Volleyball Photography, a tutorial

How to shoot volleyball action shots. I put this together for my
daughter's volleyball club. I'd appreciate reviews, additions,
corrections...

The target audience is primarily parents with point and shoot digitals
(Christmas... heh.). But the concepts applt to DSLR as well. (My
current weapon is a Canon 300D...).

Here's the link:

http://www.pearlandjrs.com/prep/phototutor.htm


Here's an example of the tutorial in practice:

http://www.pearlandjrs.com/team/resu...m/TCSQ15m.html

I didn't notice any mention of White Board settings at all. They're a pretty
important factor in taking indoor shots in a gym. Eddy
"Steve Cutchen" wrote in message
...
How to shoot volleyball action shots. I put this together for my
daughter's volleyball club. I'd appreciate reviews, additions,
corrections...

The target audience is primarily parents with point and shoot digitals
(Christmas... heh.). But the concepts applt to DSLR as well. (My
current weapon is a Canon 300D...).

Here's the link:

http://www.pearlandjrs.com/prep/phototutor.htm


Here's an example of the tutorial in practice:

http://www.pearlandjrs.com/team/resu...m/TCSQ15m.html

["Followup-To:" header set to rec.photo.digital.]

Steve Cutchen wrote:
How to shoot volleyball action shots. I put this together for my
daughter's volleyball club. I'd appreciate reviews, additions,
corrections...

Couple of points:
- Megapixel:
The difference between a 2 and 4 MP camera is ... just a 20%
border round the image. It doesn't even double the size ---
that would need a 8 MP camera (and 4 times the memory for
the pictures!)
Oh, a 1024x786 monitor is 0.8 MPs, a *huge* 1600x1200 monitor
shows less than 2 MPs! A 1600x1200 (2MP) image printed will
have photo quality (300dpi) @ 5x4", and good quality
(200dpi) at 8x6". Compare to 4MP (8x6", 11x9") --- not
that much difference.
= Do not fret over MPs. Fret over optic quality, low light
autofocus capability, low high-ISO noise and fast AF/fast
shutter instead.

- "Set [ISO] as high as your camera will let you."
Some cameras give unusable images at high ISO values. So some
testing should be done beforehand.

- If your camera supports it, set the apperture to f/2.8 (or
whatever the largest apperture is). Let the camera set the speed
--- unless you drop below, say 1/80th, then you have to force
the camera. So you need a camera that will allow you to override
it on time and apperture --- not all point&shoot cameras do that!

- I don't think you'll need much of a monopod, not at 1/80 or
1/125, unless you have a 35mm equivalent of 80 or 120mm zoom.
The problem is more the rapid movement of the players, where
a monopod won't help. (neither will an image stabilizer ---
it can dampen _your_ movements, not _players_ moving).

- Use wide angle. Most cameras have no fixed appertu what
starts at f/2.8 is f/4.7 at the tele end, 1.3 stops higher.
Were you to shoot at 1/80s at the tele end, you could do 1/200
at the wide end --- or drop down one ISO step (if your camera
is extra-noisy) and still use 1/100s. You might need to
get closer to the field, but since most P&S cameras don't have
a wide 'wide angle' (and even the DSLRs strain against
the non-full-sensor sizes), this should be OK.

- Additionally, "wide angle" reduces the impact of camera shake
and can sometimes reduce the impact of player movements.

- pre-squeeze basically lets the autofocus run (very slow)
and does the light metering (extremely fast). Some cameras
allow manual focussing, focussing with a pre-set range (fixed
focus) or prefocussing by setting a distance, so the autofocus
is deactivated. Doing this can help, if you can set the focus
easily and exact enough.

- some P&S cameras (and most DSLRs) can shoot series of images.
If the series has 3 or more frames/second, you can get lucky and
get that exceptional shot. But it eats memory (and battery ---
always bring spare batteries and more memory) and you'll have
to sort out many mediocre pictures. This can be a problem
since it's less fun than shooting and wading through 500 pics
to get the 20 really good ones is time consuming. But it _can_
give you the one very special picture, if you are lucky.


-Wolfgang