Action Shots In High School Gyms

[73rocks]

I keep seeing posts asking what the best way is for novices like me to capture indoor high school action shots in small gyms.

I have been shooting high school sports photos for a couple of small town newspapers in NE SD for about 6 years now and what I found that works for me best is to use just a plain old 50mm f1.8 prime lens with my Canon 50D and Eos Xti. Sure you can’t zoom in on the action, but these small gyms don’t have that much room under the baskets anyway. I found that most of the time when I did use my 70 – 200mm zoom lens I had it at minimum focal length most of the time anyway. Plus when I did use the zoom, I was over extending my flash unit too. With a 15 Meg chip, I can do all my zooming by cropping later on.

I went on eBay and bought a used Canon prime lens for $70 and have been using it since. Most of the time I shoot in shutter priority around 400/sec, the ISO set around 640 or 800, and almost always without using the flash or strobes. One of the added benefits of not shooting without the flash is that my flash unit isn’t always giving off that annoying preflash burst. Below is just one example of some of the great shots I got at a game last night using this very set up. For more of my shots check out my photos on Flickr under my username 73Rocks.

Hope this helps out a little.

[mdruziak]

Great tip!

[wanelad]

Thats a good photo caught 2 in action at the same time well done

[Ang C L]

Good shot!
Have you tried using a smaller aperture like f/2.8 to give it that blurred background effect? Much harder to get tack-sharp images but may be worth trying. Thks for sharing.

[73rocks]

Originally Posted by Ang C L

Good shot!
Have you tried using a smaller aperture like f/2.8 to give it that blurred background effect? Much harder to get tack-sharp images but may be worth trying. Thks for sharing.

I haven't tried that with my 1.8 prime but I have found that shooting with my Sigma 70-200
f2.8 I really need to dial up the ISO in order to get the images light enough for my taste. I have the 'bare minimum' for editing software so I try to get it right with the camera.

I will try using a 2.8 aperture next time though just to see if I can retain enough light for the image and get the players to 'pop out' of the background.

Thanks for the tip!

[dkemme]

I've also used a flash dialed very low. The players hardly even notice but it really stops the action.

[73rocks]

Originally Posted by dkemme

I've also used a flash dialed very low. The players hardly even notice but it really stops the action.

Another good idea - I will also give that a try. Thanks for the tip!

[spham92]

I use the Canon 50mm f/1.8 also. Does great for indoor sports however you have to do a lot of moving around to get the perfect shot. I bump my ISO to 1600 though, the noise is ridiculous but i need it that high to freeze time with 1/400 shutter

[kgb224]

Superb capture shared by you.

[belladoja]

Awesome image and great advice! Thanks for the "how to's".