As far as action shooting goes, I think I do a great job capturing the emotion and action of sports, but boy do I suck with white balance. I really need to learn how to set a custome white balance.
Well I guess now you know that I like using my beast (300 f/2.8) and I didn't let you down. When I started shooting my camera was set at aperture priority (f/2.8) with an ISO of 640, which quickly jumped to 800. Before the first half was over I was shooting at 3200 ISO to keep the shutter speed up around 1/1000. By the end of the second half I had the flash on. With the flash I still shot at ISO 3200 but switched the camera to manual and set the sutter speed to 500 and by the time the game was over I was shooting at 1/320, which did give some motion blur. It's all about changing and paying attention to your settings. If only I could learn white balance better.
4 comments:
Jim, I do my white balance 2 ways that work well for me even though I don't have cards.
The first way is to find something white or VERY light gray and shoot it. Someone in a white t-shirt works well. It has to fill the center of the focal area. Go to white balance and select custom. Below the white balance setting (on my rebel) is a custom WB selection. select it and it will show the pictures you have taken. Select the one you just shot. Now take some shots and see what you think.
The other option I use is 'click white balance' in Photo Professional (RAW files only). There I will click different areas of white until I see what I want. White shoes work really well as do t-shirts but lots of stuff works well. In a gym, bright white makes everything yellow. Look for shadows on shirts so you can click different shades of gray. This is nice because if the conditions are constant, you can apply the setting across all of the shots. And if not, you can work with shots individually without having to reset custom white balance constantly.
Ken (maybe you already do these things)
BTW, i think your WB looks great :D
Jim,
I have to agree with Ken. Your WB looks great. I'll be honest - I use the auto WB often. Why? Because it works well if you are going from an extreme situation to another. Shade to daylight or vice versa can be tricky and sometimes it is heard to remember to change your settings. I am wondering if you are confusing WB with something else because I think the WB looks nicely done.
Do you shoot with a monopod often? It looks like you do. I would love to see some cool shots with some of the action blurred. You would be amazed at how cool some of the shots can turn out.
Shooting an action event at night is difficult. I'll be the first to admit that I like it, but it is a challenge. I am still learning the best way to do it, but I figure there is a different way for each situation and location.
Great stuff. Cannot wait to see more!
Cheers,
Al
Thanks Ken and Al.
Hey Ken, I have yet tried the custom white balance. I've been wanting to try it since I got some info from ChefDave but just don't think about it until it's too late and I'm out shooting. I will try both your methods and see what works best.
Al, right now I currently use the Auto WB on my camera and it usually does a pretty good job. There are situation where I have issues but I just end up fixing those in PS.
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