in 2006. (I had it with me for quite some time.) I had to use it at 1600 with the widest aperture in my lens (2.8). I shot most of the game at 1/250th of a second, and at some point changing to 1/200th. (The lens was mostly an 80 - 200 2.8, that's why I tried to stay at 1/250th or 1/200th. I also used another lens for wider shots, which I shot at about 1/125th or 1/90th. I think I got less grain in those.)

 

I used a bit of fill flash at the end.

 

I know I had repetitive shots. During free throws I felt I could get some shots. Too bad they were of the same people!

 

I was looking at some of my boy's basketball cards, and I do see I have to get closer (in my cropping/framing).

 

By the way, thanks again on the comments/suggestions. They were done in a very positive, professional manner. (I've seen some nasty bickering out there in some forums. Not constructive!)

 

In any case, I will need to get more film while I wait for a better, faster and cheaper Nikon to come along. Any film you recommend? (I may have to get some 1600 color somewhere.)

 

By the way, the cheerleaders stayed under the hoop doing "their thing" during the game. I wanted to get down there and get some photos (at the end lines, if they are called that in basketball).

 

Oh, I'll edit more images out next time! (I was hoping the high school kids would view -- and purchase -- a few of them, but I have to organize myself better by giving my business cards or something.)

 

Thanks again,

 

German.

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Hey German, ain't nothing wrong with shooting film for sports pictures. Your B&W pics

don't look to have any more fog than is normal with such a fast film, so I don't think you

got "burned" in any way by using film that was out of date. Unfortunately, it seems like

you're shooting in a pretty dimly lit stadium. To give you an idea of what I was working

with at the (small, Div. III) college hoops game I shot on Friday, I was using an old Minolta

SLR with an F5.6, and I was getting readings between 1/250-1/1000 of a second the

whole time, so bummer on the lights at your school's gym. You could use slower film and

flash if you have a camera that'll flash-sync at 1/250 of a second at least. Then you could

shoot 400 film just fine, only problem is, unless you have a big Metz or something, there's

about 8 seconds of time between flash on a modestly priced flash.

 

As far as film goes, I just won 143 rolls of short-dated Fuji Press 400, short-dated Dec.

'06 for a cool $104. That's a lot of film for not a lot of money. We're talking about less

than 4c a frame after the price of processing, so I'd recommend you snag some 400 or

800 film, like this:

 

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=008&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%

3AIT&viewitem=&item=180085952845&rd=1&rd=1

 

or this:

 

http://www.ultrafineonline.com/fuch400coprf1.html

 

http://www.ultrafineonline.com/fupropr800cz.html

 

or for 3200 film that is the same stock as the batch I'm currently working with:

 

http://www.ultrafineonline.com/kot32tmz35x1.html

 

As far as film expiration dates go, I wouldn't worry about age if you freeze it until you're

ready to shoot. I shot basketball past friday with 2-year outdated TMZ 3200 and, while

there was a bit of fog, I still got some very nice pictures, nice enough for newsprint

certainly. Are you shooting for yourself or for a yearbook or newspaper? For high-quality,

enlargeable pictures you can blow up to 11x14 at least, I'd stick with 400 and invest in a

good flash. It looks as if you have some buying power if you can afford an 80-200 2.8

lens. Or you can go with some Fuji Press 1600 (if it's refrigerated or frozen, you can

probably buy stuff that's up to a year old without any problems), or Fuji 800 (again,

assuming cold storage, probalby good for about 1 1/2-2 years past the box date before

you get any fog).

 

Do you do your own developing? I'd recommend using T-Max developer for the best grain

for speed with the 3200. If you can get the lighting to do so, it's true ASA is about 1000

with the T-Max developer, so getting enough light for a proper exposure at that speed

would give you the best results. Same thing with Fuji 1600, if you can rate it at 1000 you

can get much better grain. Personally, I'd shoot Kodak's HD film (Supra) or Supra 800, but

they simply don't market that line of press film in 36 exp. rolls anymore. By all means

shoot 36 exp rolls if you can so you don't get burned by having to reload to many times

during the game. With the amount of money you'll save buying film in bulk on ebay or

elsewhere, you can afford to fire off 4-5 rolls. Don't have labs print or scan them for you

if you can do it yourself. Even doing your own C-41 isn't that hard. I get processing costs

of 75c a roll from kits I buy for $45. So, not counting your time, you can shoot an entire

game with an adequate 180 shots for ~$12.50 worth of film and another $4 worth of C-41

chemistry. Should be similar costs if you can find any more Ultrafine 3200 (reboxed T-

Max 3200, but with no edge markings unfortunately :-( ) and roll your own film.

 

Perhaps if you have 1/250 synch, you could play around with using fill flash to augment

your ambient light when you're shooting, which would also give you better flash recycle

times and let you get more action shots in a crunch. Whatever you end up doing though,

don't underexpose 800 film a stop. It isn't designed for it, like the 1600 that is designed

to be shot underexposed by 2/3 of a stop.

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The problem I see is that you don't have any really dynamic shots. It's a good first outing, but you need to think about what the moments that are going to capture the viewer are. It's not about the equipment or the medium, it's about what you capture. All the information above on film isn't going to help if you can't capture the shots that matter.<p>

 

As an example, check out <a href="http://www.sportsshooter.com/members.html?id=437">this shot.</a> It should be immediately obvious what the difference between his shot, and the other ones on that page, and yours are. You need to concentrate on finding the right moments, not the right film, processing or settings.<p>

 

Getting the right shots takes a fair amount of practice. I shoot mostly boxing, and spend a lot of time at the gyms, shooting weekday sparring, local smokers, and even classes. The result is money shots like this one:<p>

<center><img src="http://www.spirer.com/michaelm/images/mm22.jpg"><br><i>Michael Mananquil vs Danny Steele, Copyright 2006 Jeff Spirer</i></center><p>

 

I was able to get this because I spent hours at the gyms studying the fighters. I hadn't seen this figher before the night it was shot(I have since met him and become friends) but I knew when the kick was coming. <p>

 

I think Brad has given some excellent advice on your shots, but I think he should have added some advice on looking for those really dramatic shots.

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Well, you need to hone your skills to German, but those pictures aren't any different than a lot of the pictures that got included in newspapers and yearbooks at my old HS. You need to look at good sports pictures and figure out the differences between your shots and those that make local newspaper sports sections and magazines.

 

Jeff, I am not suggesting that having the right film in the camera would improve his pictures, but I think nailing down the technical problems is important to build confidence in one's ability to get good pictures. There wasn't a single post I saw that dealt with technical issues, so I didn't give any shooting advice because there's already an ample amount of good advice in the thread above.

 

If German is worrying about underexposing his pictures too much, or his film being expired, that's going to interfere with his concentration at the game. It'd certainly nag on my mind if I wasn't sure if what I was shooting with would come out or not.

 

German, the thread "Unorthodox Basketball Pictures", right next to this one, has some very good pictures taken from a wide variety of vantage points with all sorts of different focal lengths. It should give you a good idea of the "story-telling" that you need to do in order to provide a good narrative picture.

 

Shooting for a paper, I get a couple of free-throw shots, inbound passes, and other generic stock pictures like the ones you have, but I also try to include shots that "tell the story", and then try to take some risky shots, trying angles and compositions that are unorthodox to see if they work or not.

 

It's difficult to recommend specific compositions or setups without knowing whom you took these pictures for. If it's for the parents of the player taking the foul shots, then you're obvioulsy going to have different priorities than someone who was sent to cover both teams objectively for a paper, or someone that's trying to get a shot of the head coach.

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