More basketball – lighting an entire gym with 2 speedlights.
Last month in this post I talked about how I lit a high school basketball gym with two speed lights.
The thing that I wasn’t able to get right the first time was the location of my lights. I had to put them both off to one side and higher the basket. The diagram below shows how it was setup.
First game setup - to be improved...
In the game this last Saturday I was able to improve might lighting somewhat. The biggest diffrence was that I was able to cross light the gym by placing the SB600 in a old cage that was used for a clock at one time in the past. The cage was pretty much just what I needed. It was a tight fit for the SB600 but it gave me something to bungee it to just in case and when I got it in there the light wasn’t blocked at all. The SB800 was in pretty much the same place as last time. Here’s the setup from this week’s game.
The second setup was much better than the first. There’s still room for improvement though. the SB600 was pointed too much toward the basket. It need to be aimed more toward the top of the key. I’ll get that taken care of next game. The biggest problem right now is the location of the SB800. The SB800 is just too high it doesn’t light the court evenly. The idea is to shoot over the heads of the player and feather the light down on them. At 1/4 power the flash duration is fast enough that it will stop motion and allow me about 4 shots (1/4 of the power) in a burst if I hold down the shutter. There is another clock cage on the other side and I’ll try to put the SB800 in there next game. It may be out of reach but the school officials have been very nice about getting me access.
Here are a few shots from this game.
Next week I’ll try to move the SB800 down to the same level as the Sb600. I’ll also try to get the SB600 better aimed…
Stay tuned… this is an interitive process and It seems to be getting better each time!
p.s. I have to say I was surprised by my ebay 16 channel Poverty Wizards – they fired almost everytime even from all the way across the gym they were 50%. Well if I only had some Radio Poppers I might be able to perfect this whole thing! I’m saving up for some poppers now!
Tom, this is my first time to your site, and I’m really enjoying it. Can I ask you what lens were you using with this setup? Thanks.
Hi Scott,
I was using a Sigma 70-200 2.8 for these shots. The were all shot from f2.8 – f4, ISO 400-1000ish, and on aperture priority using my D300.
All the games this week were canceled due to snow. I hope to post some more next week with the new light configuration. Stay tuned!.
Tom
Thanks, Tom. I’ll check back to see how things work out for you next time around. Best of luck.
-Scott
That’s awesome. Thanks for passing that along.
Interessante Informationen.
Just browsing sites and discussion on off camera flash, wireless triggers, and Basketball photos in particular. I’m just starting to understand limited shutter speed for flashes and “High Speed Sync” for my canon speedlights. Are you using a high speed sync to shoot at 1/500th or so, or are you using a slower shutter speed? I just upgraded to a Canon 50D and have a Sigma 70-200 f2.8 that I use for both Basketball and Volleyball, but so far I’ve done everything possible to not have to use a flash. Some gyms have forced me to simply put my camery away! I saw you told one person what lens you were using, but what did you have your camera set up with????
Hi Nathan,
You don’t necessarily need to us HSS to stop the action. The flash on relatively low power (1/4 or so) is enough to stop motion because the flash duration is so short on the lower powers. Just use your camera’s highest standard sync speed. You might want to try rear curtain sync too. Rear curtain sync just fires the flash at the end of the shutter rather than at the beginning. That is something that I wanted to try but didn’t get a chance this season. I’m told it will help to sharpen up the players and let the background motion blur especially if you are panning. Because of the distances involved in basketball, the only way I think you could be successful with HSS would be to use RadioPoppers or the PocketWizard TTL triggers once PW gets the bugs worked out. I love my RadioPoppers – I wish you good luck. Let me know how your shots workout.
Tom
Great stuff! Keep bringing it!