Nature Light Photo

How to Succeed in Business Without Trying

Last night, I was invited by a friend to see her perform in a play at the King High School where I work. I was honored to have been asked. It isn’t every day that a teacher is asked to watch a student do what they love.

It was a fun evening. I realized that we have some very talented and passionate people on our campus. The acting was good, the singing was good, and the photography was fun. OH! That last part was about me.

Shooting in VERY low light and getting the camera to capture images that were usable was a challenge, especially as I was kind of stuck in a seat and couldn’t get a variety of angles. Also, flash photography was not allowed. Did any of that stop me? Noooooo.

Using the 70-200 f2.8 wide open on aperture priority  with the D300′s ISO set to auto (essentially 1600) yielded some good quality images. I never cease to be amazed at the way the D300 handles the relatively high ISO of 1600. It just seems to take the image and remove the noise. Result? Good, usable images. You can view all of the images here: Nature Light Photo Galleries.

As for the kids: like I said, they were passionate about what they were doing. Not all of them were great actors or great singers or great dancers, but they got up on stage and performed. You could tell that they loved what they were doing and the were proud to do it. They didn’t care about what others thought or how they compared to others, they just did it. It made me realize that to succeed in anything, you have to do the same thing.

Almost as a side note, a parent approached me asking if I was Mr. Williamson. After confirming her suspicions and steeling myself for the onslaught of “I want to talk to you about how my kid is doing in your class…”, she introduced herself as the mother of the lead in the play and she wanted to let me know that I was her son’s favorite teacher. I had her son in my class THREE years ago!!! I didn’t even think he remembered me. To tell the truth, I was TOTALLY not ready for that and very pleasantly surprised.

Like I said, to succeed you have to be passionate about what you are doing. The results might surprise you.

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Senior/Staff Basketball Game

I was asked to shoot a charity basketball game between the seniors and the staff to benefit scleroderma victims. I like this kind of event. The kids have fun and so does the staff. Plus, it goes to a good cause. Here are a few images from the evening and a short analysis of the problems and possible solutions follows that.

You can see all of the images at The Nature Light Photography Gallery.

What Did I Learn?

This was a new challenge. I have never shot sports inside before. Water polo and swimming? Yes. Softball? Yes. Rodeo? Yes. But never indoor basketball.

I have read where the lighting situation inside most high school gyms is difficult. JEEZ!! Is that true!!!! My plan was to take my SB600 and shoot with a fairly fast piece of glass, the 70-200 f2/8. It worked. Kind of.

While the flash did freeze the action fairly well, focus was a bit of a problem. The lens wouldn’t lock on to subjects well and fast enough. I think this is due to the very low light conditions and the difficulty of following the subject.

I basically planted myself under one basket and shot from a seated position. The length of the lens made it difficult to keep the subject in the viewfinder as they came closer to my end of the court and the proximity of the players made good composition difficult. You can see my results here.

You can see the limited field of view and difficulty of composition.

I brought my 50mm f1.4 also, but it limited my ability to isolate the players or what I wanted to shoot. I also had the D70 kit lens, a 18-70mm f3.5-4.5, but I didn’t think that it was fast enough. But I wasn’t getting the shots I wanted or needed, so I tried it.

I was surprised. It focused quickly, the flash froze the subjects well, and the images were usable!! The subjects weren’t too close for a good composition and I could compose fairly well.

With a wider lens, the composition is better.

The only problem was that the on camera flash left some weird shadows behind the subjects. It’s not the lens, but me not utilizing the flash well.

Harsh shadows caused by on camera flash.

I think I really need a better flash, something like a SB900 and some sort of remote to fire it off from a distance. I have seen sports shooters utilize two flashes mounted on stands placed at the corners of the floor and triggered by remotes such as Radio Poppers or Pocket Wizards. I would like to try that set-up next time.

The bottom line is that next time I WILL get the flash off of the camera and try to get two flashes that I can work together to improve the lighting situation.

All-in-all, I think it was a good shoot. OH, and the staff won!!!

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