Shooting High School Basketball games

Either get a real pro digital sports camera with a faster autofocus( D2H,etc) or a faster pro lens ( f1.4/1.8/2.8 minimum) or find a gym with better lights or slower players.

My D70 took 25 minutes to finally focus properly on a brick wall.

Make sure you have the camera set to continuous focus. Try getting a fast lens like a 35mm f2 or a 50mm 1.4 lens. If its High School you can probably get close enought to get some great shots with these lenses withought the flash.

Hi Larry,

There are some things that man must do on his own, without auto mode. One of them is shooting sports. Basketball is challenging, but you'll have fun doing it, especially with digital. I used to spend three or four nights a week at HS basketball games (during the season of course) when I did newspaper work. Now multiply that by 10 years, Oh, no wonder I hate basketball.

First thing you'll need is a fast lens. Get yourself a 50mm 1.8, which on your D70 will kick you up to about a 75 1.8, perfect, and it only cost $100. Take yourself down to the basket, I don't know why, but I always preferred the left side of the basket as you face the court (or basket to my right). Kneel down against the wall, or if they wall isn't close, about 5' from the foul line (be ready to move). I actually liked about 2-3'.

Now you need to set exposure. What you want is an ambient light looking picture, with some fill flash. While the guys or gals are practicing is when you make your adjustments. The SB-800 is pretty darn good on exposure, so I would set it to auto and set your shutter speed to 1/125 or higher as the gym lighting dictates. Optimally, you would want to shoot available light and leave the flash in the bag. Like say at 1/250 @ 2.8 or 4. Pretty unheard of in the days I was shooting basketball, buy I haven't been in a HS gym in a while.

So, set a speed that matches an aperture of ... well, let's say 2.8, if it's less than 1/125 you're going to get too much blur, probably. Shoot some test frames, don't be afraid to raise the ISO, and don't pay attention to the meter. Remember, you're on manual mode here. The meter is going to go crazy as you move from looking up to across to down, forget about it. During practice warm your manual focusing as well, follow the layups, etc.. Try it with the flash and without. I always thought without was a far superior and natural way to go. You see the gym in the background and action right in front, it's a good thing. Flash will probably give you some ghosting but that can be OK.

Now, if the gym is really dark, just set the flash to f8 @ 1/125 or 1/250 (I don't know where the D70 synchs) and plan on shooting one frame at a time. You'll get great sharp pictures of the players but your background will probably go black. Not very attractive, but sometimes it's the way to go. Try this too. This reminds me, shoot for the moment, don't just mash the trigger on continuous. Pick your moments, if it's not sharp don't shoot. Pretend your shooting film. Shoot the moment you want, then another and perhaps another if a sequence presents itself. You want the timing to be yours, not the cameras. It's your intuition we're looking for here, not roboman's.

Two more things. Range focus a bit, look at the scale on your lens, feel the position of your hand and the barrel in relation to infinity ('cause that's where the lens stops and serves as a good reference), you won't need to move the focus much with a 50. If you get a feel for this when you see a player coming into your spot you quickly rack to inf. then bring it back, and he'll be right in your focus zone. Find something that works for you. It will be tricky, and they move really fast, the success rate is really low, be ready for that. I used to shoot with a 105 2.5 and in good action, if one frame per shot sequence was sharp I'd be very happy. 3-4 'good' shots (sharp, good action, and important player) in a two period stay was a very successful take. Probably 3-4 rolls of 36 exp..

You can get close to an accurate exposure by reading off your hand, hold it perpendicular to the court, with maybe even a slight angle down to read a bit of shadow.

Don't be intimidated about being down by the basket. Just tell them you're a stringer for the local paper, or shooting for yearbook, if you play it cool, nobody will bother you. Remember though that they don't want a crowd of knuckleheads down by the basket taking pictures, so look like you know what you are doing, get a great shot and send it in to the newspaper when you get home. One published picture will buy you a full season pass down at the basket.

good luck, Dennis

Larry,

<<Is the lens not fast enought?>>

You have a fine camera, a fine flash and a fine lens.

