? for Dan..

[MARINERMAGNUM]

Or anyone else?

Was wondering how you guys handle abrupt changes in light or when one team has a VERY white uniform and the other team's is darker? I forgot to try the "highlight tone priority setting" have you or Finn used this yet?

I was jumping from 1/640,1/800 and 1/1000 in manual trying to find a happy medium. I would appreciate thoughts on this exposure-how I can make it better. This was ISO 6400,TV800

Thanks.

[Dbl]

First question answered;

Highlight tone priority can only be selected between ISO 200 and 3200. That often times eliminates it from use for me indoors, I've been doing some ISO 6400 shooting with mine.

Usually only useful if you are shooting in JPEG. You can accomplish the same thing shooting in RAW. You generally don't have that latitude with JPEG. I used it for all my fall outdoor shooting and I think it was a nice feature. It seemed to work fairly well, not a cure all but it helped.

Light and dark uniforms are generally not as much of an issue indoors as outdoors. This shot looks good to me, the details have been retained in the whites. I usually expose for proper skin tone exposure and take what you get with the lights and darks. This is why manual gives you more consistent results over Av when shooting indoors.

Your meter will constantly be fooled based on uniforms, background lighting, etc. giving you wild exposures. You are doing the right thing by staying in manual. I've found most gyms will have around one stop darker exposure under the basket as opposed to between the free throw lines. I normally just spin my shutter speed and open up one stop under the basket, and change it back as the play moves down court.

Now you often times will be able to get away with set the camera and go if you keep your histogram to the right, the underexposure under the basket will generally still be clean if you bring it up in post.

So to sum it up, just expose for the skin tones and don't worry too much about the rest. It will work quite well indoors. Nothing wrong with the shot you posted MM, exposure looks good to me, WB is good, color balance looks nice. The only thing I would do since you got 1/800s at ISO 6400 would be to drop down to ISO 3200 and 1/640s. You should have no problem stopping action at 1/640s in high school. I use 1/320s as a minimum.

[MARINERMAGNUM]

Thanks. Boy you sure are right about the under the goal lighting! I also would get a few darker shots once in a while, like the overhead lights winked for a nano second. I'm just shooting jpegs as raw eats up too much time in post. The custom settings are nice though,for the 2 gyms I frequent the most,just set it to c1 or c2 and shoot!

Yep,3200 would have handled it,I just wanted to check the grain and see how fast she'd go. Thanks again.

[Dbl]

I do the same thing with the Custom settings, I love that. I have one set for high ISO and another for outdoor settings. If you use ISO 3200 you can than use the tone priority but I know what you mean on the ISO 6400. I shot a game last week just to compare it against ISO 3200 and I even shot about 5 minutes of RAW as well.

You just don't know how the camera does until you push it to its limits and see what it will do under different circumstances.

[finnbay]

Great explanation, Dan. I shot some hockey pix at the Augsburg Arena a week ago, and I wish I had that kind of lighting to work with all the time. On the other hand, there are still dark spots, light cycling and exposure differences even from one person to the next on the same team. Lots of shots give you more to choose from!

[Dbl]

Hockey arena's seem to have the nastiest lighting! Even as you said well lighted ones! The cycling, and un-even lighting around the rink, make for a real pain for consistent exposures! As you said sometimes it helps to shoot a few more shots and hope for the best.