Heritage vs Fort Vancouver: 01-05-2010

1/5/10 – Rebecca Getsfrid – Commercial Sports Photographer in Vancouver, Washington and Portland, Oregon

After having enjoyed fake shooting the Seahawks game last Sunday, I decided to make a more realistic attempt at sports shooting. I grabbed my camera bag, 5 bucks, and a bottle of coke, and made my way to my Alma Mater to shoot some varsity basketball.

Things I learned:
- I don’t need to shoot at 1/1000th. 1/250th to 1/500th (depending on closeness of subject) is plenty.
- High School Gym lighting does not mesh well with a 70-300/4-5.6.
- Shoot from the left side of the basket (as you’re facing it) since most players are right handed and will attempt layups from the right side.
- f/2.8 is plenty of depth of field. f/2.0 is pushing it. f/1.4 is not even worth trying.
- I can just barely fit an entire game on an 8gig SDHC card.
- Shooting sports is fun.

Having discovered that 2nd point, I did most of the shooting with my 50/1.4. On a crop sensor, that works out to 75mm, which is really not all that bad if you’re only shooting one half of the court. With the 70-300, I could still only really shoot half the court, as the 105mm equivalent was too tight to shoot the half I was standing at. Because of this fact, I’m thinking I’ll push the d700 back a few months and pick up a Pentax DA* 50-135 in the near future. I also shot the entire game in manual mode, with continuous autofocus. The k20d did a great job keeping up in the focus department, and manual exposure assured me of consistent exposure.

I started off the game by shooting my new X-Rite ColorChecker Passport.

The Sodium Vapor lights used in the gym would have made white balance an absolute pain, but thanks to the X-Rite software and the passport itself, 2 clicks and the sync-settings button in lightroom later, all my shots were properly colored. Fantastic.

Heritage ended up losing, 58-65. I really enjoyed shooting the game, I really look forward to picking up a better sports lens, and I definitely plan to shoot at least 4 or 5 more games before the High School Basketball season ends. Favorite shots from the night below: