Some church league basketball

[arich]

Ambient light was horrrrrible. Can't wait until my strobes and stands get here and I can pop some flash at games.
all shot with 85mm 1.8, F/2.0, 1/250, 1600, Manual

[prncfarquad]

Man that light looks tough! what kind of strobes are you getting? I am dying to get some and set them up for my son's BB games

[arich]

just some basic 430EX II and stands, do a little strobist setup to pop some light on things.
And yeah that light is rough, those big fluorescent domes up top and some of them were out which made it more rough

[SpeedRacerSlots]

Post your EXIF data.
Are the photos sharp on your desktop or a little soft?

[arich]

They're definitely sharp-"er". But not something I would be willing to blow up and put on a poster.

Noob question, how do I post my EXIF?

[heard03]

Originally Posted by arich

They're definitely sharp-"er". But not something I would be willing to blow up and put on a poster.

Noob question, how do I post my EXIF?

Here's a link that should prove helpful:
Using EXIF Data

The essentials(IMHO) would be aperture, shutter speed, and ISO. Also camera body, lens, focal length and mode(aperture or shutter priority, manual, etc) are good to know.

[arich]

haha ok so I just realized that I had a major stupid moment, when Greg asked me to post my EXIF I thought he meant upload as an individual file and I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to do that. I was obviously waaay over thinking it. I'll update the OP with the data lol

[Tom]

Those speedlights may not be enough power to freeze the action. All those shots look soft. Crop in to 100% to see how sharp it is. My guess is none of those will look sharp.

[arich]

They're definitely soft on the JPEG export, not as much when you review the RAW, but as I said in the OP, dark dark daaark ambient in that gym so I wasn't expecting more than this, this was mostly composition practice and an excuse to play with a new lens.
And as for the strobes I use what I have available, equipment luxury comes down the road at some point

[Tom]

Except for the last one, the composition looks fine. The last one should be deleted.

Noisy is better than not sharp.

I'd boost it to 1/500th at ISO 3200 and F/1.8. Use your strong noise reduction on the 40D. Forget about the flash.

[arich]

Thanks for the the advice Thomas, it's rough starting out :-/ any tips on how to avoid back focusing? I usually shoot with the center AF point because I've gotten poor results cross-focusing all 9.

[Tom]

Al Servo, single point AF. That's all I do. Get to know how to use that back button and love it.

The crappy thing on the 40D is that the battery grip doesn't have that handy AF-ON button for vertical shooting. I just upgraded my 40D and 50D to a 7D and 5D2, and the new grips have that, but I doubt they work with the 40D and 50D.

There is a custom function to switch that button with the * button, which is what I do when I shoot the 40D/50D.

[ldelacruz]

Check your WB because the colors seem to be off. If you look closely their uniforms don't match! Especially #3 his shorts and shirt seem to be 2 different reds?

[Tom]

Originally Posted by ldelacruz

Check your WB because the colors seem to be off. If you look closely their uniforms don't match!

That's probably because he has the gym lights and the strobes he put up isn't quite powerful enough to over power the lights. So he has two different color lights in each picture. Then shooting in AWB (just a guess) will get some variance in color temp.

I like to shoot in one color temp for both cameras just so everything looks the same. If my temp is off, at least it is off the same in all the pics, so I can batch adjust them all at once.

[lazuras_dc]

Whats the advantage of using back button focus?

As far as being in AI servo, as long as your shutter button is 1/2 depressed or back button if you're using it that way is depressed, the camera is constantly focussing on your 1 AF point?

I used AI servo a few times and felt like the lens motor kept turning regardless if there was much movement or not. Like it was changing focus unnecessarily.