Monday night was the championship game of the UCBAC (Upper Chesapeake Bay Athletic Conference) Boy’s Basketball. It was being held at Harford Community College.

I was there on assignment for The Examiner. I had never been to the HCC gym, so did not know if there would be any place to mount my strobes, so I decided to leave them home, and shoot ambient. With that in mind I loaded my camera bag with my 85 f/1.8 and 135 f/2.0 lenses.

Surprisingly the lighting in the gym wasn’t too bad (as far as gymnasiums go). My camera settings were ISO 1000; f/2.0; 1/500.

The Examiner wanted images of Aberdeen’s two superstars — Devon Saddler and Devon Branch. Devon Saddler’s father saw me waiting for the Girl’s championship game to finish and was telling me how the two Devon’s are slam dunking machines. He then showed me his T-Shirt that had images of both players with “Pick Your Poison” written across the top. I knew I was in for an exciting game.

Normally I like to use my 135 lens, but with the information of them loving to go strong to the basket, I switched to my 85 and setup camp for the game sitting at the corner of the baseline and sideline.

It didn’t take long and the fireworks started. I think Devon Saddler had four in the first half. I was in perfect position to capture the slam dunks and with a clean background to boot!

These two images above are a good example of why people have fits with white balance in a gymnasium. Just look at the wall in the background. Same camera settings, but they produced two different colors. Gym lights are generally fluorescent and actually cycle at 60Hz, so the light output is not constant. The human eye doesn’t notice this pulsating wave of output, but the camera sure does. The best way I have found to get the majority of your shots correct from the get-go is to shoot a gray card at 1/60 second, which allows the lights to complete a full cycle, thus giving you the average light color to use for your custom white balance.

Aberdeen went on to win 66-49 over Elkton which was Aberdeen’s fifth UCBAC championship, which just happens to be the total number of years the UCBAC has been in existence.

Saturday I spent the entire day at the 5th annual Mount Mat Madness tournament. This is one of the toughest high school wrestling tournaments on the east coast. For anyone who loves the sport of wrestling, this is a must-see event.

I was on-hand to shoot some key semi-finals matches as well as all of the championship finals matches.

The lighting inside of the athletic center at CCBC is nothing spectacular, so I brought my trusty speedlight setup with me.

A very nice balcony along one side of the building provided a great location for me to mount my two speedlights. Using superclamps, I could easily mount them to the railing on the balcony.

I set my two Canon 580EXs at 1/4 +0.3 power; 105mm zoom and pointed the lights slightly inward towards the center of the mat and aiming at the far end of the mat. You can see a view from the balcony as they were setting up the mat for the finals. Once the lights were in place, it was time to head down matside to get my camera settings worked out.

I snapped a few shots of people walking across the mat and by checking my histogram on the camera, determined ISO 400; f/5.0; 1/250s was pretty close. I set my WB to daylight and was ready to go.

The finals did not disappoint — there was some fantastic wrestling and I was able to watch it on my belly at the edge of the mat. I’m already looking forward to MMM-VI!

I had an assignment to shoot the Hampton at UMBC basketball game at the RAC Arena yesterday. I’ve been to this arena in the past and know it is as dimly lit as the average high school gym — boo. Usually college events have better lighting, but this is not the case at UMBC.

I brought two flashes with me to mount to the railings on the upper level to add a bit more light to the scene. Here is a shot from the other end of the court to show my setup.

I set the flashes to 1/4 power and 70mm zoom. I aimed each towards the center of the court. With this setup, I was able to shoot at ISO 200; f/2.8; 1/250.

UMBC came away with the win 83-65.

I shot a basketball on my pergo floor in my basement. Overhead I used a Canon 580EX flash at 1/8 power with shipping tube over flash head to create the spotlight look. I positioned a second 580EX at 1/32 power on floor with snoot pointed directly at ball to give a bit of fill to the lower half of ball.

I was quite pleased with the way this turned out. By looking at the image itself, you would think it was taken on a basketball court floor, rather than in my basement.

Below shows how the shot was setup: