Basketball is one of the most dynamic sports to photograph, because the action is fast, close and the players’ faces aren’t encumbered by any elements of their uniforms. As most don’t have the opportunity to photograph the NBA, many people will photograph local teams.
1
Use a Wide Aperture
Since you are normally placed in an assigned seat at games, your choice of lens is important as well as your choice of composition. Don’t be afraid to use a wide-angle lens at a basketball game, especially if it is a full arena. To shoot a perfectly sharp, well exposed image in an indoor and low-light environment, choose the widest aperture possible (f/2.8-f/4) and use a monopod or a chair that you can rest your camera on. A stable rest is important to avoid blurring.
2
Zoom in on the Subject
If you are sitting far from the action, then a zoom lens of 70-300mm set wide open should do the job for you. Don’t forget to fill the frame with the player, and try to capture his facial expressions. Set the lens focus mode to AF (Autofocus) and select continuous focusing (AI Servo AF Canon/AF-C Nikon) mode to automatically re-focus the image on the moving player. Another technique is to pre-focus on a fixed object (in this case the net) and wait for the action.
3
Capture the Action
Provided that you are in a bright arena, set the mode dial to M (Manual), and use a shutter speed of 1/200s or faster to freeze the action. Open the aperture wide (f/1.8-f/2.8 is ideal) and increase the ISO to 800 or higher if necessary. Try to capture interesting parts of the action, like when the ball is in midair or when a player dunks the ball. For multiple shots use the burst shooting mode and hold down the shutter button as long as desired. Each DSLR has its own frame rate and burst-mode capture rate, which sets your camera’s abilities for rapid, multiple shot photography.
4
Choose a Slow Shutter Speed
To create motion blur during a basketball game, choose a slow shutter speed (1/15 – 1/60th of a second), place your camera on a tripod or hold it still while pointing at the moving players and take the shot. This will make the players look blurred while keeping the rest of the photo sharp. You can also try using the panning technique – pre-focus on a player and follow him with your lens in a smooth horizontal motion while pressing the shutter button.
5
Use Dramatic Angles
Check out high school gyms to spot local talent and ask for permission to photograph them. You might tell them that you’ll compensate them with free images for their college recruiting efforts. Position yourself in extreme positions for dramatic compositions, set the shutter speed to 1/250th of a second or faster and the aperture to f/5.6 or f/8 – these settings will freeze the explosive action, and give you a shallow depth of field to isolate the events on the court. If you want some memorable shots, stand on a large, sturdy ladder behind the backboard. Remember, if you want to use a flash, get permission from the coach and players first.
S
Recommended Settings
Most basketball arenas are well lit, but smaller high school gymnasiums use artificial lights that may have some flicker to them, and which can cause color shifts in your photographs. Therefore you can either leave your camera on Auto WB (White Balance) or use the Custom WB setting by metering off of a white or grey card. For action shots choose a fast shutter speed of 1/500s and a large aperture of f/2.8-f/4. If you want to capture movement, then lower the speed to around 1/15s – 1/60s.
E
Recommended Equipment
If you are seated very far back from the action, you need a telephoto lens of around 300mm. However, the more versatile 70mm-200mm zoom lens would be useful if sitting closer. The 70mm-200mm zoom, and good seats, would allow you to take portrait shots but also take wider images showing some context. As always, use a good quality DSLR camera body that allows you to preview images, so you can change camera settings if necessary.
C
Conclusion
Basketball is one of the most dynamic sports and you can get some magnificent shots of world-class athletes performing at their peak. The basketball court is filled with many colors and dynamic characters in action. Composition and timing are most important in photographing basketball games. Most professional sports photographers use a 300mm lens (zoom or prime) to get nice and close. Be sure to capture the emotions of the players during the game – that’s especially where the zoom is useful. It’s important to check your white balance because of the varying color temperature of the overhead lighting. And one thing you must do is get explicit permission from the teams to take photographs of the players and the game.
Attila Kun
Attila is the founder and editor-in-chief of Exposure Guide. He is an avid photographer, graphic designer, bedroom DJ and devoted Mac addict. Attila got his first DSLR camera, a Canon 10D, back in 2003 and he has been hooked on photography ever since.
How to Get Pro-Quality Sports Photos in a School Gym
High school gymnasiums can offer a multitude of photographic opportunities – basketball games, crowd shots, and other school events. But they can also have the most abysmal lighting conditions around. Just how do you get a clear photograph in a dark, often mixed lighting environment? With a little bit of know-how and preparation you can!
If you'll be photographing volleyball, basketball, wrestling, gymnastics, or other indoor sports, these tips will hopefully help you to get a clear image.
