Volleyball Shots in Gym

My kid is taking a Volleyball clinic in a college teams gym so I figured it was a good opportunity to get some shots. I am including my settings for each shot. Lots of high ISO stuff. The lens was a 85mm f1.8.

ISO 4000 1/800 f2



ISO 4000 1/800 f2



ISO 2500 1/640 f2



ISO 320 1/640 f1.8

Cycling Tungsten lights play havoc on cameras. Looks a tad orange. WB adjustment?

I actually went with the warmer Florescent over Tungsten WB. It was Tungsten lights but I actually prefer the slightly warmer look. When using Tungsten WB the pics looked a bit too blue/green for my taste. I could have split the difference and used a custom value in between the two but I was generally OK with these.

You don't shoot RAW and adjust in post?

Negative... I don't shoot sports or wildlife in RAW. Using a 1D M4 it slows the camera down a bit shooting high-speed in RAW, limits the number of consecutive shots, fills-up memory cards fast and I generally don't do extensive post work on those shots. Landscape and Portraits I do shoot in RAW. I try to nail the shots as much as possible using the camera settings to save time. Even in JPEG I can adjust the WB using the pre-sets in Aperture 3 and get good results.

I almost always set the WB manually on the camera even if I am shooting in RAW. One of my favorite looks is to set the WB to Tungsten outdoors at dusk then hit the subject using a flash with a full CTO gel. It is such a cool dramatic look. I also will sometimes mellow out the Tungsten setting and use a 1/2 CTO gel.

Last shot was ISO 3200 and not 320... typo.

Ah. My only critique is the cutting off of body parts. In #2 you clipped the toe and #4 her hands are chopped off. Chopping off body parts gives it an unnatural look. If you have to, clip them at the joints.

The MK4 seems to be handling the noise well. For me, it's still a touch warm and seems to blend in to much with the parquee floor.

Thanks man.. Interesting though, I NEVER crop at the joints. I have shot lots of model in bikinis and done fashion work and in the past and no one crops at the joints that I see. I always crop at the wrists or ankles versus the elbow or knee. i think it looks better myself. Aside from that, I just do what I think works best for the shot.

I do see what you mean about the WB and the floor. Not trying to get these published though. Someone asked about shooting Volleyball recently. I think the moral of the story is you better have a camera that shoots at ISO 3200 and you better have fast glass!!! Aside from my two year old throwing a massive fit almost the entire I was taking pics it was a good learning experience. I had never shot volleyball before so it was fun.