high school basketball with off camera flash help

[evader]

I am wondering if anyone has used off camera flash to shoot high school sports indoors? I've been shooting a lot of basketball for a semi-pro team here in town and obviously the lighting at the arena they play in is 100x better than the lighting found in a high school gym.

I've had no problems getting nice shots of the semi-pro team using my D7000 and my 24-70 f/2.8 and 70-200 f/2.8 lenses with no flash.

I did have some issues last night when I tried to shoot some high school basketball though...the lighting was terrible. I upped the iso to something like 1600 and 3200 but I didn't like any of the shots I took. I didn't have an external flash with me but I tried the pop-up flash on the camera and that wasn't any good either.

I remember seeing somewhere online (can't find it now of course) someone had a set up of off camera flashes placed around the court and they seemed to have really good results with that.

Just wondering if anyone here has tried anything like that and if so how did you set it all up?

I have 2 sb-600 for flashes at the moment (powered by cactus triggers). I would like to try and do something without having to purchase any additional flashes to begin with.

Any suggestions or advice on how/where to set things up would be appreciated.
Thanks

[sk66]

with 2 SB600's, you'll need to use the camera's commander mode. Set the strobes on a couple of stands and focus on just one "area". they aren't going to have enough power to cover a lot of space. Also make sure the flash's receiver is pointed towards the camera....

[zona5101]

i have and used an sb24 on a light stand pointed at the ceiling.The ceiling was about 2 stories up but it was white so I got enough return to make it worth while. I only had one flash set up so really could only shoot one end of the court. Still got some unwanted shadows in the eye sockets because of the angle of light. I have seen other threads where the shooter put the flashes in the stands and pointed the heads at the floor. Those results looked good and with two flashes had the majority of the floor covered. I will be trying this the next time I need to add light.

[evader]

I am thinking to start I will try one flash on either side of the floor and slightly behind the basket pointed towards the middle of the key.

Something like this...



I think that should give decent results around the basket. Any thoughts on that setup?

[zona5101]

Perfect time to have wireless ettl but manual will work. I'd only suggest making sure your lights are high...one to be sure and illuminate people in the air and two avoid shadows on players caused by the adjacent player blocking the light... I am anxious to see your results.

[evader]

there is an upper level behind the basket and I'm going to use clamps to hold the flashes on the railings so they will be a little higher than the basket is.

I'm going to stop by the school after work today and check it out a bit more and talk to the coach to see if I can test it during a practice so I can work out the kinks before trying it at a game.

[zona5101]

Originally Posted by evader

there is an upper level behind the basket and I'm going to use clamps to hold the flashes on the railings so they will be a little higher than the basket is.

I'm going to stop by the school after work today and check it out a bit more and talk to the coach to see if I can test it during a practice so I can work out the kinks before trying it at a game.

this is exactly the set up i was referring to. I'll look for the post I was referring to...it had some pics...


dang had to dig back to 2008...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephen...57608318742830

basketball tournament - strobist
my best college BBall shots yet
college men's basketball
Shots in his flickr stream describe the flightng/power settings...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephenkirsh/3280112625/

[evader]

that's the one I saw before as well...I knew I saw it somewhere. I didn't see them on here though...just his flickr set.

Thanks for digging the link up for me. That's exactly what i was looking for.

[Doug Sundseth]

Check out David Hobby's old post:

Strobist: On Assignment: Speedlighting a College Gym

It discusses lighting basketball with two SB strobes, though in a college gym rather than HS.

[evader]

I picked up a couple of those Gorillapod things to hold the sb600's so we'll see how they work out.