The real problem with shooting in an indoor gym is that the area is usually not well lit. Normally this could be counteracted with a slower shutter speed to gather light, but that would produce a blurry image since the players are moving quickly. Shooting indoor sports is actually one of the most challenging photography situations there is. This creates an opportunity to test your skills!
Recommended Camera Settings for Shooting in a School Gym
Usually, getting the exposure settings for a particular situation is easy, but photographing fast moving sports action in a dim environment is quite challenging. Here is a good starting point for setting your camera settings for shooting in a school gym:
Use the largest aperture (lowest f-stop number) available on your lens. Ideally, you'll have a lens with a max aperture of f/2.8 or f/4. Slower lenses that can only open up to f/5.6 will likely not gather enough light to have a successful shoot in a gym for photographing sports.
Set your shutter speed to 1/500 or faster to freeze the action. Ideally, we'd shoot at 1/1000 but unless you have a very fast lens, this often isn't feasible. You may find yourself at 1/500 or 1/640 which will show some motion blur on hands or feet when the players are moving around, but otherwise the image is too dark.
Set your ISO to 1600 or faster. You'll likely find that most setups will require ISO 3200 to properly expose the image. This will produce some noise in the picture, but some noise in unavoidable in indoor sports photography unless the gym is extremely well lit (rare).
Set your focus to continuous so you can track the action of the players. This will be written “AF-C” on Nikon cameras or “AI Servo” on Canon cameras.
The ISO is the most important part of this equation. I highly recommend reading my article on setting the ISO for any situation if you haven't yet.
None of these settings are ideal. Using an ISO that high will undoubtedly produce some noise in your photo. Shooting with a fast aperture will make focus more difficult. Shooting at a fast shutter speed makes gathering enough light difficult. Nothing is ideal when shooting indoor sports, but you have to learn to make compromises with your camera settings in order to get a properly exposed photo in a dimly lit gym.
More Tips for Shooting Sports Photos in a Gym
Do some scouting ahead of time. This will ease your anxiety and frustration. Take some test shots, specifically to nail your white balance. White balance means that the camera is trying to determine what the neutral color is and which color balance to apply to the photo. If you’re in a gym, you’ll see kind of a green, sickly light due to the bulbs they use. In most houses, the light is a yellowish color unless you’re using daylight balanced light bulbs in which case they will be more of a white color. The light changes everywhere you go – shade is different than the sunlight, etc. There are some presets for white balance in your camera so you can use these and it will get you pretty close to where you need to be. You can also set a custom white balance if you know you will be shooting somewhere in particular with terrible lighting like the gym.
Gymnasiums often have mixed lighting from natural windows spilling out light up high to tungsten lighting which can cause you photos to look orange. Ask if you can shoot some of your kids practices – this will be a good warm up for the main event and see exactly which camera shooting work the best. After adjusting your settings and shooting the practice, look at the photos on your computer to see how well the pictures turned out. From there you can adjust the white balance further than the settings could in Photoshop or Photoshop Elements.
Once you have your white balance and positioning in place, now you can concentrate on actually taking the shot. One thing to remember is to be sure to get to the gym ahead of time so you can choose your seat. The key to taking good sports photography is anticipating the action. During the practices, learn where to position yourself so you will have an unimpeded view of the action without getting in the middle of the action!
After you have done all the prep work and are in the precise shooting position, what should your settings be? Your DSLR does offer some standard modes – you know the little icons on the dial – look for the figure running. But those settings are an approximation and generally work best outdoors where there’s plenty of light otherwise you will get motion blur. If the sports mode works for you and you are happy with the results – great. If not, manually adjusting your settings is the next option.
Sports photography is about freezing the action so you will need a fast shutter speed of at least 1/125 or 1/250 of a second or higher. Anything slower and you risk blurring the players. You will probably have to increase your ISO – look in the range of 800 to 1600. Depending on your camera, it could introduce noise into the picture so experiment with different ISOs to see how high you can go before noise creeps into your photos.
For the aperture, the kit lens that came with your DSLR may work just fine outdoors but indoors that 18-200mm f4.5/5.6 may not open up enough. You may have to open up your aperture to f/2.8 which should give you decent depth of field. But that also means you might have to purchase or rent a lens that is capable of handling low light situations. Unfortunately, because it’s a sporting event, you probably won’t be able to use your speedlight or built-in flash. There will be too much concern that your flash will temporarily blind a player and interrupt or alter the play. Check with school officials to see what their policy is on flash photography.
