Tips for volleyball shooting

[MRCPix]

I have been asked to shoot a volleyball tournament this weekend and I have never shoot one. I will have an 85 f1.2 on my 40D. Please any pointers for shooting especially WB. should I shoot aperature priority or manual and why?

thanks
Mike

[jon_k]

Originally Posted by MRCPix

I have been asked to shoot a volleyball tournament this weekend and I have never shoot one. I will have an 85 f1.2 on my 40D. Please any pointers for shooting especially WB. should I shoot aperature priority or manual and why?

thanks
Mike

I would shoot manual, but I always do since my pictures come out better that way. It would be easier to keep the shutter speed around 1/500 to 1/1000 on shutter priority. That way the camera adjust aperture for best exposure.

If you do aperture priority you could set it to say f/8 but for all you know the shutter would go as low as 1/10 and you'd get major shake. For sports I'd wanna freeze the action.

Whitebalance I'm unsure. I'd shoot in raw and correct the WB in photoshop afterwards.

Really hope you get some cool shots, I'd like to try volleyball out!

[iCe]

Is it the I or II model of the 85 f1.2? Neither are very fast focuser's but the II is definitely an improvement over the I. I'm not sure it's a good choice for action shots. Can you get your hands on a 70 - 200 f2.8 IS (or even non-IS).

I shoot two ways with sports. M or Av but I only shoot high school venues. Most of the time light is optional at the games that I shoot at so I set the lens to f2.8 and tweak ISO until I get at least 1/500 in the dark areas of the court (if I can). Most of the time I have been in the ISO 1600 to ISO 3200 range. I should also point out that my complaint about focusing speed comes from shooting b-ball not volleyball. No experience there yet.