White Balance and Color For Sports

I see a lot of comments and questions about white balance and colors in photos for sports. A lot of gyms and arenas have terrible lighting that causes a ton of color shift and problems in photos.

The easiest way I have found to "fix" this issue is by using a XRite Color Checker Passport. It has a grey card on one side and a color pallet on the other. I know I've talked about the colorchecker before but its hands down the best piece of gear I've ever purchased. 

When I get to a venue Im going to shoot at, before the game Ill walk out and set the color checker down and take a picture of both the grey card and the color pallet.

This way I can create a color profile in lightroom based on the lighting in the venue so all the colors and white balance look how it should. I honestly havent found a situation where the colorchecker hasn't helped out.

Here's a screen shot from a photo I took last night at the VHSL basketball tournament as well as the screen shot of the color checker passport.

The photo on the left is the straight out of camera photo. The photo on the right has been color and white balance matched using the color checker.

Ill also post one of the videos I've done before on how the colorchecker works. 

D500 w/ 70-200 f2.8, 1/1000, f3.2, ISO 6400

VHSL Wrestling State Championship

Went out and covered the Virginia High School League 5A/6A Wrestling Championship a few weeks ago. Wrestling has always been challenging to me because of how fast and random the movements are. Here are a few of the photos I took. Enjoy.

Studio Shoot with Emmy

Back in the studio with Emmy for some white seamless photos. Most were black and what but did a few color photos as well.  Enjoy.

Fitness Shoot

I've been working on using more creative lighting recently and tried some out recently on a fitness shoot I did with Jamie. Here are a few of the photos from the shoot.

Shoot with Emmy

Going along with the last blog here are a few more photos from the shoot I did with Emmy. Overall I was happy with the shoot other than the few issues I brought up in the last post.

Tip Of The Day

Tip of the day... If you want to do a shoot at sunset make sure you actually know when sunset is.

Here's one from a concept I've been working on. There's a lot of problems with the image but I still like where its heading. The idea was to do the same idea (her jumping) but with the sunset in the background.

I messed up because I thought the sunset was at a certain time but I was off and was about 2 hours early. On top of that it ended up being much colder (about 36 degrees) and very windy and she got way too cold for her to stay in the dress till sunset. The plan was to shoot with the sun setting (so it was darker) so I only brought a single Profoto B2 to freeze her in the air.

The problem arose because it was still so bright out I couldn't get a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action (without flash) without the back of her dress being completely in shadow and dark. The second problem was (again since I thought it would be darker) I couldn't get enough power out of the single B2 head to fill in the shadows on her dress and leg and maintain a fast enough shutter to freeze the action (hints the movement in her feet) while keeping the exposure correct.

If I did this again during the day with the sun so bright, I would break out several of my bigger heads and just overpower the sun and use flash and HSS to freeze the action.

Studio Shoot with Corissa

Worked with a new model the other day and was really happy with the way the photos turned out. Here are a few of the photos from the shoot I did with Corissa. 

Hockey Update

The Norfolk Admirals season is still underway and with that I'm still covering many of the games. One of the challenges with shooting the Admirals is there is only one photo hole and it is barely big enough to fit the 70-200 f2.8. On top of that it is normally occupied by one of the other photographers. Luckily for me the other night it was open and I gave it a shot (pun intended). Here are a few photos from "ice level."

Studio Shoot with Jennifer

Did a studio shoot with Jennifer the other day. I've done a lot of white seamless in the past but since upgrade my lighting I have found the results are much better and much more consistent. Here are a few of the photos from the shoot.

Getting it Right In Camera

Fair warning, this is going to be more of a rant. Recently I have seen what I feel is a disturbing increase in photographers making comments along the lines of "Ill just fix it in [insert editing software]." This is a terrible mentality to have. As a photographer it is imperative to get the photo as close to "perfect" in camera as you can get. This includes everything from exposure to composition and lighting. 

Now you might be thinking to yourself "He's just anti-Lightroom." On the contrary Im the exact opposite. Im a huge fan of Lightroom, Photoshop and other editing programs. With that being said Im a huge believer of using editing software to spice up and enhance photos,.

You can always lean on LR and PS to save you and fix your mistakes, or you could learn the how the exposure triangle and the Sunny 16 rule work and how to apply them so you don't have to rely on LR and PS to fix your mistakes before you even get a chance to spice the photos up and make them even better.

For an example if you're in a low light situation no matter what you HAVE to expose the image correctly. Even if that means pushing your ISO. A properly exposed high ISO image will look cleaner than a low ISO image that is underexposed and recovered in LR or PS.

On the flip side if you overexpose and the area is white you wont be able to save it because there is no details to recover. 

Yes there are always situations where you don’t get everything right in camera and you have to save the image using LR or PS but that should be the exception not the rule.

Recent Photo Shoots

Another short post but wanted to share some photos from a few recent shoots I've done. Enjoy.

Profoto B2 TTL

Did a shoot about two weeks ago outdoor at sunset and I wanted to see how good the Profoto B2 TTL was in low light. Needless to say it performed fantastic. First shot was pretty much dead on exposure wise. Just had to do some minor tweaking to get the background to be the exposure I wanted it to be. Here are a few of the photos. Enjoy.

Happy New Year

Wanted to wish everyone a Happy New Year. I also want to thank all the amazing people and organizations I worked with in 2016. Thank you for all the support and I look forward to working with everyone in the future. 

Holiday Lights

Wanted to do something with Christmas lights so I set up my black background and hung strings of Christmas lights on the backdrop. Its not the most original idea but I still like how they came out. Enjoy.

New Lighting

As an early Christmas gift to myself I picked up a Profoto B2 AirTTL lighting kit. First impressions of the Profoto B2 is it's absolutely incredible. The compact size, features, build quality, and functionality are amazing. Ill be doing a full review in the future but for now here are a few photos I've taken using the Profoto B2 system. Enjoy. 

VHSL Football State Championship

Braved the cold over the weekend and drove up to Hampton University for the Virginia High School League 5A and 6A State Football Championships. Stone Bridge and Highland Springs played for the 5A championship and Westfield and Oscar Smith played for the 6A championship.

Even though it was pretty cold it was still nice to get out and shoot some football during the day. Here are a few photos from the Stone Bridge vs Highland Springs game.

Norfolk Admirals vs Reading Royals

Went and covered another Admirals' game over the weekend and the big story of the night was the Admirals had a new head coach. Unfortunately the Admirals lost both games but here are a few of the photos from the game. Enjoy.

Portrait Shots

While Im trying to get outside and do some more location shoots before the weather gets too cold I've been doing quite a bit of studio work lately. Here's some of the recent portrait I've done. Enjoy.

NCAA D1 Field Hockey National Championship

Covered the NCAA Division I Field Hockey Championship over the weekend. Semifinals were on Friday afternoon with the Delaware vs North Carolina Championship game on Sunday. Delaware ended up upsetting North Carolina 3-2. Here are a few of the photos from the Championship game. Enjoy.