My Strobe Setup

A quick diagram of how I have been setting up my strobes. As the budget allows, I hope to be able to add a couple of more in a effort to cover the whole court.

Freezing Action at 1/300 of a Second (or even 1/250).

This photo was taken at ISO 320, Shutter speed of 1/250 and with an f-stop of 3.5. How did I freeze the action with a slow shutter of 1/250?

One word.  Strobes.  Or in the case of this image, 2 Alienbee 800s and 1 Canon 580exII on camera.  

I shoot with a Canon 1dmkIII and it has a maximum shutter synch speed of 1/300. This is the fastest shutter speed I can use with a flash. Faster shutter speeds will result in a progressively larger and larger black band on the edge of the image. This is the portion of the image that did not get exposed by the flash. It's a bit complicated and not necessary in this discussion.

So, how can I freeze action at 1/300 if this is the maximum shutter speed I can use. Well, you have to think of it like this. The shutter speed won't be your true shutter speed, but rather, your flash duration becomes the shutter speed.

Here's how I do it. I set up my camera to the f-stop I want to use. Say I am using my 70-200 2.8 IS lens. Sure, I could shoot at 2.8, but then it leaves me a very small depth of field of focus and thus, little room for focusing errors. If I can stop my f-stop down to f 4 or so, I can get more of the player in focus and a bit more leeway in the event my focus is not exact. So, now I have my shutter speed of 1/300 and my f stop of 4, that leaves only ISO to set.

In this example, I will start with ISO 640. So, what I do is take a picture of the players warming up and see what I get with ISO 640, 1/300 and f 4. If I can see players or the court, I dial down the ISO until all I can see is a very, very faint image or completely black image. Oh, I should say that this is all done with the flash turned off, or your trigger turned off.

Once I get a black or nearly black frame, I'll turn my flash (or trigger on) and fire a few images. My goal here is to get a properly exposed image by adjusting the power of the flash. I can do this by turning the flash power up or by going direct instead of bouncing flash.

Since we know that without the flash, I am getting a completely underexposed image, we can be assured that the only light hitting the sensor is from the flash. The neat thing about this is that the flash only fires for a very brief moment. For example, with my AlienBee 800 Strobe, it has a flash duration of about 1/1100 of a second at full power. This is plenty fast enough to stop most action. So, by using my AB800 at full power, the light source flashing on and off at 1/1100 of a second becomes the shutter speed because during the rest of the time the shutter is open, no light is effectively hitting it.

In the next article, I will go into some more detail on my flash/strobe setup.  

Why Strobe?

Most high school gyms and nearly all middle school gyms have terrible lighting. Why? A couple of reasons immediately come to mind.

1. Most gyms don't have an adequate amount of lighting for photographing high speed sports. They are dim. Sometimes you can't even get ISO 6400 and 1/500 @ 2.0. This is not good.

2. Most gyms use lights that cycle through slightly different colors and in addition, may cycle in intensity. Now, say your gym has 30 lights. Each of them are doing their own thing. This is not good for photographers. We prefer lights of constant color and output.

The above shot is typical for a high school gym. I was able to get is0 3200, at f2 and 1/500. I think anything slower than 1/500 is just to slow for high school basketball. Slower, and you start getting lots of motion blur. This is unacceptable.

You can see that my f-stop was already very big at f2 and my ISO was at 3200. You can see that these settings are at the limits or nearly at the limits of my equipment, the Canon 135 2.0 and MK3. Sure, I could go to ISO 6400, but that's about it. I could go to the 85 1.8 lens, but these additional settings won't get me much more headroom. So, my choices are: a. be happy with above image or b. bring my own light and strive for better. I chose "b."

Strobes increase the amount of light and are of constant temperature. If you have enough strobe power, they are capable of completely overpowering the ambient lighting in a gym. This is good for several reasons. Overpowering the house lighting helps eliminate your problems with white balance. This power is also going to be the key in allowing you to freeze the action with a shutter speed of 1/300 or even 1/250. Amazing but true. Tune in next time for more about freezing action at 1/300 of a second.

Some Basketball Strobe Work

I have been experimenting with Alienbee Strobes at basketball games lately. Over the next few posts, I'll share what I have been doing, including my setups, and share my results.

First the results.

I think these look pretty good.