8th grade volleyball tonight

Chris Summers

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Chris Summers
First game of the season for my granddaughter who plays on the 8th grade middle school girl's A team.

Volleyball can be tough to shoot in my opinion, most of the middle school gyms around us are older and poorly lit; they have some kind of fluorescent lighting and at the home team's court the team colors are black and maroon so the paint on the walls and floor is dark as well as the girl's uniforms. As far as action it's not like soccer or football where the ball is kicked or carried, most of the action is a player striking the ball in an upwards motion and it's hit or miss because you only get a few seconds to capture the shot.

My R7 has not arrived so I took my Canon R which isn't the best camera for action as the burst rate is sub-par. I brought my RF 70-200mm f/4 lens along but also thought I might experiment with my Sigma ART 135mm f/1.8 because the focal length is in the area of where I use the zoom but also it is much faster which is good in low light. Overall I liked it although I have to admit the focus was sometimes a bit sluggish and I missed a few shots.

The advantage to this lens was clear with shutter speed, I was able to shoot between 1/1000-1/2000 of a second. I shot wide open and ISOs averaged between 3200 and 8000.

OK, nothing here that would be in Sports Illustrated, I mean it's middle school sports but I got a few and she only was on the court for the first half of the game. Sadly they lost but put up a good fight.
 

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Back in the 2000's, for several years I was a contracted photographer for a local school in Mississippi where I was then living. I covered all of the sports for the yearbook as well as an end of the year sports banquet slide show. I think your shots here are good ones for sure. They all show action and have the ball in the image.

I can imagine that some of these older gyms have sodium vapor lighting, and if your area is like mine, it is often that a bulb or two will always be out leaving a dark spot. Volleyball and basketball can be very challenging for sure, but I loved it even though I really didn't understand what I was watching.
 
Yes and I enjoy when we go to a new school as they have really bright LED lighting and bigger court areas.
 

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