 BetterPhoto Member |
Indoor Basketball Photos With Digital Rebel I am looking for advice for taking clear indoor basketball pictures from the bleachers. I have a Canon Digital Rebel with a 75-300mm Canon zoom lens. What settings are best? I have some success in some gyms and very blurry pictures in others.
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Mike Rubin |
Getting good shots in a gym is dependent on the lighting in the gym along with the maximum aperture your lens has and the shutter speed. I tried to get shots of my son in a basketball game and found that my 70-300 was not "fast" enough (i.e., not a large-enough maximum aperture). If you raise the ISO, you may end up with a lot of noise in the image. That would require software to remove it. I had to use my 50mm 1.8 at a aperture of 2.0 to get decent shots. But I also had to get down by the court because of the focal length. I wish I could afford a faster 70-300 than the one I have.
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- Dennis Flanagan Contact Dennis Flanagan Dennis Flanagan's Gallery |
Lynn, too bad you have to be in the bleachers and not down by the floor. But regardless of where you sit, you will want to go down to the floor before the contest and take a meter reading and use it. If you rely on the light levels in the bleachers, most likely they are lower than on the floor and your camera will try to use a slower shutter speed than needed. Figure out what focal length (zoom level) you will be using, and meter for that, then stick with it. If you can help it, don't bump your ISO above 400 - the digital noise isn't worth the gain in light. Hopefully, you can get at least 1/125th for a shutter speed. Good luck!
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Debbie Brazzle |
I'd also like to say, don't forget to white balance. In my sons gym the color is so yellow it's impossible to correct in Photoshop. I didn't find the noise much of a problem so I raised the ISO and would take continuous shots, especially of lay-ups. Sometimes it's timing and camera shake. I stood in the back top row and leaned againest the wall. I've also tried a tripod. I found I got better shots hand-held againest the wall.
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Ivan Berger |
When I was shooting basketball for my high-school newspaper, I had to do it on Super-XX film (half the speed of Tri-X, which came out the following year), with an f/6.3 lens, in gyms more dimly lit than pro basketball arenas. What made it possible was concentrating on players' leaps for the net, learning to time my shots to coincide with the peak of each leap. A leaping player leaves the gym floor at a fairly high speed and is gradually slowed by gravity until he stops and gravity accelerates him downward. So there is a moment when he is immobile, and a broader moment when he's moving slowly. Luckily, basketball is full of such leaps.
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