BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: Action & Sports Pictures

Shooting Basketball Pics

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February 10, 2007

BP Editor's Note: At BetterPhoto, we now have two new related courses:

- Basics of Sports Photography
- Photographing Fast-Action Sports with a Digital SLR

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February 11, 2007

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February 14, 2007

try the Tv setting (shutter speed priority) - a.k.a. "S" – at 1/160th, 1/200th and 1/250th sec.

The shorter the shutter speed, the less subject movement blur. The longer the shutter speed, the more the ambient light will register in your frame.
Below 1/250th it's not the shutter speed that determines how much flashlight falls on your subject, but the aperture.

This is of course assuming camera shake is not an issue (tripod or monopod!).

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February 14, 2007

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February 14, 2007

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February 14, 2007

And W, the shutter speed has nothing to do with how much light coms through from the flash - the shutter sync speeds are those where the entire frame of the CCD is exposed simultaneously so the flash's output hits it all at the same time. At faster shutter speeds, the CCD is partially covered as one shutter curtain follows the other, so less than the full CCD frame will be exposed by the flash.

So again, if the flash is providing the bulk of the light to illuminate the player, the shutter speed is not critical (there is no effective difference in terms of lighting between 1/60th and 1/250th). APerture, of course, affects how much of the flash light will get through to the CCD, and this should be set to wide open.

Seeing the amazing photos in SPrts Illustrated makes it all the more frustrating when you can't get good shots - just feel better in that thos pros have huge banks of flashes in the rafters triggered by remote control so while the spectators can't see anything the camera gets great exposures.

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February 14, 2007

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February 14, 2007

I shoot auto racing on a regular basis and have use the same equiptment you just mentioned. The equiptment allows me to stop action on moving race cars at night at speeds up to 200 mph. Your equiptment is sufficient for sports such as basketball where the speeds are much slower.

The Nikon D70 has a sync speed of 1/500th of a second for flash and is the highest sync of all the Nikon's.

My suggestion to you is to use the Manual Mode for both Camera and Flash. Set the shutter speed at 1/500th. You can play with the aperature until you get the proper exposure. With digital its not hard to see with your review screen. A couple of shots should get you where you need to be.

The other important thing is learning how to pan on a moving object. Without panning your immages will appear blurred. And even with panning, areas not moving will be blurred. Some of this can be corrected by adjusting aperature.

The basic rule of shooting movement is simple the faster the movement the faster the shutter speed needed to stop the action.

Don't get discouraged, keep shooting, it costs nothing with digital, learning this with film gets expensive.

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February 14, 2007

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February 14, 2007

1. Don't shoot flash with flash with sports at all. It can be disconcerting to the players and in some cases dangerous. Turning on the flash makes the max shutter speed (on my D100) to 1/180 which is not fast enough. If you must shoot with falsh, strobes located in the corners of the gym and shooting from above seem to be ok with the coaches and players. They capture very nice shots. Their disadvantage is that they have a recharge time of a few seconds so you can't shoot rapid sequences.

2. To shoot without flash set a lot depends on the max aperture of your lens and the light of the arena. Set the ISO as high as needed and see if your lense can handle the light (i.e. not undersexpose) I shoot at ISO to 1600 or 3200 depending on the light available and shoot fine with my 70-200mm f2.8 lens.

3. Set the camera to point metering and make sure the focusing area in the view finder is EXACTLY on the subject you want to capture. This is easier said than done in Basketball where the action changes direction so quickly.

4. Expect to throw away 30-50% of your shots until you get the hang of it.

5. If you can use Photoshop to do color balance and exposure correction this can help a lot in dark gyms. A noise reduction filter SW like Neat Image also helps to remove the noise caused by the high ISO.

Hope this helps,
Keep shooting
Mike

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February 14, 2007

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February 14, 2007

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February 14, 2007

I shoot with a D200, I have used three different lenses; the Nikkor 70-200mm f 2.8 VR, the Nikkor 17-55mm f 2.8 DX, and the Nikkor 50mm f 1.8. I have a SB800 strobe but have never used it for fear it might blind the players as Mike pointed out.

My keeper ratio is not any better than what Melinda is reporting. What bothers me most is losing a great picture. Doesn’t matter if I lost it due to blur or noise, a lost shot is a lost shot.

Some things I’m questioning/learning:

Available lighting:
We can talk all day long about shutter vs aperture etc and blurriness vs underexposure but I can tell you there is one gym my son plays at here in Hendersonville, TN that when his game is there….I leave my camera at home. There is so little light in this gym it is impossible to walk out with any keepers without being able to use a flash. There is a tremendous difference in available lighting in school gymnasiums. The newer schools seem to have the edge over older ones as do the college gyms over high schools and high schools over middle schools etc.

Subject speed:
The faster the subject is moving the more critical shutter speed can be. When good exposure is hanging on by it’s fingernails to start with, the difference between 1/320 and 1/500 shutter speeds can make all the difference in the world. I try to shoot 1/500 minimum as much as possible.

