You can't get a better camera for what you're shooting (1D MK III). The only thing you are missing is a 70-200mm lens perfect for basketball. The standard setting that you will want to start out with depending on the amount of light is ISO 800 to 1600 with a shutter around 300 to 400 maybe 500 of a second. You will definitely want to choose center focus point manually and make sure you can control focus separately from exposure. The back focus button on the MKIII is there for just that. Use your thumb to track focus and your index finger to activate the shutter. Also manual exposure is a big help as the exposure around the scoring part of the court won't change where you can compensate from there. As far as aperture I try and not shoot at f/2.8 as much as possible as the DOF is very shallow where if your focus is off just a bit then the important part of the subject will be out of focus rendering the image useless. I was shooting with a 40D so the Mark III should be more accurate. The good thing about f2.8 is if your focus is spot on the background will be more blurred which makes for some really nice shots. I like to hover around f/4 if possible but if its not possible due to light then you can always go closer to 2.8. From all the photos I've seen from the newspaper where I used to work and from the ones I've shot you will be sitting basically under or to the side of the hoop where you will be required to sit.


You will also want the camera set to capture 10 images per a sec usually in High quality JPEG and have the focus tracking set to AI-servo.


I have experimented using wide angle lenses here and there but most of the time you will want to condense the action with a telephoto lens and focus on certain points where you have the ball in the shot of course. Extreme facial expressions with the ball near by make great shots where the most popular are the ones of the players jumping up towards the hoop.


Depending on the basketball game I've been allowed to use flash before but if I remember correctly it was at the high school level. If you do get to use flash you usually want it turned down in manual mode to maybe 1/32 power as more light will give you a deer in the headlight look. At this point its basically used like a fill flash.





Here is one wide angle shot that I did while shooting at the NCAA championships playoffs here in North Little Rock, Arkansas.