Shooting Sports indoors

[John Gerard]

Hi all,

I got the Sony FX7 HDV camera over Christmas. I shot about 2hrs of outdoor video and it looks really great. :-) Very good quality even in creating a SD DVD in Adobe Encore cs3 from HDV footage. I just tried for the first time with this camera shooting tennis indoors in a big warehouse basicly. I think the lighting is Halogen or something. It is yellow and some pinkish lights. The video does not look very good. The camera adjusted the gain pretty high and IMHO anything with high gain looks terrible.

So, I wanted to start a discussion on how others shoot sports indoors. I have shot a lot of stills of tennis indoors and I can only use a shutter speed of maybe 150-250 at the highest to come out. Some of the shots are a little dark but Photoshop lets me lighten the photos a lot so this helps.

I probably know more about still photography than I do Video. I am using premiere Pro CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended. Can I do the same thing with the Video footage? And how do I do that?

Also, I want to use a high shutter speed to get good still footage of the video but the lighting in the tennis club will not allow for that. Or any indoor lighting for that matter. What is recomended in the way of settings and/or a place I can go to to read up on this stuff. Do I just use a slow shutter speed of 1/30th or 1/60th and not worry about freeze frames, etc.?

Thanks,

John Gerard

[Tripp Woelfel]

Originally Posted by John Gerard

So, I wanted to start a discussion on how others shoot sports indoors. I have shot a lot of stills of tennis indoors and I can only use a shutter speed of maybe 150-250 at the highest to come out. Some of the shots are a little dark but Photoshop lets me lighten the photos a lot so this helps.

I shoot motorsport outdoors and mostly at night. When the light's available, I'll shoot as fast as 1/500, but mostly at 1/250. When it's dark, I'll drop down to 1/60.

Originally Posted by John Gerard

I probably know more about still photography than I do Video. I am using premiere Pro CS3 and Photoshop CS3 Extended. Can I do the same thing with the Video footage? And how do I do that?

Welcome to the world of color grading. PP has similar tools to P-shop like levels. If you just want to do the basics, the Fast Color Corrector is a good tool. It's not hard. Once you get a look you're happy with, you can copy and past it onto all the clips in the timeline where the lighting conditions are the same. Makes it pretty quick.

Originally Posted by John Gerard

Also, I want to use a high shutter speed to get good still footage of the video but the lighting in the tennis club will not allow for that. Or any indoor lighting for that matter. What is recomended in the way of settings and/or a place I can go to to read up on this stuff. Do I just use a slow shutter speed of 1/30th or 1/60th and not worry about freeze frames, etc.?

That will completely depend upon your situation. You might want to go down to the club and experiment. That's probably your best way to figure it out.

BTW... You should be able to white balance under those lights and get a good setting. If the colors vary from one light bank to another, you'll have to devise a compromise WB setting so that when the light skews the color it goes in a direction that's the least objectionable.

[Alec Moreno]

1. Avoid auto gain.

2. Avoid 1/30 shutter speed. (1/60 is the slowest that I use, especially for fast-moving sports.) I use 1/30 only for overly dark lighting emergencies.

Alec Moreno
http://www.1Day1ShotProductions.com

[John Gerard]

With the poor quality of lighting in the Tennis Club I can't even use 250th shutter speed. Out doors in full sun is the best that I have found so far, but sometimes I have to shoot indoors. With a very high shutter speed I can latter freeze frame and step through the swing and have a really steady good look. At 1/60th the video looks ok depending if I let the camera gain up or not, but the Racquet head speed is to fast for stepping through a tennis swing one frame at a time. Also the highspeed field (250 fields per second) setting on my FX7 need at least a 250th shutter speed.

John Gerard

Originally Posted by Tripp Woelfel

I shoot motorsport outdoors and mostly at night. When the light's available, I'll shoot as fast as 1/500, but mostly at 1/250. When it's dark, I'll drop down to 1/60.


