Rebel XS - Shooting setting for basketball

[russgriffin]

Hello Friends,


I've recently purchased my first Rebel XS; and I truly love the camera. I was curoius if anyone could recommend camera settings to avoid blur while shooting photos during my 7 yo's basketball games? I've tried all of the generic settings including "sports" "no-flash" and Auto without success. We are only 25 yards from the court, so the shots are fairly close. I currently only have the generic lens that comes with this camera.


Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.





Thanks, Russell Griffin

[dougthebiker]

I shoot most sports in aperture priority (Av) set at the maximum aperture for the lens on the camera. If you've got a kit lens, that's probably f3.5 to 4.5. In order to stop the blur indoors, you'll probably need the highest ISO setting on the camera. Better to have some ISO noise than blurred shots.

[peety3]

Like the other person said, aperture priority, and set the lens wide open. Use highest ISO possible. Your hope is shutter speeds that are at least 1/<focal-length> and preferably 1/250th for blur-free action. I'd also recommend zooming full wide, then setting your aperture to 3.5 or whatever it'll give you; as you zoom in, it'll adjust as needed, but as you zoom out it'll give you whatever it can back.


A questionable option would be to underexpose your shots up to one stop. You'd want to shoot RAW then, to give better "recovery" options in DPP.

[David Selby]

check out my lesson on this





http://www.learnslr.com/?page_id=14

[David Selby]

Hopefully the fundamentals will assist you there.





My other advice is this


to get action shots you need 1/500th of a second or better


Shoot in Av mode, place your aperture at the Widest (lowest number) your lens is capable of so 3.5 or 5.6 etc.. hit the ISO button and change it to 800 or 1600


Hit AF mode and turn it to "AI Servo"


Press shot mode button and change to continuous shooting.





Now look at your scene and press the shutter half way... what shutter speed do you see? If its 1/500th or faster then great! if not you are going to need a higher quality lens (buy or rent) a faster lens with wider aperture.


I also recommend using Custom function 10(1) to move auto focus to the rear of the camera and split it away from shutter/exposure lock.

[Tim]

You might want to check out the canon 50mm f1.8 II lens, its available at many sites for $90. This performs quite well indoors, and its the cheapest canon lens.

[Oren]

The 50mm f/1.4 is not that expensive either - about $425 at B&H right now, and according to Bryan's review it's much better to go with.


I'd rather not by any new lens at all than buying a $90 lens.

[russgriffin]

Thanks everybody; we had another basketball game today, and it worked perfect. It's obvious I need a lens that zooms a little more; but it was great!!!

[Oren]

That's great! [H] any pictures for us? [:P]

[Doug Young]

Hi Russ - mind if I jump in here?


If you are shooting your 7 year old's games, I'll assume you are shooting inside a gym - and most school gyms are very dark indeed. I know because I shoot high school sports for a newspaper and my own commercial web site.


There is some very good advice mentioned above. The XS can take 3 frames per second which will work just fine for taking pix of kids. The problem will be the lens. The lens that came with your camera is fine, but not for shooting indoor sports. Some folks above mentioned getting a 50mm lens. Good idea - but don't buy the 50mm f 1.8 lens. Yes, its inexpensive, and it is capable of taking good images, but it focuses very slowly. You need a fast focusing lens for sports. I recommend either the 50mm f 1.4 or (even better) the 85mm f 1.8. You will see pros with multi-thousand dollar cameras shooting NBA games with the 85 f 1.8. True, both the 50 1.4 and the 85 1.8 will cost almost as much as your camera, but they are worth it.


Set your camera this way:

• Set your ISO to 1600 - the highest sensitivity your camera is capable of.
• I will disagree with the "LearnSLR.com" site on shooting RAW. If you shoot RAW with the XS, it will really slow it down - you won't be able to shoot 3 frames per second. True, RAW has its advantages (I shoot in RAW) but you can take some great pix in JPEG.
• I also mildly disagree with the recommendations to shot in Av mode. Most of the better shooters use manual mode. Why? Because the camera must do calculations to match a shutter speed with the aperture. Instead, try manual mode -
  

<blockquote>

• Set the shutter speed to 1/500
• Set the aperture to f 2

</blockquote>

• Next, set the focus mode to AI Servo. This is designed into the camera to track on a moving subject - think of it as predictive focus. When your 7 year old dribbles towards you, the camera will track on that subject.
• Finally, use only the center focus point. There are seven focus points built into your camera, but you want to only use the center one. Why? If you use all seven, and the referee walks into the side of your viewfinder, the focus point on that side may pick up on the ref and focus on the ref - but all you want is your basketball player.

Try a few shots during warm-ups. Use your histogram when you look at the shots in the LCD. The "hump" of the histogram garph should be in the middle or slightly to the right. If its not, you need more light. You can't raise the ISO because its already as high as it can go, but you can open up the lens some more - try f 1.8 or even f 1.4 (if you are using the 50mm lens). Try another test shot. Still not good? You can probably let in a little more light by slowing the shutter speed another notch. (1/500 is needed for high school athletes, but little kid's action can probably be frozen at 1/250) You will be tempted to judge the quality of the exposure by just looking at the LCD to see if it bright enough. Don't do it - trust the histogram.


When shooting, concentrate on keeping that focus point on the chest of the subject. You can do that two ways - you can just concentrate on one player and follow that athlete around, or (if you have fast reflexes) follow the ball around and refocus each time you are on a new subject.


You will have trouble getting nice tight shots, but you can crop the shot when you open it up in your software. If there is a noticeable amount of noise in your photos (likely when shooting at ISO 1600), use a good noise reduction program such as Noise Ninja or Neat Image.


Have fun - and lets see some pix here.





Doug