Sadly, there is not an easy solution to ugly gymnasium photos, but these tricks will at least get you better photos. With time, you will learn more of what works and what doesn't. Luckily, we can adjust quite a bit while post processing.
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Indoor sports photography
In winter, many sports competitions and trainings are held indoors. Basketball. Volleyball. Gymnastics. Of course, indoor sports are fun for both participants and spectators. But let's face it: shooting such sporting events is not the easiest task for a photographer. Quite often, you may even end up in a gym with such low light that even 1600 ISO won't produce good results.
Let's look at some of the things to keep in mind when photographing indoor sports.
The first thing a photographer should remember when shooting in a gym is to pay close attention to action and movement. The plot of such outdoor games as basketball or volleyball is constantly and rapidly developing, they are extremely dynamic. Your task is not just to capture the event itself, but rather to capture the connection between the players. This requires special skill and even flair.
Set the ISO to high. The most modern models of SLR cameras allow you to shoot with an ISO of about 1000-1250 units without noticeable image graininess. Shoot at a fast shutter speed - at least 1/200 if you can. You need to capture the action, a fast shutter speed will freeze the movement of the athletes, thus giving you a clear photo. And, if it comes down to it, it's best to underexpose the image. You can tweak the settings in post-processing.
Shoot at the smallest aperture, say f/4.0 to f/2.8. Since you have little light available and you're working at a faster shutter speed, a wide open aperture is your best friend in this situation.
Look for expressions of living emotions. Anger. Aggression. Rivalry. Teamwork. Excitement. Victory. Successful sports photography is simply impossible without observation, without waiting and capturing moments of emotion and expression of relationships in the process of playing. You win at the end of the day if you have an emotional shot that is not sharp across the entire image field.
Shoot in RAW. Shooting in RAW will allow you to correct colors in post-processing, this has been written and said many times.
How to use the sport mode
Most DSLRs, and even half of all compact cameras, have a variety of preset modes to help beginner and intermediate (and sometimes even professional) photographers. What is sport mode?
First, the sport mode is represented by the well-known little running figure. While the exact settings vary by camera manufacturer, much of this description remains the same no matter what particular camera you are using.
Secondly, sport mode is a quick setting to adapt the camera to the conditions.
Raises ISO to a higher value
Decreases f-stop for shallower depth of field
Increases shutter speed to help stop fast action
Increases frame advance to maximum setting (measured in frames per second or fps - frames per second)
ISO is normally set at 400 or higher, but depending on lighting conditions and lens choice, it may be lower. Most cameras will set this value as a variable so the user doesn't have to constantly change it.
Reducing the f-stop will help isolate the action in the picture. Most of the time, the action itself is one person, a car, a horse in the background, and it's best if this background is blurred to isolate the movement.
As the shutter speed increases, the chances of "stopping" the main action increase. This setting, like all others, depends on the amount of light available and the specific lens used. Most of the time the shutter is set to 1/200 or more.
Frame advance is also increased to the highest value, typically 3-6 fps or more. Further activation of the shutter release will result in a series of shots that will help capture the “right” moment of the action.
Finally, the auto focus mode is set to predictive (may be called differently on different cameras). This setting often uses a complex system to predict the direction, speed, and proximity of the main subject in order to calculate accurate focus at the time the shutter is activated. Although not commonly used during average shooting, this type of focusing system can be very useful in high speed action.
Benefits of sport mode
Sport mode works best with a telephoto lens. This is because a reduced depth of field will have a sharper contrast between your main subject and the background, as stated above. The faster the speed (lower f-stop), the better the separation you get from the background, and the less light you need to get a sharp image. Sport mode usually forces the camera to use the lowest f-stop.
Sports Mode is an easy way to instantly change all your creative camera settings to motion capture. This helps to guess the workings of high-speed action, increasing your chances of bringing home an image of what initially seemed like a super-short-term moment.
Tags:sports photography
How to photograph sports events: tips and settings
Hello again, dear blog visitor. I'm in touch with you, Timur Mustaev. Have you ever wondered why you can't shoot sports? What am I doing wrong, maybe my camera is not capable of this? Maybe I'm just setting my camera settings wrong? You will find comprehensive answers to these and other questions that interest you in this article.
I remember my first shooting of a sporting event. My close friend is into basketball and at the final game he asked me to take some good shots of the game. Well, of course, there is nothing to brag about, since there were no standing pictures. Almost all of the photographs were blurry. After that game, I began to study this subject of photography. And so I want to share with you all the secrets of photographing sports events.
Earlier in the articles, we have already talked about many technical aspects that every self-respecting photographer should know. Now it's time to talk about shooting techniques, about the very technique of working with the camera and the object. Specifically, in this article, I will tell you how to photograph sports events.
