Webster U. started in on its basketball season this weekend by opening up with the Sodexho Classic tournament between Dennison, Transylvania, Hanover and Webster. The tournament started on Friday night and ended Saturday afternoon. This was my first chance to shoot basketball since last season. I ended last year by putting up my first backboard remote. I learned a lot during that experience. I learned that I should have given myself a little longer than 1.5 hrs to set up the remote by myself. Also, the Canon EOS D30 is not the best remote body. Actually, it is a very poor remote body. It wasn’t designed to to remain on for hours on end and be ready to fire at any moment. Also, its high ISO performance isn’t great above 800. I did get a “useable” image for newsprint.
Canon EOS D30 15mm ISO 800 1/125 sec @ f/2.8
Now you can definitely see some of the flaws in this image. The most obvious thing is the focus. It sharply focused on the rim of the basket rather than the player. Also, if you look at the ball and the thicker part of the rim, you can see reflections in the glass. I needed a dark mask around the camera to help eliminate those reflections.
This semester seems more promising. I have staff that can help me get everything set up quicker. Also, I know many of the mistakes I made last time so I can avoid them this time. One of those mistakes is using the D30 in a dark gym. I will be using a 5D, 20D, or a 1Ds to ensure the camera fires when I tell it to.