On Friday I covered high school basketball for the first time this season. The paper sent me over to Canton, Ill. to shoot a portrait then cover Peoria Manual in the basketball tournament there. The gym where the tourney was held isn’t very well illuminated so I strobed it up. I had never strobed basketball with speedlights before coming into the game. I ended up sticking a couple Nikon SB-800s on light stands in the bleachers on each side and aimed them at the top of the key. On the stands each speedlight ended up being elevated about 10 feet above court level and were about 10 feet off the court perpendicular to the baseline. They were fired at 1/4th power at 70 mm zoom. That gave me an exposure of 1/250th of a second, f/2.8 at 400 ISO. I made it into the third quarter before I killed the batteries on one of them. Always remember to bring some extra batteries if you’re using speedlights.
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