The camera's autofocus is pushed to its limits -- or beyond its limits -- when you have a relatively "dark" lens like the 70-300 attached and work indoors. The lens is not a lightning focuser, and the camera's autofocus module is not a lightning focuser either... combined they can be too slow to keep up with indoor sports.

The SB-800 is a potent accessory flash... but it will not light up a whole basketball court.

If you use the same camera and lens to photograph beach volleyball on sunny days, they will work wonderfully. Plus, young women playing beach volleyball are so much more FUN than high school basketball players. Move to southern California and photograph beach volleyball.

<<Any thoughts on settings or lens would appreciated.>>

Set the lens to its maximum aperture to gather as much of the feeble light in the gym as possible.

Set the shutter speed at 1/125 sec. so you have at least a prayer of avoiding camera shake with your telephoto lens. You may need to select an even faster shutter speed... at 300mm your DSLR crops the image to an effective 450mm lens on a film camera, so you want 1/450 sec. or faster for your shutter. At 70mm you have the same effective field of view as a 105mm lens on a film camera, so you'd want at least 1/100 sec. shutter speed when using the wide end of your zoom range.)

What ISO will you need to use to get acceptable pictures that way? Probably 800 or 1600.

Even at a high ISO setting, with f/5.6 your best aperture and 1/125 shutter speed you will need to let the flash help illuminate your subjects.

Good luck.

You might be amazed now much a Nikkor f/1.8 85mm lens would help your basketball exposures. It's not much of a telephoto, though.

Lenses that are telephoto AND fast (like the 180/2.8 or the 80-200/2.8) cost real money. Fast and LONG telephoto lenses like the 300/2.8 sell for thousands of dollars.

Armando:

<<My D70 took 25 minutes to finally focus properly on a brick wall.>>

You're more patient than I am. After 23 minutes, I'd have given up and focused the thing manually.

Be well,

A faster lens will help more than a faster camera. I have a D2H and in dim lighting it can sometimes autofocus more quickly with a fast non-SWM lens like the 50/1.8D AF Nikkor than with my slowish variable aperture AF-S zooms. I don't even try to use my slow, variable aperture non-SWM zoom indoors.

Combining flash and ambient light inside typical gymnasiums is one of the trickiest situations in action-oriented color photography. Take a white card and try to work out a custom white balance at the site. If that doesn't do the trick you're left with two choices: overpower the ambient lighting with flash at full output; or combining an appropriate gel on the flash with a custom white balance setting on the camera.

Armando, "Either get a real pro digital sports camera with a faster autofocus( D2H,etc) or a faster pro lens ( f1.4/1.8/2.8 minimum) or find a gym with better lights or slower players." You are on a roll Armando, too bad it's not too helpful to Larry. Dennis however put a lot of thought into his post and spelled it out plain and simple. Do what Dennis advises and you will get some great shots with your D70. You don't need top of the line bodies and lenses to get great shots, maximize and utlize what you have.

"There are some things that man must do on his own..."

that was funny, thanks.

I too have shot high school games for my local newspaper with a D70s. I have also shot with a D2hs. Obviously the D2hs is easier to catch the right play but I still love my D70s. I shoot with both a 17-35mm 2.8 and a 70-200mm 2.8. I love wide angle. Shooting wide give you a little more latitude as far as cmaera shake goes. But you have to watch for player blur. I shoot at 1/125 at least. I use flash to stop action (also a Sb-800) and light the dungeons I shoot in. A 2.8 or better is what it sounds like you need. As everyone else has said. A 50mm 1.8 is a GREAT lens. Most HS games allow you full access to the floor. GET CLOSE. You don't have to shoot from one end to the other. Also, use your supplied diffuser ( the little white thing that came with your SB-800 that you never use). Put it on and point your flash head skyward (just short of vertical). That will diffuse enough flash to keep from blowing your sujbects out but enough to stop action. It works great for me. I shoot at ISO 800 (fast enough but very little noise) and the flash on TTL BL. (Put it on TTL and when you put on the diffuser it will go to the BL part)

"If your pictures aren't good enough...you're not close enough." James Kenney WKU