First, you need to find out where this very event will take place: outdoors, water or indoors. You should also understand what the lighting conditions will be. Based on this, a set of strictly necessary tools is formed.
I will try to describe the minimum and most versatile set that I used to use myself. First of all, it's a pair of lenses. The main one, in our case, will be long-focus, and the additional one will be wide-angle, which is taken “just in case”.
Equally important is having several replacement batteries for your camera so you don't accidentally miss the best shot. Two batteries are quite enough for me, speaking subjectively.
If you are filming outdoor sports during the day in sunny weather, then you can use an ultraviolet filter, and then, depending on the brightness of the sun and the time of year. If the shooting time is late in the evening or it is cloudy outside, not to mention shooting indoors, there can be no talk of any filters.
Do you know what your shutter speed should be when shooting sports? Not less than 1/1000 s. Why, you ask, exactly this number? Sports events are held in active mode, and in order to freeze an object, it is precisely this minimum shutter speed that is necessary.
If events are held outdoors, in good sunny weather, then set the shutter speed to 1/1000 s. will be real. But if the weather is cloudy or even worse, you need to photograph sports indoors, then even with the widest aperture (f / 2. 8 or f / 3.5), it is almost impossible to get the desired shutter speed.
This is where light sensitivity (ISO) comes in. But do you know how much you need to set the ISO value to 200, 400, 800, or maybe 3200?
For these cases, I always use a very necessary function in the camera - automatic ISO setting. For example, you can set the following settings:
Initial light sensitivity 100;
Maximum light sensitivity 1600, can be increased to 3200;
Shutter speed 1/1000.
Now your camera itself will set the desired amount of ISO. And the big plus here is that it will not jump right away, from a value of 200 to 400, for example. If he has enough light, he can set the ISO value to 290. Agree, no matter how much we want, we cannot manually set such a value on our own.
Sometimes a polarizing filter can come in handy if you are shooting on the water. More on this below. But you should not use it all the time: it can do harm in certain situations that we considered earlier. Very rarely you may need a tripod, so you should not take a full-sized accessory with you. But it’s worth thinking about a monopod, especially if you use a telephoto lens. I bought one for myself here.
Sometimes, there are times when you want to record a short video, which necessitates the use of a tripod. In this case, I always have a compact accessory in my bag, originally purchased for mobile shooting.
When photographing sports, a telephoto lens should be used so as not to approach or interfere with the athletes. The most important rule is not to use flash. Firstly, it can “drive crazy” an athlete or a viewer, and secondly, it will be of little use in the bright sun, and it will not help in any way indoors, the subjects are too far away.
Shooting on the water
In general, the requirements here will be similar to ordinary shooting outdoors: telephoto lenses, no flash and automatic ISO settings are possible.
If we talk about the specifics, then I have identified for myself one of the most necessary accessories for such a case - a polarizing filter. As you may have read earlier in the articles, a polarizer can reduce glare on water, which can play an important role in improving the quality of a shot.
If you have to shoot on the water quite often, then you should take care of the moisture protection of your device. We are not always able to predict the development of events, sometimes we can also get carried away with work and just fall into the pond, which once happened to my friend.
After that moment, he began to advise all his friends to use moisture protection devices.
General Guidelines
There are also some general guidelines for sports photography in addition to the above. First of all, this is the use of exposure. Of course, the very first and correct solution would be to reduce it to the shortest possible value, as mentioned above.
However, slow shutter speeds are sometimes allowed. What is it for? First of all, to get a beautiful blurred background or create high-quality wiring.
For motor racing photography at 1/1000 s. you'll just end up with a frozen object that doesn't always look good. We will get a photo as if the car is just standing on the track and not moving. The same can be said about the wheels of a motorcycle, a bicycle.
The problem can be solved by lowering the shutter speed to 1/250 or 1/360 s. But here it is important to lead the object. This method is called panning.
Always turn off the beeps on your camera. Especially if you shoot, for example, tennis, chess and others, when you are as close as possible to the athlete, and where silence is very important. Otherwise, you may get rude remarks from the players.
Best of all, for the moving moments of sports, use the focus mode - tracking focus or it is also called constant tracking.
When shooting at night, you will have to increase the ISO value even more, up to 6400, to get the shutter speed we need. And which one, you already know! That is 1/1000 of a second.