Subject direction:
I am starting to wonder if the direction isn’t equally important. When the subjects are moving directly towards me or directly away from me it seems to be harder to get a sharp picture. When they are moving side to side in front of me, regardless of how fast they are moving, it seems easier to get a sharp image. IE: Betsy B’s “Pursuit” picture.

Distance to Subject
Since cropping an image that was shot at 1600 gets ugly quick, and since I’m not going to shoot at 1/500 without pumping the ISO up I tend to get as close as I can so I wont have to crop my shots much in pre print work. Because of this I use my Nikkor 17-55mm f 2.8 DX most of the time now. I have the freedom to get close to the action in this league and the zoom range of this lens seems the best choice in my lens arsenal. If it was varsity High School or College level play I might be forced up in the stands which would make my 70-200mm f 2.8 the logical choice I suppose.

High ISO noise:
I have tried every cotton picking combination of settings I can think of including Shutter priority at 1/500 with auto ISO. Shooting at higher ISO settings is inevitable it seems. The noise gets pretty ugly at ISO 1600 sometimes. The noise reduction in PhotoShop CS2 isn’t good for much in my experience. Nikon’s Capture NX is decent but certainly not anything to brag about.

I have some questions for Mike Perez:

Do you use Neat Image? How good is it? Is it worth bragging about? Does your D100 have High ISO Noise Reduction on board? Do you use it?

All this makes me believe that the guys working for SI or the LA times have it easy. If those guys ever need any help or advice they should probably come ask us……..we’re use to shooting when it’s tough. ;)

Good topic Melinda thanks for bringing it up.

Paul Stewart
Hendersonville, TN

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February 15, 2007

1. Don't shoot flash, especially from the baseline where the players will be facing the flash.

2. A LOT depends on the light in the arenas but I would try the following: Set the ISO to 1600 (your max)and try to shoot at no less than SS 1/200. In bad light, a lense of f2.8 max aperture or better is essential. If your max aperture is less (e.g., f4 or greater) it's going to be tough. Try shooting at 1/150 and use a monopod to steady the camera a little more. The monopod is pretty clumsy in BB because the action is so close and fast but it might be the last resort. The monopod works better in football & soccer but it might be worth a try (it's cheap).

Otherwise, go ahead and shoot at 1/200 even under a somewhat underexposed conditions and use PS or other exposure correction SW to work on brightness, contrast and color correction in post production. When you do this, the grain from the high ISO will pop out so as the last step run a noise reduction SW. I shoot JPEGs so I don't have any experience shooting RAW. Shooting RAW would probably help the post-production process but the images will be very large.

3. As Paul says, the worse the light the more challenging it is to capture good shots. The combination of speed and bad light are deadly and requires high ISO and high-aperture lenses to deal with it. In this regard, the pro's have it easy! I see the beautiful shots the local pros take with prime access and lighting and
can only wish.

Regardless of the light, make sure keep that cross hair on the viewfinder EXACTLY on the subject with point metering (not average across entire area). You won't believe how many BB shots I have lost when the camera found a small spot between players and ended up focusing on the background instead. Also, I have found that some of my best shots come as part of a sequence where I am panning the subject and shooting several shots in a rapid sequence. Panning helps reduce the subject-to-camera relative speed and helps keeps one concentration on keeping the focus on the subject.

My D100 does not do noise reduction. Does the D200 ? Generally, I would like to do noise reduction in post production where there is some flexibility in how the noise filters are applied. Realize that sometimes reducing noise has a detrimental effect on the picture sharpness. I am not sure I would trust the camera to do it unless it also kept an original version of the image around. I would also be concerned if the camera try to noise reduce on-the-fly and slow down the rate at which picture sequences are taken.

I do use Neat Image and I am very happy with it. It's basic version is free. If you want batch processing etc. it's a nominal cost. There are other SW noise reduction programs as well. There is also one called I believe Noise Ninja or something like that. Neat Image has saved several touchdown pictures for me that were taken in dark end zones (some at ISO 6400!) where the sideline lights typically don't reach. You can run it is several times on an image and also play with the Noise filter settings. I definitely recommend it.

I should also mention that a friend of mine that shoots for a web sports publication lscsn.com and he started shooting BB with strobe lights. He uses I believe three wireless Alien Bees in the corners of the gym. They shoot from above and don't seem to bother the players. You can see some of his shots at that website and they come out very nice without the shadows that a normal flash would produce. This however, cost $'s. For him, it's a business so it is not a big issue but it might be prohibited for an individual and they are a bit clumsy to set up.

Hope this helps.
Regards,
Mike

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February 15, 2007

This is what I'm doing with my Canon 20D, and my 70-200 IS f/2.8L lens: ISO 3200, Manual mode, AF Servo and IS Mode 1 engaged, f/2.8, 1/400th of a second, occasionally 1/500th. In the rare gym where I'm still needing more light, I stick with 1/400th and switch to RAW capture.

Every quarter, I switch positions, but before it begins I take a custom white balance using a 77mm Expodisc.

