My first basket ball game

rlcphotos · Feb 14, 2009

how about some advice on proceedures to do these.

Im using the Sigma 70/200 2.8 EX lens and or a Sigma 2.8 -4DG lens

these are the fastest lens I have for the time being

EhJsNe · Feb 14, 2009

Most indoor basketball places and gymnasiums have horrible lighting. The one at my school is aweful. I use 800 ASA film without flash or 400ASA with a flash (sometimes making annoying shadows) both with my lens at f/3.5.

With the 400 speed I get just slightly dark images. not horribly dark, just darker than id like at 1/125.

With 800 I get 1/250 of a second. (my flash sync is only 1/125 on my camera) The drawback is that I get I lot of grain in some of the pictures.

your best option is to push your cameras limits. use the fastest shutter speed (absolute SLOWEST being 1/125. any slower youll get negative amounts of motion blurr. at 1/125 I get some blurr but it looks pretty cool. at 1/250 I get almost none, At 1/500 you hardly get any at all.

If you like stopping action, than do what it takes to get to 1/500. Otherwise use 1/250 where its not in most of the picture or if you really like the look of action use 1/125 and itll be in most, but not all of the pictures.

If your close enough, the use of a flash is very very usefull for sports if you can get close. I use a 35-105mm f/3.5 lens sitting front row at my gym. I move myself when the teams switch sides.

Have fun shooting!

tsaraleksi · Feb 14, 2009

Everything will depend on the venue that you're shooting in-- you could shoot in a Division I or professional arena and have no problem getting 1/500 at ISO800, but some highschool gyms may be so dark that nothing will get clean images.

A shutter speed of 1/400 is usually ideal, whatever you can do to get there you should-- 1/320 is probably as slow as you should go without strobes / flash. You should set the camera to continuos shooting, AI-Servo, and it might be a good idea to custom white balance, though sodium vapor lights are all over the place color wise.

Chances are you'll wind up shooting just with the 70-200 though a wider lens can give you some nice stuff.