Middle School Girls Basketball - Game 2

Well I shot my second game of middle school basketball this last Wednesday night. Not one of my better nights of shooting. First let me tell you my settings. I shot on manual mode at f/2.8, ISO 3200, shutter of 1/400, and flashed bounced off the ceiling. They say hindsight is 20 / 20, well looking at my pictures I should have set my shutter speed to 1/320 to give me a bit more light and better expose the picture. This would have lessened my noise. I also didn't get the quality action that I would have like to.

I won't be shooting another middle school girls basketball game until the championship games on Jan 12th, 2008. Not sure if I'll get out to any of our girls varsity games. I just don't have the desire to shoot basketball as I do most other sports.

Here are just a couple of shots from the game.

Family Shots

Back in November of 2003 my family and my two sisters familys got together at a local park to take some family pictures and a portrait of just the kids. This year one of my sister's suggested we take a shot of the kids for our parents. I thought it would be cool if we took the same shot, same location, of the kids we did in 2003. So today we got together and took some family shots.

I must say that I don't do portraits, hence this site being called Cayer's Sport's Action Photography, but here are some shots to share.

Taken Nov 19, 2003.

My two wonderful kids, boy are they growing up so fast.

First basketball of the season

My first basketball of the season. Most of my basketball photography is at the middle school level and their season is broken up into two different seasons. During the first part of the season, there's girls basketball and boys track, during the second part of the season there's boys basketball and girls track. Of course there's the championship games that will be played at the end of each season. I will more than like only shoot two season games for the boys and girls and then the championship games. Not sure if I will get out there for some high school shooting, it's all a matter of time as I will have high school girls soccer soon.

All of these shots were in manual with my 70-200 f/2.8L IS lens. My settings were ISO 3200, f/2.8, and either 1/500 or 1/400. I also used my flash, which was reflected off the ceiling, at full power. The gym I was shooting at has only about 2 to 3 feet between the court and perimeter walls, making things rather tight when the action got close.

My new Logo

I've been seeing a lot of people getting logo's and thought that I could use one myself. Now I may not know what I'm going to do with it but I have one and I rather like it. So if you come and take a look, tell me what you think.

Girls Volleyball - CIF Semi Finals

Volleyball is officially over for the season. Last night our girls played against Redondo Union High School in the CIF Semi-Finals at Redondo, who were last year CIF champions. Our girls just didn't play like their capable of playing. There were just too many mistakes and errors.

I had to shoot these games from the stands, as I was told I couldn't be on the floor during the games due to insurance, so I made do with what I had to work with. I just moved around to get the angle I wanted.

Believe it or not I shot all of these at ISO 3200. My camera was set on manual at f/2.8 and a shutter of 1/400. You can always learn something new and I'm finding that if I get me exposure right then I can shoot at a higher ISO with minimal noise.

Varsity vs Compton

A lot was riding on the outcome of this game, which was our last season game. Both teams were 3-1 for the season, losing to Poly. A win in this game gave the victor 2nd place in Moore League and a home game for the first round of the CIF Playoffs.

Compton came ready to play and quickly took the lead resulting from several turnovers by us. It wasn't until the fourth quarter when our boys started playing football like we all knew they could and won the game. Final score was 35-25.

Back to the "Action"

As football season was starting I was asked to shoot the girls varsity volleyball team at me son's school by the coach. He wanted some shots of the girls in action and a slideshow that could be viewed at their banquet.

I've had a blast photographing these girls in action and have greatly enjoyed watching them play. They are currently in the CIF semi-finals, which will be played Tuesday, hopefully I'll be able to make the game and capture somemore action. Either way I've put together a slideshow to show the coach. You can view the slideshow by clicking on the below link.

Girls Varsity Volleyball Slideshow

Halloween - A little late

This has nothing to do with sports action and it's late, but I wanted to share a couple of pictures of the family in their halloween costumes.


This is the wife and we didn't start making this costume until the night before halloween. I used to make a lot of sports banners for little league baseball using felt and puffy paint so I did all the art work on it.

Here's a shot of my son, wife, and daughter. My son was a nerd, wife was a starbucks coffee, and daughter was a 50's girl.

Finally here's a shot of the crew before going out for the evening to fill their goodie bags.

2nd Round, CIF Playoff - Volleyball

The girls made it to the second round of the CIF Playoffs. They play the best of five matches and were toe-to-toe during the first match, but lost it in the end. Being behind by one match they came back stronger then ever winning the next three matches and game moving them to the next round.

Trying to take action shots is no easy task, but add shooting a team as strong as these girls then it's even harder. I just wanted to sit and watch thier intensity, energy, and focus as they played. These pictures capture the action, but by no means do they capture their intensity as I saw it on the sidelines.

Again I had to shoot at ISO 3200 and rely on my noise reduction program afterwards. The camera was on manual at f/2.8 and 1/320.

The "End" of football season

Our Jr. Varsity and Freshmen teams had their last game this last Thursday. Since my son wasn't playing this last game I decided to attend and shoot the freshmen's last game against Compton. Prior to this game Compton was 8-1 while our freshmen team were 9-0. This freshmen team has played very good this season and this game was no different with them winning 35-0, giving them the Moore League Champs.

On a side-note our Jr. Varsity team also won 35-26, giving them a record this season of 9-1. Our only lost being against Poly.

Due to the time change and a very dark overcast sky I really had to push my ISO up. I started the game shooting at ISO 800 and ended with it being at 1600. My camera was set on aperture priority at f/2.8. I was able to keep my shutter at 1/2000 and above until the last quarter when it started slowing down fast. I ended the game shooting on manual mode at f/2.8 and 1/640.

When shooting games in these conditions don't be afraid to increase your ISO to give you a decent shutter speed. As long as you have a decent noise reduction program then you shouldn't have any problems. I currently use Noiseware and am very happy with it.