Covering HS Basketball

January 18, 2010: Today I covered a High School Basketball game in Bardonia, NY. Todays teams were the Falcons of Albertus Magnus and the Kennedy Catholic Gales of Somers, NY. In todays match up the Gale took the Falcons 64 - 39.

To properly cover a High School Basketball game, I like to show up 1 - 1.5 hours before the game to set up my lighting gear. I try and meet with the Coach or Athletic Director and let them know I am there to cover the game. There is usually a JV game is going on so I can shoot test shots of players on the court.

I set up my main lights in the corners of the gym that I will be shooting from. In each corner I put 2 lights, around 10' high, and aim them at the top of the key and under the basket. I like to move from side to side, so this way I get good coverage on each side of the court. Many times I will set up a "Down Court" light high up in the middle of the stands facing the opposite basket. This strobe helps give a little light down court so they don't look like they are playing in a cave. When shooting with strobes, I usually only get about 150 shots. When shooting available light, I turn on the High Speed Drive and shoot long runs of players, however the gym light is what dictates this.

After the game I hit the scorers table and get a shot of the book, just in case I have to caption the images for the media.

I recently started shooting RAW because one of the companies I shoot for is very critical of the background color balance and file size. RAW files can handle color corrections better than jpeg's. HS Gym lights are usually not so great when it comes to photographing under them, and that is why I add high powered studio lights. I like to be at least 4 stops above ambient light.

When I get home, I upload everything to an external hard drive which I have set up a folder system for all my sports work by type of sport. I launch lightroom, import the photos at their current location, add my keywords and start combing through the images picking out the best of the best. I will usually end up with 90 - 120 good images and 10 really good ones. The good images get FTP'd to the appropriate client... Done!

Current Gear:

Canon 1D MK III

Canon 5D

Canon 17 - 40 f/4L

Canon 24 - 105 f/4L

Canon 70 - 200 f/2.8L

Canon 35mm f/2.0

Canon 50mm f/1.2

Canon Tele Converters 1.4X and 2.0X

Canon Speedlights - 580 EX, 580 EXII, 420EX (2)

Pocket Wizards

DynaLite Studio Strobes

Bogen Lighting Stands