New to photography. Wanting to shoot basketball

CarwinLikeWhoa

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So my friend wants me to shoot at some of his games. I shoot with a D40X and I have a 55-200 f/4-5.6 kit lens and a 18-55 f/3.5-5.6. Both Nikkor.
Last time I went, my settings were 125ss/5.6 400 ISO in manual mode obviously. But whenever I shot, the picture was all black. I most likely need better lens. Or is it something else?
I did some searches on here and heard a lot about 'white balancing'. Can someone explain to me what this is?
Thanks! :thumbup:
 
I'd assum open up you're shutter more. But I really dont know. Through on you're flash even If its on camera. Still would help...
 
Welcome to the forum.

If your photos were all black, you were doing something wrong. From the sounds of it, you were using manual mode, without metering the light.

Manual mode is great but you can't just pick the aperture and shutter speed and hope that they work...you need to measure the light. All you really need to do, is put the camera into any of the auto modes and look at the settings that it's giving you. For example, in P mode, it might give you F5.6, 1/15 at ISO 100. You can then put the camera into manual mode and input those settings.

When shooting sports, your main concern will be shutter speed. You will (most likely) want a shutter speed that is fast enough to freeze the action. 1/125 is probably fast enough...but that's probably not long enough to give you an exposure.

The limiting factor here is your lens. Only being able to open the aperture to F3.5-5.6, isn't very big. You would do much better with a lens that can open up to F1.8 or bigger. That would allow you to use a faster shutter speed and still get enough light for an exposure.

Also, you can turn up the ISO. This will give you more noise, but that's better than blur...or no image at all.
 
Carwin,

On the D40X there is a light meter that is along the bottom of the screen when you look through the viewfinder.

You need to make sure that it is showing in the middle at 0 before you take the picture. That should help ensure that your settings are correct to get a proper exposure to the picture.

I would set the aperture as open as possible and then adjust the shutter speed to get the exposure correct.

Also, following along with Mike, move your ISO to 800 and see what shutter speeds that allow. As he said, you will get more noise in the picture, but it will let you get a better picture.
 
well, if you got a black square, is because there is not enough light in the sensor.

learn about shuter speed, aperture (the f numbers) and ISO/ASA.
 
take off your lens cap! :biglaugh:

Sorry could'nt resist, like big mike said you definitely want to push your ISO. Also consider renting a fast lens to get some great shots. GOOD LUCK!
 
I can't imagine any ISO is going to give you 125th @ f/5.6 with the slow lenses you have. Were you even using a flash??. As has already been said you need a faster lens and with the slow lenses you have you need to use a better ISO. A good lens to start into using faster glass is the ubiquitous 50mm 1.8 http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/247091-USA/Nikon_2137_Normal_AF_Nikkor_50mm.html . This is a very cheap very fast lens and I think it would be perfect for shooting basketball. But really you are going to need some kind of flash as well to do a decent job. One nice place to start for help with shooting basketball might be here......
http://strobist.blogspot.com/search?q=basketball
 
I can't imagine any ISO is going to give you 125th @ f/5.6 with the slow lenses you have. Were you even using a flash??. As has already been said you need a faster lens and with the slow lenses you have you need to use a better ISO. A good lens to start into using faster glass is the ubiquitous 50mm 1.8 http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/247091-USA/Nikon_2137_Normal_AF_Nikkor_50mm.html . This is a very cheap very fast lens and I think it would be perfect for shooting basketball. But really you are going to need some kind of flash as well to do a decent job. One nice place to start for help with shooting basketball might be here......
http://strobist.blogspot.com/search?q=basketball


Looks like a great lens for an excellent price, however, I don't think his D40x is compatible with that particular lens due to the lack of AF-S/I. So I wouldn't advice purchasing that particular lens, unless your really good at manual focusing.
 
Thanks a lot guys. I'm gunna save for those lens up there. If someone can confirm they work with the D40X.

And can someone tell me what white balancing is?
 
Thanks a lot guys. I'm gunna save for those lens up there. If someone can confirm they work with the D40X.

And can someone tell me what white balancing is?

White balance is almost like having internal lens filters. Basically camera presets that add yellow or blue hues to the scene to make whites look......well...white. For example incadescent lights (and low light) adds kind of a yellowish hue to whites...and flourescent adds almost a greenish hue to whites. White balance corrects for these distortions and makes white appear white in photos thus adjust the color balance accordingly. Thats WB in a nutshell. I think white balance is a very important part of photography....but don't worry you can effectively adjust WB post production using photo editing software.
 

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