Action Shots

[jimatwork]

I just purchased the Canon EOS 50D upgraded from the Rebel. I use the 70-200mm 2.8 IS USM lens. My daughter plays volleyball we travel to many different sites with a wide range of lighting.I use the AV setting and usually adjust the the ISO setting and set the white balance for the light being used in facility. I would greatly appreciate any help on how to set up the camera. THANKS

[dwdong]

I shot a number of high school and middle school volleyball (and basketball) games with my 40D.  I used either my 135 f/2 or 85 f/1.8 (set at f/2.2).  Like you, I chose the Av mode to keep my aperture open and maximize the shutter speed which often hovered at barely fast enough in some poor lit gyms.

I usually shot at ISO 3200 to increase the shutter speed.  Occasionally I would drop to ISO 1600 in a well-lit gym.  I would rather deal with some noise instead of motion blur.  Be careful not to underexpose or noise will increase.  Also be aware that the jersey color will affect the exposure and you may need some exposure compensation depending on if the team is wearing white or colors.

Focusing was set on AI Servo with only the middle point enabled.  And I would choose where/who I was going to shoot on a given point (eg -- far hitter maybe, or backrow service receiver).  That way I could prefocus and just wait for the ball to go to her -- even if it takes a few points.  Consider shooting in bursts of 3 or 4 frames.

Finally, I shot RAW.  Tremendous advantage here in the White Balance as you can adjust the balance on the computer in DPP using the eyedropper feature.  You can batch process all the pics at once and then later individually change ones that might be off.  This is important to me because the white balance can vary greatly in a gym.  Try shooting one person at maximum FPS for a second and compare your pics:  I found that the white balance could change dramatically because the output of the lights is not constant but rather fluctuates electrically.  Enjoy!

[jimatwork]

Thanks for the reply. Have you used the custom white balance? In the instructions it says to photograph a white object would you take that picture where you are sitting or would you take the picture closer to the court? Can you take a picture oy a white piece of paper? As you can tell I don't know much about taking pictures.

[KeithB]

I haven't used Custom White balance, but you can use one of these:
http://www.rawworkflow.com/whibal/  Since "white" paper can have many shades of "white"

However, gyms might have many difference light sources and you might have areas of differing white balance in the same shot (for example, Sodium Vapor + skylight), so a custom white balance might not help very much.  As pointed out, it might be better to shoot RAW and you can correct each shot.  By shooting your white paper or the linked Whibal at the start of things you can get a general white balance to get you started and tweak as necessary, without the hassle (and forgettability!) of setting a custom white balance.

[dwdong]

I have not used custom white balance because it is not needed for RAW when I do my WB in DPP.  I am unclear if Custom WB applies to RAW or only JPEGs (perhaps someone else can jump in here to clarify this).

The sheet of paper (or a 18% grey card purchased at a photo shop for around $5) should be receiving similar light to your subject.  So ideally, you would take its pic on the court at the same angle that the lighting is hitting the player.  So doing it courtside before a game might be helpful.  If you have a home court where your daughter plays most of her games you can keep this WB pic in your camera/CF card so that you do not have to duplicate it every match.

[Bob Atkins]

White Balance (even custom) has no effect on the RAW file. In DPP the file will open using the WB set in the camera by default, but you can change it at any time.

Camera settings such as WB, Picture Style etc. simply add data to the RAW file which DPP can read and use as defaults, but they don't affect the actual RAW image data.

[jimatwork]

Thanks to everyone for your comments.It sounds like I need to take pictures in the raw mode. If I do that, don't I need a program to edit pictures. Is so what is program to use? One last question I may take 500 pictures in a weekend how time consuming is it to edit. Do I download pictures to computer then edit? Thanks again

[Bob Atkins]

Canon supply DPP (Digital Photo Pro) with all their DSLRs. It's on the software disk that came with the camera. You can also shoot in RAW+JPEG mode of course. If you do that you only need to process the RAW files for which the corresponding JPEG is unacceptable.

[KeithB]

If you are using iPhoto, and your camera is supported, it is no issue at all, sometimes you can't tell the difference.  (other than the little RAW badge at the bottom.  If the picture looks fine, use it, if it needs tweaking you can tweak for a few minutes or a few hours - your choice. 8^) On the PC you might need to move to something like LightRoom. 

LightRoom and Aperture will allow you to tweak one photo in a session and then apply the settings to all the other photos.

(PhotoShop Elements will also work in RAW.)