Basketball pictures - Rockets vs Raptors using S602Z

I went to watch the first home game of Rockets last Saturday. That was so exciting, lots of fun.
About 250 pictures were taken, I am happy with some of them.

http://www.pbase.com/jim_zhao/basketball_houston_vs_toronto

Any comments are welcome.

Hope to take more and better ones next time watching Jordan!

Jim

You are soooooo lucky. We can't get any NBA basketball in Belgium (unless you pay 40$ a month for 2 games per week. HA!) Thank God I get to go to the States once in a while.

Some nice actions shots there. I like the one where you show Vince Carter's poor free throw technique (look at his feet!). And it looks like you just missed Yao Ming's dunk - damn shutter lag!

You don't see it that well on tv, but these pros are incredibly quick, aren't they? Tough to get good pictures that way. I got to see Allen Iverson and Eddie Jones go at each other in a playoff game two years ago. Unfortunately I didn't have my digicam yet at the time. Next time I go I will definitely take it with me. Are you allowed to bring cameras into the stadium or do you have to hide it?

I look forward to your MJ shots. At his age you should be able to get good shots even at low shutter speeds. LOL. Chances are he won't play enough minutes for you to take a whole bunch of shots. Good luck. (BTW, I also think he used to be the greatest player ever.)

Pieter

jim_zhao said:

I went to watch the first home game of Rockets last Saturday. That
was so exciting, lots of fun.
About 250 pictures were taken, I am happy with some of them.

http://www.pbase.com/jim_zhao/basketball_houston_vs_toronto

Any comments are welcome.

Hope to take more and better ones next time watching Jordan!

Jim

Click to expand...

Jim,

Great shots. How far away were you in the stands? What was your secret to freezing the action? Manual focus and flash? I'm new to the 602 and hope to use it for high school sports pics.

Hi, Pieter, thanks for your nice comments. Yes, I did not catch Yao Ming's dunk very well, but actually his two other shots were so nice, far better than his dunk (but, well, that was his first dunk in NBA), but I sat in one side and only focused this side, not his brilliant places.

I am allowed to bring my camera in after being checked, I also brought my great monopod.

Unfortunately, my ticket is worse when I gonna watch MJ next time. I spent the same money but got the worse position, probably more fans want to see him. I agree with youl, he is the best all the time. But this might be the last season for him in NBA. Sad, can not miss it!

Regards,

Jim

Pieter Gordebeke said:

Some nice actions shots there. I like the one where you show Vince
Carter's poor free throw technique (look at his feet!). And it
looks like you just missed Yao Ming's dunk - damn shutter lag!

You don't see it that well on tv, but these pros are incredibly
quick, aren't they? Tough to get good pictures that way. I got to
see Allen Iverson and Eddie Jones go at each other in a playoff
game two years ago. Unfortunately I didn't have my digicam yet at
the time. Next time I go I will definitely take it with me. Are you
allowed to bring cameras into the stadium or do you have to hide it?

I look forward to your MJ shots. At his age you should be able to
get good shots even at low shutter speeds. LOL. Chances are he
won't play enough minutes for you to take a whole bunch of shots.
Good luck. (BTW, I also think he used to be the greatest player
ever.)

Pieter

jim_zhao said:

I went to watch the first home game of Rockets last Saturday. That
was so exciting, lots of fun.
About 250 pictures were taken, I am happy with some of them.

http://www.pbase.com/jim_zhao/basketball_houston_vs_toronto

Any comments are welcome.

Hope to take more and better ones next time watching Jordan!

Jim

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Hi, PhotoAl, thanks for your nice comments. I sat very far in the stands, probably 2-3 meters away from the top position in the statium, since I could only afford the second to lowest price.

I hope to have any secrets, so that I can share with you, but I am also a newbie. Thanks for this great site, before I went to the game, I searched the whole site and got some tips and suggestions.

Basically, my shooting experience that night was as followed:

Always Auto focus, only used external flash for several of them, since I mainly used continuous shooting in order to catch actions. Initially I chose to use P mode, about 1/200, f2.8, and ISO400; later I switched to shutter

priority, about 1/640, f2.8, ISO400. Now from the results, I perfer the P mode I used, seems more light. I used a monopod, great help. About post processing, I used photoshop 7.0, most of the pictures were cropped in order to make figures larger, but noise seems evident in some of them, unpreventable?

Good luck with your sports shootings. Hope to see yours sometime.

Regards,

Jim

PhotoAl said:

Jim,

Great shots. How far away were you in the stands? What was your
secret to freezing the action? Manual focus and flash? I'm new to
the 602 and hope to use it for high school sports pics.

Click to expand...

Nice pics. That is one instance where a greater zoom is nice. You'd have been able to get much closer shots of all the beautiful pom pom babes..

jim_zhao said:

I went to watch the first home game of Rockets last Saturday. That
was so exciting, lots of fun.
About 250 pictures were taken, I am happy with some of them.

http://www.pbase.com/jim_zhao/basketball_houston_vs_toronto

Any comments are welcome.

Hope to take more and better ones next time watching Jordan!

Jim

Click to expand...

--
http://www.pbase.com/mkaplan

Visit the S602Z FAQ:
http://www.marius.org/fuji602faq.php

Thanks for your comments. I agree with you about a longer zoom,
but now just do not have budget to buy a tele lens.

Michael Kaplan said:

jim_zhao said:

I went to watch the first home game of Rockets last Saturday. That
was so exciting, lots of fun.
About 250 pictures were taken, I am happy with some of them.

http://www.pbase.com/jim_zhao/basketball_houston_vs_toronto

Any comments are welcome.

Hope to take more and better ones next time watching Jordan!

Jim

Click to expand...

--
http://www.pbase.com/mkaplan

Visit the S602Z FAQ:
http://www.marius.org/fuji602faq.php

Click to expand...

Nice pics. What were some of the numbers on the pictures? (ISO & Shutter).

I took my new 602 to my daughter's basketball game and had alot of trouble stop actioning under the gym lights... Flash is not going to do it from the distance (and poor form close up in a bball game).

I was shooting at 800 ISO and getting about 1/40 sec....

Some nice pics of a subject we don't get to see too often on this site. I like the colours and the clarity.

BTW, I think DSCF110202082 would make a great spot the ball competition!!

Nick