Basketball Photography

18-200 mm lens set to 18 mm, 1/80 sec at f/3.5, ISO 250

It's basketball season so I've spent the last couple of months attending my son's basketball games and trying to figure out how those amazing Sports Illustrated photogs ply their craft. Taking photos of fast-moving action in poorly lit gyms is a definite challenge and does require some specialized equipment. Here's how I did it on a shoestring budget. First of all, I'm a huge fan of David Hobby and his Strobist site. His site is my number one source of information for "off camera" lighting. Over the past year I've purchased two used Nikon speedlights (SB-24 & SB-28) from eBay and a Cactus V2 wireless transmitter and two receivers. I also use lots of gaffers tape and bongo ties. The biggest challenge that I've found is getting enough light on the subject so that I can use a reasonably low ISO with a fast enough shutter speed to stop the action.

The setup:
I like to use my 50 mm f/1.4 lens as it allows me to get close to the action while still using a large enough aperture to blur the background. I've also experimented with my 18-200 mm VR lens, but with less success. In order to provide adequate light I attached the radio trigger receivers to each flash and then used bongo ties to attach one speedlight to the railing of the bleachers, pointing towards the top of the key. The second flash was set up on the opposite side of the
gym in a similar position, but without a railing to fasten it to, I had to use gaffer's tape to fasten it to the wall. Not ideal but it worked. I did get some pretty funny looks from some of the parents in the crowd. Using this setup, and the radio transmitter attached to the camera I was able to get both flashes to fire simultaneously and stop the action on the floor. Even though I had the lighting pretty much sorted out didn't mean it was easy to get great shots. To get really great action shots you need to take lots of photos and spend lots of time practicing in order to get to the point where you can anticipate the action. My respect for the SI guys is huge.

Highwood High School

Back in early fall I was asked if I would be interested in taking some photos of the local high school for use on a school publication. I responded that I would be happy to do so. I got up early one chilly October morning, drove to the school and tried to find a vantage point that would yield interesting light and an uncluttered view. I dragged the garbage can that was by the front door out of the way and got ready to capture the warm morning light. I was rewarded with a beautiful, golden morning glow. I took about fifty photos from several angles and then went home to thaw out my hands and process the images.

I plan on writing a detailed post outlining my work-flow from the moment the shutter is released until the image is either uploaded to the web or made into a print, but for now, the short version. I imported the images into Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, picked the best ones and then began to make modifications to the best images. First, I cropped the image to make a panoramic view and get rid of some of the flat blue sky. Next I bumped up the saturation to make the gold highlights pop, and boosted the blacks in order to increase the contrast. I was pretty happy with the overall image, but thought that it was still a little boring. Just for fun, I decided to save the image and then open it up in Gimp. Gimp is open-source (read "free") software and is very powerful. I've never used Photoshop CS3 or CS4 so I won't wade into the Gimp vs Photoshop debate, but Gimp is a credible alternative for the times when you need to "move" pixels. Once the image was open in Gimp, I selected the flat blue sky from the original photo. Once the sky was all selected, I did an inverse selection so that everything was selected except for the sky. Next I copied and pasted the school, trees, and foreground into this photo of a dramatic sky with clouds. Lastly I made some touch-ups to ensure that the edges of the building and leaves were natural looking.

Even though I was just messing around, I really like the final composite image. This was also the image chosen by the school administration for their publication. Not bad for a morning of having fun playing around with my camera and computer. I even got a $50 coffee card for my troubles. As always, click the "Comments" link to leave your 2 cents worth. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the merits of Gimp and Photoshop?

My Style

Starting this photo blog has been excellent as it has caused me to reflect on my own practice as a photographer and think about why I do the things that I do. As a school administrator working with teachers, I use a similar process. If I can ask questions that cause a teacher to think and reflect on their practice, they will usually make changes to their practice and get better at what they do.

Over the past few days I've been thinking about my style as a photographer. I've already shared about some of my early work and the influence of my dad, but in retrospect, my oldest brother was also a significant force in my early thinking about photography and capturing the world around me. Older brothers are not always gentle in their feedback and I have clear memories of my brother viewing my prints and sorting them into two piles; acceptable and not. His primary criticism of my work was that the viewer's eye was not drawn to the subject of the photo (see the photo of a wasp's nest above ). Being a good teacher he followed up this constructive criticism by working with me to take better images that have a clear subject (see the "special effects" photo of my brother flying like Superman...notice how your eye is drawn right to the subject, and never mind that it is out of focus!). These lessons began to pay dividends as I began to work at subject placement and ensuring that the subject was clearly identifiable (as is evident in these two photos: on the right are my paternal grandparents in their back yard surrounded by flowers, and below is the farm house of my maternal grandparents ). I'm so thankful that I found my photo album with these images from my childhood, and to my brother for his constructive criticism, tutoring, and support.

One year ago I began to submit my work to iStock photo which is a micro-stock photo agency that acquires images from photographers, sells them at reasonable prices, and pays the contributing photographer a small amount per download. I have no illusions of getting wealthy by submitting to iStock, but it has been incredibly useful as a learning and motivational tool. When I started taking digital photos, I began to wonder what I was going to do with all of the photos that were beginning to clog up my hard drive and I was a little concerned that I would lose interest and my new camera gear would begin to gather dust along with my fly-fishing equipment.

The challenge of first, getting accepted as an iStock contributor, second, getting photos accepted into the iStock collection, and third, actually selling some photos, kept me learning and motivated. Shooting for stock has also shaped my style as a photographer. When I am shooting for stock I try to ensure that the subject is "tack sharp" that it is visually interesting and that the exposure is perfect. Often when I am shooting I hear my brother's voice saying, "What is the subject?".

My Gear Pt. I

Let me begin by quoting Scott Bourne from This Week in Photography, "Nobody makes bad lenses or bad cameras anymore." That being said, I researched my camera gear very carefully before I purchased it in the fall of 2007. My decisions were based on the fact that we would be traveling to Europe in the summer of 2008, and I wanted to travel light. I also wanted to maximize the quality of equipment for the least amount of money (which is always more than you've budgeted when you are buying camera gear). I spent considerable time in camera stores, handling cameras from both Canon and Nikon. I didn't consider other manufacturers as I wanted to be able to access the large number of used lenses, speedlights, and other accessories available. I settled on the Nikon D80 because I really liked the way it fit my hands and the controls were intuitive to operate. My next decision after deciding on the D80 body was what lens to buy. I was tempted to purchase the inexpensive "kit" lens, but decided instead on purchasing the best glass I could afford. I settled on the Nikkor 50 mm f/1.4 and have been very happy with this compact, very fast and high quality lens.
I especially like the shallow depth of field that is achieved by shooting with a large aperture, resulting in a smooth, silky background. Whenever I purchase a new lens I also buy a high quality UV filter which protects the front element of the lens from dust and scratches.

I spent the next few months taking hundreds of photos with my new system, getting to know the controls, options, and settings. I found this combination of camera body and lens to be excellent for many types of photography, but found myself getting frustrated with not being able to "bring in" many subjects because of the short focal length. I knew that I would soon be looking for a longer focal length zoom lens. While I was saving up for my next lens I purchased several additional memory cards, an extra battery, and a remote shutter release so that I could take long exposure photographs with the camera mounted on a tripod.

In November of 2008 I began shopping for a zoom lens that would cover a decent range and still be compact and high quality. I did lots of research and after much consideration chose the Nikon 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 VR lens. I really like this lens. I've taken about 90% of my photos with this lens and it is as close to an "all-in-one" that you could hope to get. Having the full range of focal lengths from wide-angle to moderate zoom in one lens does not come without some sacrifice in sharpness, speed and minor darkening of the corners at 28 mm. With this pair of lenses, the 18-200 mm and the fast 50 mm I was almost set for travel photography.

To round out my gear I acquired a good quality circular polarizing filter to fit the 18-200 and a 120 GB Hyperdrive Colorspace, which is a portable hard drive with a screen and built in card reader. This device was perfect for storing my digital photos so that I could clear off my cards and keep shooting. This particular model is quite reasonably priced and the internal rechargeable battery can be charged with a USB cable, AC adapter, and a car charger. I also took along a second portable hard drive which I used to backup the Hyperdrive whenever I had access to a computer.
My last purchase before our trip was a good quality camera backpack. I looked at several LowePro bags but I wasn't happy with the quality of the stitching and velcro closures. I tried out one bag in a local camera store and as I opened a velcro tab, the stitching let loose. Not impressed. I ended up choosing the Customary Barge backpack from Crumpler. I like this bag because it looks like a regular backpack instead of a camera bag. The bottom half has storage for a SLR camera, an extra lens and some accessories. The top portion has enough room for my rain gear and odds and ends. It also has a full padded sleeve for a laptop which can accomodate my Toshiba Tecra laptop. About a month after I bought my backpack, I stepped on one of the buckles for the waist belt and broke it. I sent the good folks at Crumpler an email and they sent me a free replacement waist belt. I was very impressed with their customer service.

Big Rig at Sunrise

For the past while, as I drive to work in the morning there is one particular view that catches my breath. At this spot the vehicles on the highway are silhouetted against the morning sky and their tires appear to be just barely touching the pavement. Each morning I try to be in place at 7:50 am to see the show. The challenge of how to capture this scene has occupied my thoughts for weeks, and when a big rig rolls by I want to capture the moment. This past Saturday I parked my van and got out my camera. At 100 ISO and maximum aperture my shutter speed had to be at 1/13th of a second. It was pretty cold and I didn't want to be standing there for long so I squeezed off about 15 frames in about 10 minutes. With my fingers freezing I worked at carefully panning to ensure that the vehicles remained as sharp as possible. This photo was the best of two photos I made that featured semi-trailer units.

Comments and questions are welcome.

What it's about

I am a photographer and a teacher. My full-time job is working as a vice-principal of a junior high school. In between my roles of husband, father and educator, I make photographs and learn about photography. I learn by doing, reading books, magazines and websites, listening to podcasts, and reading the blogs of other photographers. I love learning new things and then distilling this information down to a usable form and then sharing it with others. That is what this blog is about. My goal is to share my photography, new techniques, cool resources that I've found, and my thoughts on why I enjoy photography. If you have thoughts or feedback, please leave a comment or send me an email.