One Game at a Time

I post-processed all of my photos from the UNC Asheville vs Marshall game by the time the Terps took to the hardwood. I also managed to scrape together a couple of paragraphs to describe the game.

When the Maryland game began I went straight for the stands for some up-high photos. I marked out a spot on the visiting side of the court so I could catch the Terps shooting in the the beginning of the first half. One thing led to another and the next thing I knew I was up in the stands in the entire first half. I got some great shots from up there and was ecstatic for what I was able to publish - KT drove the lane, Coleman had some dribble penetrations, and I captured my lead-in photo of tournament MVP Demauria Liles with a nice two-legs-up layup. I never would've grabbed that photo had I not shot from the stands and moved around to the baseline.

I'm definitely gaining a greater and greater appreciation for in-the-stands photography. The baseline shots are definitely good but I'm realizing how many more photos you can get from up a little higher. It's remarkable!

I narrowed the aperture to f/4 while up there because the built-in camera meter indicated that f/3.5, 1/400th second exposure at ISO 2500 was slightly overexposed, even with a 1/3 EV correction. The benefit of f/4 exposure is sharper images but it comes at the cost of a wider depth of field. The stands in the background are more noticeable and the players are not as isolated.

How much does this matter? Do people pay more attention to the sharpness of a photo or do they care more about isolation of the subject? If I shoot at f/2.8 from the stands and isolate my players through shallow depth of field do people like that more than a sharp image of a player driving to the basket with a little bit of the background in focus? I don't know.

Most people print at 5x7 or 4x6. Sometimes they go to 8x10. At those sizes a lot of softness can appear sharp enough. That argues that f/2.8 exposure would be better because you isolate your subject. However, if you look at imagery on the web where you have higher resolution it might be better to go with a smaller aperture. It's definitely made me think...

Afterwards I met up with a photographer from "Inside Women's Basketball" using SLR video for an interview with Maryland Head Coach Brenda Frese. Out in the parking lot I helped this photographer find the media entrance and I talked with her on the baseline a little bit. I was very interested in her SLR Video approach and asked her to send me a link to the content once she posts it. SLR Video is a really new approach to game imagery that gives extremely high definition video to games using still cameras and long lenses. It has a lot of promise and I predict it will become a bigger and bigger deal over the next 5 years. I'm very interested in seeing how the interview turned out.

I wrote up an article on Maryland's win over Mississippi State and posted a photo gallery up to the DC Sports Box website. Please go take a look!