I use back button focus, and use only the center AF selection point. I have well over a 50% usable frame rate, and my usable frame criteria mandates that the ball be in the frame. Generally, I don't use noise reduction, as the shots are rarely used by the client schools larger than 4x6 in their layouts, but when I do use it, I use Noise Ninja, which does an outstanding job.

You can see some of my recent basketball stuff on my photoblog at www.ianlozada.com.

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February 15, 2007

My D2H has started giving me more noise than before Nikon "repaired it" and upgrade the software. I am hoping to find a solution.

I also shoot at really dark middle schools and I have found that shooting raw at 600 ISO and the flash set at a -.2 gives me excellent photos - some of which have been published in college text books.

I don't mind some throwaways since I am doing yearbook type work trying to get as many kids as I can in action. The bonus is to get a referee in the shot with good action for Referee Magazine.

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February 16, 2007

I am heading to shoot synchronized swimming this weekend for the first time. It should be interesting, but at least there won't be problems with the lights or the weather.

thanks. Mike

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February 16, 2007

Thanks for your thoughts. The D200 does have high ISO noise reduction, you can turn it off altogether or turn it on and adjust the minimum ISO that will enable it.

I had it turned off the last time I shot fearing it would be next to useless. I have had a little more luck shooting RAW myself but for pictures of 5th grader basketball I would rather use jpeg because I'm hoping (possibly in vain) to avoid post production image editing as much as possible. When I go out to shoot hawks, herons, or eagles, you bet shoot RAW. But when I'm taking family photo album stuff I would just as soon not go to all the trouble.

This has been one of the more interesting threads here to be sure. Lots of good ideas and sharing of experiences. Thank you all.

By the way Mike, I took a look at your gallery..some amazing work with the camera and with the computer. I'm very impressed. Hope my work looks half as good someday.

Paul
Hendersonville, TN

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February 16, 2007

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February 16, 2007

Dale: FYI - I keep my photos at Shutterfly which is where I print most of my images (except for the panoramas, which they don't do). I use it for convenience to share the images with family and the parents of the teams I occassionally shoot. They provide unlimited storage free and I have over 500 albums there. I've come to think of them as a third redundant backup (beyond CD/DVD). If I ever need the originals, I can purchase them in CD form from Shutterfly.

Regards,
Mike

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February 16, 2007

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February 17, 2007

this is Div II school so the lights are not much better than a big high school, but certainly better than some I have seen. I shot ISO 3200, 1/320 for the guys (1/250 for the ladies), f2.8 or larger (underexposed) for most photos.
As you'll see, editing can make a big difference.

These shots are:
1. Original shots before any edits.
2. After PS, Nik filters & noise 3. reduction.
After all the above + LucisArt

Mike

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February 19, 2007

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February 19, 2007

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February 19, 2007

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February 19, 2007

My shot was in a AAAA high school gym where the players looked like they were running under spotlights.

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February 19, 2007

One more thing to worry about in the timing...waiting for them to enter the spotlight areas! I am glad my girls are off to college.

Mike

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February 19, 2007

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February 19, 2007

Very nice basketball shots. Like Dale I was also amazed at the lack of noise for ISO 3200.

What glass did you use for that shot?

Did you use Neat Image for the noise reduction?

My son is in the tournament this weekend for his league I am thinking about using my trusty Nikkor AF 50mm f 1.8 for at least half of this game and get in as close as I can. If I get anything noteworthy for this discussion I'll post it.

Paul

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February 20, 2007

The shot you posted, photographer in the background, is a great shot.

Was that taken with/without flash?

What was the ISO and aperture on that shot?

In perusing your gallery two shots reminded of days gone by....exceptional picture of the child with the bowl of rice, still remember how those kinds of images filled the pages of our newspapers and magazines growing up which is all that we had because there wasn't any Internet. :)

The picture of Mikey Mantle is one of those once in a lifetime shots.

Wonderful photographs Dale.

Paul

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February 20, 2007

I thought my shot had quite a bit of noise but perhaps not as much as I have had in other conditions (darker). I used the Nikkor f2.8 70-200mm at about 100mm for this shot. I used Beat Image and I think I ran it twice on this shot.

The point I wanted to emphasize for Melinda is: Getting a sharp image is the most important thing. A lot can be done in post-production with exposure and color balance. There is not much that can be done with a very unfocused image(I have more than a few that I could kick myself for missing).

Regards,
Mike
P.S. This weekend I shot some synchronized swimming for the 1st time. I didn't know what to expect. There was plenty of light but sometimes too much background light. It was pretty cool. My favorite moves is when the young ladies propel themselves out of the water simultaneously solely on leg power. The make it look so easy it looks like they are standing on the pool's bottom. A couple of these ladies are Olympic hopefuls. I posted a few shots on my Gallery.

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February 20, 2007

The shot of the girl with the bowl of rice in my gallery was done in 1965 in Vietnam. It won a first place in the annual DOD photo contest. It is nothing compared to the sad photos you see from around the world today.

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February 20, 2007