Photographing in the Gym

01. PRINCIPLES PHOTOGRAPHING IN THE GYM

THE TRICKIEST LIGHTING OF ALL.

Gyms are deceptive. They seem light enough, but images are always dark or yellow. You can keep your camera in “sports mode”, but it slows the camera. This may result in images with inconsistent exposure.

INCREASE THE ISO

Low light situations need a higher ISO. Unless you are using a full-frame camera, try to keep the ISO to 1600 max.

OPEN THE APERTURE

Let as much light into the sensor as possible. Invest in what is called “fast glass.” This is any lens that has an aperture of 2.8 or wider.

STOP THE ACTION

Get that shutter speed up! 1/500 is a good place to start. And remember, the speed of the game is faster than warmups so account for that when fixing your settings.

WHITE BALANCE

Lighting in gyms tends to be very warm which means white balancing is super important to avoid yellow/orange saturated photos. Arrive early to try out different settings!

Photos still too warm? It’s an easy editing fix! Try both of these tricks! A photo which is overall too yellow is called a “color cast.”

Here are a couple of tricks to fix this in Photoshop:

Easy

1. Go to Image -> Adjustments -> Match Color. 2. In the window that appears, check the box for Neutralize. 3. Click OK.

More advanced

1. Adjust Levels (Ctrl+L). 2. Edit RGB individual levels to balance out the red, green, and blue of the photo. 3. Adjust Hue and Saturation (Ctrl+U). 4. Change the channel to Yellows and move the sliders for

Hue and Saturation to negative numbers and Lightness to positive numbers. Adjust as needed!

FALL SPORTS / 02