My First Pictures of a Sporting Event - Seeking Advice & CC

[AduNeButt]

I recently picked up a 200mm lens and have been wanting to put it to good use. I decided to take it to my school's last basketball game and took a few shots. I noticed some problems, mainly that I was on the opposite side my team (NCSU) was shooting at, which resulted in a larger distance between the plays I wanted to capture and where I was sitting. I also noticed that since I have fairly slow glass, I had to really pump the ISO up to allow quick shutter speeds to avoid blurring. This obviously led to some noise and I was wondering if there are any other techniques to get around this.

I'm mainly just looking for CC / other general advice on shooting at sporting events, I plan on shooting many more in the future.


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[JSD]

I'll give it a shot. I think in general your pictures are good: exposure, white balance. The thing they lack is a defined subject. Either you need to get closer to the action or get a longer lens in order to isolate the players to realy show the play. As is they are nearly lost in the crowd and one must search for what I assume is the intended subject. Also use a wide aperture to lessen the depth of field, throwing the background out of focus and separating the players involved even more. I think being on the sidelines would help as well, like all the other photogs in the pictures, this would make the players dominate the composition. I assume that is what you want to do. Hope this is helpful...JSD

 

[AduNeButt]

I'll give it a shot. I think in general your pictures are good: exposure, white balance. The thing they lack is a defined subject. Either you need to get closer to the action or get a longer lens in order to isolate the players to realy show the play. As is they are nearly lost in the crowd and one must search for what I assume is the intended subject. Also use a wide aperture to lessen the depth of field, throwing the background out of focus and separating the players involved even more. I think being on the sidelines would help as well, like all the other photogs in the pictures, this would make the players dominate the composition. I assume that is what you want to do. Hope this is helpful...JSD

I agree with you, I also felt that the biggest issue with these pictures is the large distance between me and the players. The 200mm lens is my longest, so I guess my only option would be to work on getting a press-badge and sitting on the floor. I've heard it's not very hard to do with my school's sporting events, so I may try to do that. Thanks for the critique though, I'll work on filling the frame with my subject.