New Seasons Have Started

With the start of a new school year, sports are in full swing at Florida State. On Saturday, I shot the FSU-FIU volleyball match and on Sunday I shot the FSU-Stetson soccer match. For me, the so-called minor sports are great to shoot for various reasons. For one, I just love shooting sports, especially after a summer of sports withdrawl. More importantly, shooting any sport gives me a chance to improve my skills - the more you shoot, the better you invariably get.

Volleyball is a challenge because of the venue. FSU plays its matches in Tully Gym, the very place where FSU played its home basketball games when I was a student athlete in the early to mid seventies. The facility is a campus landmark and the lighting is horrible for photography - the light fixtures have some kind of yellow tinted incandescent bulbs in use and when all is said and done, the best I have been able to do is shoot at 1/320th of a second, f2.8 and ISO 1600.

This match, I tried changing the White Balance from Auto to several of the various presets made available on my camera bodies. The results were worse than leaving the camera bodies in Auto WB so I went with the Auto setting. I don't shoot volleyball that often so I have never made an effort to fine tune the presets with a gray card or any of the bazillion white balance toys one can buy to do so. I simply resign myself to the fact that my images are going to be color challenged and then do the best I can to correct the color in Photoshop.

I refuse to open the RAW images and correct the White Balance (which next to having the correct WB set is the best way to do so) because I (typically) don't have the time or the luxury of opening 300 images in Photoshop as I go through the images to select the ones I am going to clean up. I also made it impossible to open RAW images after this shoot because like an idiot, I adjusted the ISO without wearing my reading glasses and accidentally changed the Image Quality setting from RAW to TIFF. So, I had no RAW images to adjust even if I had wanted to go through the exercise. So, I settled for images that are very warm and/or have a cyan tinge to them. You do the best you can and live with what you get.

Since this was my first volleyball match of the season, I varied the locations that I used to shot from as well as lenses. I started with the D300 and an 80-200mm along with the D3 and a 35-70mm. My plan was to go through a few different lens/body combinations during the initial games and then settle in along a sideline with the D3 and the 80-200 for some tight shots of the net play from a low/side vantage point.

After a few shots from the side with the initial combos, I switched the D3 to my 15mm fisheye and wandered around taking various images. I then switched to the 17-35mm and eventually brought out the 300mm f2.8, shooting from directly behind the court as high up in the bleachers as I could get. By the time I felt like I had gotten enough of these images, the match was over and FSU had its home opener in the bag.

I was not going to shoot soccer this weekend but gave in to the urge to head over to FSU's soccer stadium when I went outside at noon on Sunday and it was 89 degrees with lots of cloud cover. Light was good, but no direct sunlight which meant no heat and no shadows on the players' faces. I couldn't have asked for a better chance to give the long lenses a good run through before next Saturday's football game so I went.

Since it was a 2:00 pm game start, I knew light would hold throughout the game so the 200-400mm f4 was the long lens of choice. Also, I went to the game to have some fun so I did not load up with gear. I took my D3 with the 80-200mm f2.8 and the D300 with the 200-400mm f4. My Think Tank belt had but one pouch, and I used it to keep my car keys, cell phone, extra battery and a lens brush. No camera bag, no rolling case, just 2 camera bodies and 2 lenses.

I set both camera bodies to Manual Exposure after taking a few test shots and decided on ISO200 on the D300 and the D3. I set the D3 to a 1/2000th second shutter speed and the D300 at 1/1250th second, opened the lenses to max aperture, and occasionally adjusted the shutter speeds if light changed dramatically.

Since FSU dominated the match (6-0), I stayed on the FSU side of the field the whole match shooting mostly from a sideline but occasionally drifting behind the goal line every now and then.  I believe you get the best shots when your team is playing offense and they're coming towards you, assuming that the goal is to catch the ball and a face (or faces) in view.

I wasn't lucky enough to get any clean goals but several plays which led to scores. Right place, sideline ref moved in front on one; Wrong place, got the back of the player as she headed the ball on another; and so on. But overall, I enjoyed the match and the chance to shoot some good soccer.

Facebook Stuff - Aside from the personal Facebook page I created a couple of weeks ago (Mike Olivella, not to be confused with the other Mike Olivella who is my son), I have now created a second one for BaselineShots - BaselineShots Photography. I created a page for BaselineShots so I could post a greater quantity of photos than I can post on this Blog in a slide show format. So if you would like to see additional images from any of the things I write about, I'll be posting them there.

Coming Soon - FSU opens the football season Saturday at noon. Fingers crossed - no rain.