Basketball shots

[Dawn52]

I am looking for any advice/help when it comes to taking basketball shots. I have a Cannon EOS 60D, and Tamron AF 70-200mm F/2.8 and Tamron AF 28-75mm F/2.8 lens that I use. I have been shooting in the sports mode and shutter priority. I am just a basketball mom with basic camera knowledge looking to get some good shots of the team and my sons. Any tips, advice would be greatly appreciated!! Thanks!

 

[tirediron]

What specifically about your shots now would you like to improve? Spots shots of this nature I tend to shoot at around 1/1000 (Shutter Priority/Tv), and use a single AF point, generally in the centre of the view-finder, and Canon's equivalent of continuous servo auto-focus. I would stay off of the scene modes (Sport mode) as they tend to do a little too much thinking for you.

 

[table1349]

Basketball shots need a 1/320th shutter speed to freeze the action. 1/250th is the minimum for basketball. If you can get court side shoot from the base line, shoot low, shoot tight and get out of sports mode. If you don't feel comfortable shooting in manual shoot in AV mode. Set you aperture at 2.8. A stop up would be probably be better for IQ but f2.8 is about the max aperture you can usually go in a JR High/High School venues. Like I said, set you aperture to 2.8, then adjust your ISO up until you are in the 1/250 to 1/320 range. It is better to have a bit of noise from a higher ISO than motion blur from too slow a shutter speed. Noise can be dealt with in post processing. Motion blur can not.

The reason I say shoot in AV instead of TV is for DOF. The difference between a nice sports shot and one that catches your attention is isolating the action. You do that with a shallow DOF that isolates only the action you want to capture and provides bokeh to all those other players, officials and spectators.

Set you focus mode to AI Servo and get the your focus off the shutter button and onto the dedicated focus button on the back of the camera. Use a single focus point and keep that focus point on the action. Know the game, know the players, and know who is good on offense and who is good on defense. Follow the action with that camera glued to your face focusing constantly and anticipate what is going to occur.

Also if you want to save yourself some grief later, get a gray card. I prefer 12% gray but the more common 18% gray will do and take a shot of that card in the light you will be shooting in. You can then use that to adjust your white balance in post processing to get truer colors. It would be better to set a custom white balance, but that might be something to learn to do later on down the road.

Finally, when you are shooting any sport you no longer have kids and you no longer are a parent. Forget the game. You don't care who wins or looses, all you care about is the action. If you are wrapped up in the game you will miss shots. If you are wrapped up in the action alone you will be prepared to capture those moments. Sports shooting is a lot of fun, but it is also very demanding on the photographer. Good luck and have fun.