But here, when using cameras with a crop factor, a lot of noise appears. Therefore, professional photographers use full-frame cameras, such as Canon's 5D Mark III or 1DS or Nikon's D700, D800, D810, D3. They generate so little noise that you can easily shoot at ISO 6400 as well. Of course, not everyone can afford lenses with a focus of 300-400 millimeters, so even professionals often shoot at 70-200 mm. This is usually sufficient, but larger numbers will allow you to move less to get a frame. Also, with a longer focusing distance, it will be easier to get a macro, if necessary.
The choice of carcasses is really unlimited here if you plan to photograph sports events outdoors during the day, indoors. Of course, if the price issue arises point-blank, then it is better to purchase a mid-budget device with a crop matrix with a crop factor of 1.5-1.6.
Lenses for it will cost much less than for full frame. Another plus of the crop factor is its zoom effect. In other words, a lens with a focal length of 200mm turns into a 300mm. for Nikon and 320 for Canon. More details about crop factor matrices can be found in earlier articles.
It's not worth talking about the compositional features of sports, the search for new solutions when photographing events, since this should be done by default by every photographer for any type of shooting. If a simple rule that is fair for all genres is not observed, then such photographs will simply be lost in the crowd.
This solution can be called the use of a wide-angle lens, which, as it seems at first glance, has no place in working with sports.
Some photographers specialize in capturing close-ups of athletes, equipment, conveying the atmosphere of an event, creating panoramas, getting an overall view of an entire sports location, and much more. Very often, such frames can increase the value of the entire report several times.
And finally, some recommendations. If you are just starting to take pictures, and there are many questions related to the camera, shooting modes, composition, etc.
This will make the players look blurred while keeping the rest of the photo sharp. You can also try using the panning technique – pre-focus on a player and follow him with your lens in a smooth horizontal motion while pressing the shutter button.
Therefore you can either leave your camera on Auto WB (White Balance) or use the Custom WB setting by metering off of a white or grey card. For action shots choose a fast shutter speed of 1/500s and a large aperture of f/2.8-f/4. If you want to capture movement, then lower the speed to around 1/15s – 1/60s.
Composition and timing are most important in photographing basketball games. Most professional sports photographers use a 300mm lens (zoom or prime) to get nice and close. Be sure to capture the emotions of the players during the game – that’s especially where the zoom is useful. It’s important to check your white balance because of the varying color temperature of the overhead lighting. And one thing you must do is get explicit permission from the teams to take photographs of the players and the game.
Just how do you get a clear photograph in a dark, often mixed lighting environment? With a little bit of know-how and preparation you can!
Ideally, you'll have a lens with a max aperture of f/2.8 or f/4. Slower lenses that can only open up to f/5.6 will likely not gather enough light to have a successful shoot in a gym for photographing sports.
I highly recommend reading my article on setting the ISO for any situation if you haven't yet.
The light changes everywhere you go – shade is different than the sunlight, etc. There are some presets for white balance in your camera so you can use these and it will get you pretty close to where you need to be. You can also set a custom white balance if you know you will be shooting somewhere in particular with terrible lighting like the gym.
One thing to remember is to be sure to get to the gym ahead of time so you can choose your seat. The key to taking good sports photography is anticipating the action. During the practices, learn where to position yourself so you will have an unimpeded view of the action without getting in the middle of the action!
You will probably have to increase your ISO – look in the range of 800 to 1600. Depending on your camera, it could introduce noise into the picture so experiment with different ISOs to see how high you can go before noise creeps into your photos.
With time, you will learn more of what works and what doesn't. Luckily, we can adjust quite a bit while post processing.
The plot of such outdoor games as basketball or volleyball is constantly and rapidly developing, they are extremely dynamic. Your task is not just to capture the event itself, but rather to capture the connection between the players. This requires special skill and even flair. 
Aggression. Rivalry. Teamwork. Excitement. Victory. Successful sports photography is simply impossible without observation, without waiting and capturing moments of emotion and expression of relationships in the process of playing. You win at the end of the day if you have an emotional shot that is not sharp across the entire image field. 
Further activation of the shutter release will result in a series of shots that will help capture the “right” moment of the action. 
This helps to guess the workings of high-speed action, increasing your chances of bringing home an image of what initially seemed like a super-short-term moment. 
Almost all of the photographs were blurry. After that game, I began to study this subject of photography. And so I want to share with you all the secrets of photographing sports events. 
8 or f / 3.5), it is almost impossible to get the desired shutter speed. 
Very rarely you may need a tripod, so you should not take a full-sized accessory with you. But it’s worth thinking about a monopod, especially if you use a telephoto lens. I bought one for myself here. 
As you may have read earlier in the articles, a polarizer can reduce glare on water, which can play an important role in improving the quality of a shot. 
for Nikon and 320 for Canon. More details about crop factor matrices can be found in earlier articles. 
