Longhorn Volleyball…NCAA Tournament
NCAA Volleyball Tournament Second Round Action - Texas vs. Michigan State
I was saving this so I could post it in honor of the Longhorns making the final four in the NCAA tournament but…they lost in the regional final over the weekend. Illinois managed to win and will face USC on Thursday.
Here it is:
Just for fun, here are some pics from the University of Texas Longhorns vs. Michigan State match in the second round of the 2011 NCAA Tournament. I hadn’t ever brought my camera to Gregory Gym but decided to for this last home match of the year. I used only my 17-40 f/4L (“long” lenses are not allowed) and took most pictures from my seat. Right away I discovered that the color temperature is not consistent throughout the place — something I hadn’t noticed until I took pictures — but I didn’t attempt to fix the color at all. It’s amazing how our eyes just adjust to the situation but the camera cannot. Most (all?) of the images were shot in manual mode at f/4, 1/500s, and at ISO 3200 since I didn’t have the benefit of using any strobes like the official photographer (he has four strobes mounted in the rafters). I chose the fast shutter speed in hopes of freezing the action reasonably well. For shots in between the fast action (preparing for service for example) I could have switched to a smaller aperture and slower shutter but I was mostly there to enjoy watching the match and didn’t want to fiddle with settings. “Photography” wasn’t number one on the agenda for the night. The pictures are by no means awesome but in any case recorded a fun evening watching volleyball with my girls.
Of course we cheer for the Longhorns…for now. However, my alma mater (Illinois — the #3 seed) is still in the tournament and should they meet Texas in the finals we’ll be behind the Fighting Illini (we already have our tickets!). My kids know they will be grounded if they choose to favor the Longhorns 🙂
Warmups
Team Introductions
Michigan State Serves To Begin The Match
Longhorns Serve For Set Point
Check Out That High Toss On The Jump Serve
Missed Block (But Still Looks Cool)
Longhorns Celebrate Winning The Second Set
And finally, what happens when your shutter is open and the stadium photographer triggers the strobes in the rafters.
Overexposed...
Rain, Rain, Don’t Go Away
Splash! 190mm, f/2.8, 1/125s, ISO 1600
Finally some rain in Austin. I grabbed a bunch of shots of my son playing in the rain but I decided to post some faceless, could-be-any-young-boy pictures. I’m sure that many children in Austin took advantage of the rain to do what boys like to do – splash in the water in mud. For a time there was some nasty lightning so I had to have the kids come under the cover of the porch for a while. Fortunately the lightning cleared up and much fun was had again.
The black and white shot was processed in Lightroom — simply playing with sliders until I liked it. I brought the color shot into Photoshop and put a little more work into it. I cloned out a few things and used a series of curves and some sharpening in an attempt to enhance the falling rain and the drops rolling off the raincoat. I’d like the falling rain to stand out a bit more but simply did not want to put more work into it (things are busy around here). The clouds were thick and there was very little light so I cranked up the ISO for these shots. There isn’t that much noise in the shots but what little there was I decided to keep and didn’t use any noise reduction.
135mm, f/2.8, 1/125s, ISO 1600
The Next Generation
The Next Generation 24mm, f/2.8, 1/125s, ISO 3200
We had a great bunch of little ones (three of whom are my children) gathered at a recent graduation party. I grabbed a hastily posed shot of some of them who happened to be playing near me.
I shot this using shutter priority and on-camera flash. I started out the night shooting with some off-camera lighting but it really got unwieldy due to try to take shots from all different directions (with no assistant). There was nothing but open sky above (and walls were too far behind me) so fixed bounce flashes was out of the question. I also tried a second remote flash for additional light and backlight but wasn’t satisfied with the results I was getting so I abandoned that. If I had the ability to bounce that flash I likely would’ve been happier with the second flash. Sometimes I use a 3′ sync chord and handhold my flash to get it off-camera but my cord went AWOL for a few weeks (it has since been located).
Since I was casually recording the event as a favor I wasn’t under pressure (except my own) to have “perfect” shots. This picture — and most of the rest — turned out fine IMO. Blue hour was just ending so I was able to retain some color in the sky even with the fast-ish shutter speed. A back light or rim light would have been really nice to separate the heads from the background but this was a quick candid afterall.
My camera was a Canon 5D mkii so high ISO was an available lever. I shot most of the evening using an ISO between 1600-4000. In the RAW files there is some noise — especially in the underexposed areas — but Noiseware is great at fixing that up. I can’t recommend Noiseware enough although I hear good things about programs like Noise Ninja and Topaz DeNoise too.
Lee Family Benefit Concert
Singing, Lee Family Benefit 160mm, f/3.5, 1/125s, ISO 4000
Some of our family and friends are acquainted with a family in Alabama which lost both their home and father in the recent outburst of tornadoes. A friend had the idea of putting on a couple of benefit concerts to raise funds for this family so over the last two weeks many people have put forth a lot of effort to organize and prepare for the events. More information at http://helpthelees.com.
There’s another concert tonight in Fredericksburg, TX. See the above link for more information.
Evan Tuuk, Chopin Waltz in C Sharp Minor Op 64 No 2 200mm, f/4, 1/125s, ISO 4000
Photographical stuff…The lighting was a challenge. On the one hand the stage was very well lit for an indoor venue. However, the dynamic range was huge and it was tough to strike a balance between the spotlight on the piano with the light on the singers. I really needed an aperture somewhere around f/8 or above to get the singers and piano in focus but I also wanted a decent shutter speed to avoid motion blur (you know how musicians sway and get all dramatic 🙂 ). I shot half in manual mode and half in aperture priority and tried to keep my shutter 1/125s or faster. An aperture of f/2.8 was good enough to barely keep the singers all in focus so I tried to stay around f/4. High ISO was a must…used ISO 4000 most of the night (the 5D mkii does a great job in that range). Processing was pretty much cropping, spot exposure adjustments in Lightroom, and noise reduction with Noiseware.
Michael Tuuk Photography 