D300 BB Pix..

[Aqualung]

Tonight I took my D300 out for the first time and tried shooting basketball. This wasn't our normal gym, it's a prep school in town. Low ceilings and the lighting doesn't 'seem' too bad.

I tried to vary the shots, ISO, shutter speed, sharpening, saturation, etc. I did NOT worry about white balance at all. I set a custom one for one part of the court, tried Auto in others, or shot across the court w/ the custom, knowing that it would be off, just too lazy.

I think as someone mentioned in another post, I'm going to tone saturation down, and either go to no sharpening or keep it low (+3). But I think High ISO NR=Normal is definitely de rigeur for ISO 1600 and more.

The grip felt really nice. It's great having the direction pad on the grip, too.

A nicety is that when you set a WB, i.e. incandescent, and you hit the sub-dial the values are A1, A2, or B1, B2 (Amber=warm or Blue=cool). Much more logical.

The following pix are straight OoC, just resized. Not even straightened or anything....I even saved as straight .jpg (vs. "Save for Web) to preserve the EXIF data for ya....

I primarily shot in 9 pt AF, dynamic. I didn't try 51 point 3-D. One first impression, is that the shutter is real "light", i.e. it was very easy to fire off a LOT of pix, real easy. 6 vs. 5 FPS (D200) seems a lot more. I actually went to CL for some of the shots. I shot a variety of lenses, my 85, 35 & 50.

I'll be shooting some real games tomorrow and will focus on picture quality then. Hope these are useful.

1.
high ISO NR=off, sharpening=0, saturation=0
ExposureTime - 1/200 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Aperture priority
ISOSpeedRatings - 640
FocalLength - 85.00 mm
White Balance - Auto
Contrast - Normal

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2.
0 Sharpening, 0 high ISO NR
ExposureTime - 1/500 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Aperture priority
ISOSpeedRatings - 1000
FocalLength - 85.00 mm
White Balance - Manual
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - Normal

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3.
sharpening off, high iso NR off
ExposureTime - 1/640 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Aperture priority
ISOSpeedRatings - 1250
FocalLength - 85.00 mm
ExposureMode - Auto
White Balance - Manual
Saturation - Normal
Sharpness - Soft

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4.
sharpening off, high iso NR off
ExposureTime - 1/400 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Aperture priority
ISOSpeedRatings - 1600
FocalLength - 85.00 mm
ExposureMode - Auto
White Balance - Manual
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - Normal
Sharpness - Soft

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5.
ExposureTime - 1/640 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Manual control
ISOSpeedRatings - 1600
FocalLength - 85.00 mm
ExposureMode - Manual
White Balance - Auto
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - Normal
Sharpness - Soft

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6.
high ISO NR off, sharpening off
ExposureTime - 1/800 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Manual control
ISOSpeedRatings - 1250
FocalLength - 35.00 mm
ExposureMode - Manual
White Balance - Manual
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - Normal
Sharpness - Soft

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7.
high ISO NR=LOW, sharpening=5
ExposureTime - 1/640 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Manual control
ISOSpeedRatings - 1000
FocalLength - 50.00 mm
ExposureMode - Manual
White Balance - Manual
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - High
Sharpness - Normal

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8.
High ISO NR=HIGH, sharpening=5
ExposureTime - 1/640 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Manual control
ISOSpeedRatings - 1000
FocalLength - 50.00 mm
White Balance - Manual
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - High
Sharpness - Normal

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9.
high ISO NR=Normal, Sharpening=5, Saturation +2
ExposureTime - 1/640 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Manual control
ISOSpeedRatings - 1000
FocalLength - 50.00 mm
White Balance - Manual
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - High
Sharpness - Normal

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10.
High ISO NR=off, Sharpening=0, saturation=+2
ExposureTime - 1/640 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Manual control
ISOSpeedRatings - 1000
FocalLength - 50.00 mm
White Balance - Manual
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - High
Sharpness - Normal

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11.
high ISO NR=on, sharpening=3, saturation=+2
ExposureTime - 1/320 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Aperture priority
ISOSpeedRatings - 1600
FocalLength - 85.00 mm
White Balance - Manual
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - High
Sharpness - Normal

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12.
high ISO NR=on, Auto WB, sharpening=3, saturation=+2
ExposureTime - 1/400 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Aperture priority
ISOSpeedRatings - 1600
FocalLength - 85.00 mm
White Balance - Auto
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - High
Sharpness - Normal

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13.
high ISO NR=normal, sharpening=3, saturation=+2
ExposureTime - 1/1000 seconds
FNumber - 2.00
ExposureProgram - Aperture priority
ISOSpeedRatings - 1600
FocalLength - 85.00 mm
White Balance - Auto
Contrast - Normal
Saturation - High
Sharpness - Normal

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[raygun]

12 is my favorite. Was this out of the camera? Was it hand held also? It seems to stop the action and have great color and light. I'll have to drop the shutter speed back to 400 myself next time and cut way back on the NR as you did in 12.

 

[Harry Lavo]

Yeah, that's a nice shot.

Chris, looks like the camera has the right stuff, once you get it dialed in. I'm frustrated waiting, since BB doesn't start out here until a week from now. I'm passing on the football championship games because I have both personal and client financial work to do...but am chomping at the bit to get into a gymnasium again.

 

[Aqualung]

@raygun, yes, these are all straight out of the camera, I only re-sized for posting. Yup, all hand-held. The other ones are off (WB) as I only did a custom for one area of the gym and shot across it.

@Harry, our season doesn't start until the 11th, but my daughter's team is hosting a "jamboree" today so I'm gonna go shoot and work on the AF system. 'course, the game's at 9am, so no lighting issues.

 

[Gale]

Iso is working great:>))
Nice shots