does school gymnasium lighting flicker?

[alfa147x]

So today i shot my first basketball game today and when i look at all my burst shots taken at 1\1000 of a second the colors look different in each shot of the burst
So im wondering do the lights in the gyms flicker at a high speed?

~Alfa147x

 

[jpeyton]

Can you post a couple examples?

Leave the EXIF data intact.

How was the lighting? HS gymnasiums usually require a fast prime telephoto (f/2.8 and faster) plus high ISOs (800-1600) to get good exposures, unless you have a good flash or strobe setup. But you don't need such a high shutter speed; 1/400 or 1/500 would have frozen the action just fine, giving you more leeway with your aperture and ISO.

 

[alfa147x]

ill post a burst in a few, give me a sec

 

[corkyg]

If the gym has sodium or mercury vapor lights, there can be flicker in some high spoeed photo applications.

Flicker

 

[alfa147x]

Originally posted by: jpeyton
Can you post a couple examples?

Leave the EXIF data intact.

How was the lighting? HS gymnasiums usually require a fast prime telephoto (f/2.8 and faster) plus high ISOs (800-1600) to get good exposures, unless you have a good flash or strobe setup. But you don't need such a high shutter speed; 1/400 or 1/500 would have frozen the action just fine, giving you more leeway with your aperture and ISO.

http://flickr.com/photos/aten/tags/nghsbasketball/

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: alfa147x
http://flickr.com/photos/aten/tags/nghsbasketball/

As corky pointed out above, there can be flicker, if the gymnasium uses a certain type of lighting.

There are a few things you can do to get better exposures. First, increase your shutter speed; 1/1000 isn't necessary, and lower shutter speeds might expose more evenly. Try 1/200-1/500, and see what gets you the best results in that lighting.

Second, I would shoot at angles that avoid capturing the windows. The bright light entering from the windows can trick your meter into underexposing the basketball players. You can also avoid this by using a spot meter, or by using exposure lock.

Also, don't keep your white balance set to Auto. Try different settings; depending on the type of light they use, tungsten white balance might produce better results for you.

 

[alfa147x]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: alfa147x
http://flickr.com/photos/aten/tags/nghsbasketball/

Second, I would shoot at angles that avoid capturing the windows. The bright light entering from the windows can trick your meter into underexposing the basketball players. You can also avoid this by using a spot meter, or by using exposure lock.

i was running it in manual so i dont think metering would be a problem
and the windows the rest of the games will be in a gym without windows


ill try out the slower shutters and manual set the WB

thanks!

 

[GoingUp]

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[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: Gobadgrs
I shot a game on wednesday and also had problems with the crappy light. I was shooting around 1/500 of a sec and F2.8 at ISO 1600.

Some improvement needs to be made, but I'm not quite sure how.

http://www.cheddarcheesemedia.com/basketball/

In general, you'll need to post-process to adjust the white-balance, brightness/contrast, and hue/saturation. The walls look green, the colors are muted, and the pictures seem flat. But that's often the case when dealing with sub-par gymnasium lighting; you're usually required to do some adjustments to make good quality shots.

You shot all those pictures in landscape mode; basketball pictures benefit from portrait mode shots. A lot of your pictures have the kids cut off at the torsos, legs, or feet; something you want to avoid. Capturing a group of players on a basketball court makes the photo distracting; it's better to just isolate the person with the ball (and maybe the closest defender too), and shooting in portrait helps you isolate better.

Kick up the exposure compensation a little too. And you can avoid having to adjust white balance in post-processing if you set it beforehand to match the gymnasium lighting; it should get rid of that green-tint.

 

[gsellis]

It could be worse, you could shoot video and have to both white balance and post edit the stinking transformer humm out 😉

 

[montanafan]

Yep, as others have said, the lights cycle. The best thing you can do is set a custom white balance. Most say to use a grey card, but I just use a white sheet of paper.

Photo before custom WB
Shot of a white sheet of paper
After setting custom WB

Oh, and that last one was after some PP, but not to take out the blue.

Just increase ISO to 800-1600 and lower your shutter speed to 400-640 and see how that looks.


Gobadgrs,

Your settings and results look okay to me. Those could be fixed up easily with a little PP. The only thing I'd suggest is to shoot more in portrait orientation. You could give custom WB a try too, but like I said, these aren't that far off and can be fixed in post-processing.