sports photos help

[momsband]

I have been "elected" to take photos of the boys varsity basketball team. Any suggestions on how best to take action shots in a crowded, sometimes dark gym where flash photography is not allowed? Also any cool ideas on how to present the boys with the pictures at the end of the season?

[karen donnybrook]

One thing I would try is rapid fire and perhaps change the ISO to try and fool the camera into doing a better job of photos taken in less than ideal light conditions.

As for presenting them to the team at the end of the year - the ideas are endless. For example, collage of each indivual player; calenders using all players (who had that wonderful calendar of the band players?).

[Grant]

momsband

Lots of things to try. But if it is in a gym that is dark you will need fast lens and high ISO and a trick.

The trick is shoot when the boys jump for the basket, at the peak of their travel they are stopped for a fraction of a second. This is usually hard to predict ... but what is not is the rebounds. The jump four rebounds is were I always got my best shot and quess what you know when they are coming, always after the shot for the basket.

[Karin Sue]

My experience with shooting with my little point and shoot in school gyms is to avoid using zoom. I get a better equivalent picture if I use crop in elements after the fact than if I use zoom during the shot.

Then again, I don't know how to use all the features available on my camera even if they are limited, so there may be a way to use zoom in low light. I know there is a feature that will take several consecutive shots for action shots that I keep intending to learn how to use.

I would try to get some posed shots to have on hand. And maybe get them to do a couple of outdoor practices in good daylight. Then you can use a few of the best shots large in a collage with lots smaller shots of the actual games.

There were a couple of threads on sports trading cards awhile back. That might be fun for your group.

[Chuck S.]

Karin Sue: Do you mean that you don't use the 'digital zoom' feature on your camera in those situations? I'd agree you with you on that; it's really not a true optical zoom, just an in-camera cropping that you indeed can do better in Elements.

Chuck

[Karin Sue]

No, I have digital zoom permanently turned off. (Actually that's the default setting--optical zoom is for sales, not use)

I use a small auto-everything point and shoot camera. Zoom will not work well (dark and very noisy) in low light conditions without changing a setting that either my camera is not capable of, or I just don't know how to use.

Zoom does fine in sunlight and with indoor flash. Does terrible in large gyms. I just need to remind myself in gyms to leave the zoom alone.

[Pauline]

School gyms are notorious for bad lighting, and usually it's very yellow. I found that my basketball pictures turned out better when I changed to 400 ISO. Even using the zoom, they weren't too bad. Take lots and lots of pictures. That's the only way to guarantee that 'great' shot! It usually ends up being a happy accident. My daughter also loved when I did little film clips so she could see the action. (like when she slammed into a player and took her and another girl out and fell herself!) :D

[Pauline]

I don't know if this will help but I uploaded two pictures to show you

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/3033/10010382pv.th.jpg (http://img503.imageshack.us/my.php?image=10010382pv.jpg)

Shutterspeed 1/32
Aperture priority
F stop f2.80
ISO 400
Focal length 6.30 mm

I was at the opposite side of the gym for this one sitting on the bleachers

http://img503.imageshack.us/img503/6219/10010806cw.th.jpg (http://img503.imageshack.us/my.php?image=10010806cw.jpg)

shutter speed 1/45
aperture priority
f2.8
IS) 400
focal length 6.7 mm

They were in front of me for this one.

The pictures turned out much better than the first time I used my camera there and used the manual settings with 100 ISO. I am very much a beginner, but was pretty pleased that I didn't have to spend hours fixing these ones up like the other ones I did!

[jayegirl]

Good luck with the gym lighting. Just take lots of shots and try different settings. If you were only elected to do, for example, the Varsity team, go to some Junior Varsity games in the same gym and experiment.

If you were elected, you probably know the coach and the principal etc.. Talk to them ahead of time to get your "sideline pass". It is different than football but at our schools there are always cops telling people to sit down and you need to be able to not sit down. With the faster action you need to have a steady hand so being bumped in the crowd or on vibrabating bleachers is not good.

I still have a long way to go to get the basketball thing down!
http://jayegirl.smugmug.com/gallery/382288/1/15245920/Medium

There are a lot of good basketball pictures on smugmug see if you can find some that let you view the exif data and see what settings they used.