Welcome to the world of color grading. PP has similar tools to P-shop like levels. If you just want to do the basics, the Fast Color Corrector is a good tool. It's not hard. Once you get a look you're happy with, you can copy and past it onto all the clips in the timeline where the lighting conditions are the same. Makes it pretty quick.


That will completely depend upon your situation. You might want to go down to the club and experiment. That's probably your best way to figure it out.

BTW... You should be able to white balance under those lights and get a good setting. If the colors vary from one light bank to another, you'll have to devise a compromise WB setting so that when the light skews the color it goes in a direction that's the least objectionable.

[John Gerard]

With the poor quality of lighting in the Tennis Club I can't even use 250th shutter speed. Out doors in full sun is the best that I have found so far, but sometimes I have to shoot indoors. With a very high shutter speed I can latter freeze frame and step through the swing and have a really steady good look. At 1/60th the video looks ok depending if I let the camera gain up or not, but the Racquet head speed is to fast for stepping through a tennis swing one frame at a time. Also the highspeed field (250 fields per second) setting on my FX7 need at least a 250th shutter speed.

John Gerard

Originally Posted by Tripp Woelfel

I shoot motorsport outdoors and mostly at night. When the light's available, I'll shoot as fast as 1/500, but mostly at 1/250. When it's dark, I'll drop down to 1/60.


Welcome to the world of color grading. PP has similar tools to P-shop like levels. If you just want to do the basics, the Fast Color Corrector is a good tool. It's not hard. Once you get a look you're happy with, you can copy and past it onto all the clips in the timeline where the lighting conditions are the same. Makes it pretty quick.


That will completely depend upon your situation. You might want to go down to the club and experiment. That's probably your best way to figure it out.

BTW... You should be able to white balance under those lights and get a good setting. If the colors vary from one light bank to another, you'll have to devise a compromise WB setting so that when the light skews the color it goes in a direction that's the least objectionable.

[John Gerard]

I would probably agree with that statement. Being more familar with still photography when it come to shutter speed 1/60th I found the bare minimum for hand hold shooting stills and you need a fairly still subject. Although one can get away with a little artistic blur in the right scene. Or use the pan technique which I have used a couple of times. I guess that is one reason video at 1/60th of a second does not look blurry is because one is usually panning with the subject. In my case of tennis video taping the slow mo/advance frame by frame viewing or the video; the slow shutter speed really shows up in the persons swing. It sounds like there is no way to adjust for this other than to shoot out doors. It seems that Photoshop allow me much greater leeway to adjust the exposure after the factthan in PP. It there a way to do this in PP to the same degree? I use CS3 so does PP CS4 do a better job?

John Gerard

Originally Posted by Alec Moreno

1. Avoid auto gain.

2. Avoid 1/30 shutter speed. (1/60 is the slowest that I use, especially for fast-moving sports.) I use 1/30 only for overly dark lighting emergencies.

Alec Moreno
http://www.1Day1ShotProductions.com

[John Gerard]

I would probably agree with that statement. Being more familar with still photography when it come to shutter speed 1/60th I found the bare minimum for hand hold shooting stills and you need a fairly still subject. Although one can get away with a little artistic blur in the right scene. Or use the pan technique which I have used a couple of times. I guess that is one reason video at 1/60th of a second does not look blurry is because one is usually panning with the subject. In my case of tennis video taping the slow mo/advance frame by frame viewing or the video; the slow shutter speed really shows up in the persons swing. It sounds like there is no way to adjust for this other than to shoot out doors. It seems that Photoshop allow me much greater leeway to adjust the exposure after the factthan in PP. It there a way to do this in PP to the same degree? I use CS3 so does PP CS4 do a better job?

John Gerard

Originally Posted by Alec Moreno

1. Avoid auto gain.

2. Avoid 1/30 shutter speed. (1/60 is the slowest that I use, especially for fast-moving sports.) I use 1/30 only for overly dark lighting emergencies.

Alec Moreno
http://www.1Day1ShotProductions.com