Another Ten Tips For Better Basketball Photos

Last week I went over ten tips to make your basketball photos better. Today I have another ten tips that might be a little more advanced. Things like remotes and back button focus are not common terms for most photographers. Over the years I have come to really enjoy making basketball photos. Here are a few bonus tips for making better basketball photos.

Use Back Button Focus With Continuous Focus

This is kind of a two parter. I always recommend using back button focus when shooting sports. It lets you decide when to engage the focus of your camera. You can let off when the ref runs in front of you so that you will be close to being in focus again when he passes. Another component of this is using the continuous focus mode on your camera. On my Sony cameras that is AF-C mode. On my old Canon cameras is was AI Servo mode. This mode makes sure that the focus point is moving with the players. If you are in single shot mode and getting soft photos it might be because of the slight delay from when focus was acquired and when you fully pressed the shutter button. By being in continuous mode it makes sure the focus is always being acquired.

What Makes The Venue Special Or Interesting?

This is one thing that I always want to know when visiting somewhere new. What makes it cool? Do they have a cool lights out intro for the home team? Is there a stadium feature that you want to put in your backgrounds? When I first started I was always taught to have clean backgrounds. Often though I think that what you put in the backgrounds can sometimes make for an interesting photo as well. Find what makes the venue so cool and use it for your gallery. Above I was making basketball photos in a hockey arena. I wanted to show that hockey side of things as the team walked to the court.

Use Fast Lenses

Depending on the level of basketball you are shooting the light may not be great. I have started to just use prime lenses to cover basketball. Lenses at f/1.2 to f/1.8 allow me to keep my ISO down while still maintaining a fast shutter speed. In some dark high school gyms this is a must. It is true that you could miss some photos by shooting with a shallow depth of field, but the photos that hit will look much better.

Make Use Of Remotes

One of my favorite tricks for games is the camera on the ground next to me. I have been playing around with this idea for years. My first game in Mackey Arena I had a camera in my hands and one at my feet. It is a great way to make that wide sense of place photo as well as a tight action photo. If you set your remote away from you it is another good way to make sure that the refs don’t ruin your photos. A remote is a fun way to make sure that you are making different photos for the gallery. As you can see above you get two photos with one shutter click. It is a pretty cool way to add to your gallery.

Tag Your Photos In Camera And Use Photo Mechanic

I won’t go into post processing here, but one tip for editing your photos faster is to tag in camera. You don’t have to miss action to do this. There are plenty of stoppages in player where you can be tagging images. I always tag too many knowing that I want to make my final decisions on keepers on my computer. Tagging the best of the best in camera though makes the culling after the game or at the half much quicker. Another way to speed up your process that goes along with the tagging is using Photo Mechanic. Over the years this program has more than paid for itself by just letting me bring those tagged images into the computer. That time savings is huge especially when you are in a time crucnch. You can see more of my workflow tips here.

Stay In The Moment And In The Camera

When you are starting off you want to see if you got the big play right away. The urge to chimp can be strong. The best part of the play though might be the emotion after the play. Stay in the camera until the play is over. As I said above you will have plenty of down time during a game to see if you nailed that shot. You know that you probably did anyway.

Anticipate The Action Or The Celebration

Sometimes a play comes along that you don’t expect and you have to react to the action or the post play emotion. At other times you know that emotion will show up and where it will. After the game for example you know that the team always meets at center court after the handshake line. This is a great place to make some emotion photos. This could mean panning to the bench after a big three pointer. You have to anticipate where the action and emotion will be on the court. The more games you take in and more times you see a team this becomes easier and easier to do. Anticipating the action is a great way to make sure that you are there and ready to make the photo.

Vary Your Images

If you are putting a gallery together you do not want every image to look the same. I try and vary my gallery in a few ways. One of them is the remote camera at my feet. I am just looking for a couple of images from that during the game. I also try and vary horizontal and vertical images. In basketball that can be easy to do. You have places where either will work. Swapping lenses or having a third camera is another great way to do this. The more that you make photos the easier that this becomes. You will want to vary your images just to have something different. If you are at a bigger venue then you are probably stuck in one spot. You will have to work a little harder to change up the look of your photos. If you are photographing at your local high school then you probably have more room to move around and make different looking photos.

Know Your Employer

This sounds kind of basic, but early on it is a good thing to figure out. If you are being paid or shooting for the school you will be making different images than if you are working for the wire service. If you are at a high school game just trying to add to your portfolio you can relax and take chances without worrying about missing a photo here or there. When I worked with schools it was about getting something of every player. Each school was different with what they wanted. At Indiana State it was as much as I could give them. At Purdue there was usually a cap on what I could turn in from a game. There is so much that goes into this section. What kind of website orientation does your school use? What formats do they post with? The more questions you ask the better you can deliver.

Study Other Photographers

I have a bookshelf overflowing with photobooks in my house from photographers that inspire me. I think that it is good to find out who you like and why you like what they do. As a kid I collected sports cards so that really seemed to by my early influence. I have found a lot of those photographers and bought their phonebooks to study them more. You can also bring in ideas from other forms of photography to your game. I use portrait ideas all of the time during pregame and introductions. Pulling ideas from all over helps you become a better photographer.

In the last couple of weeks I have given ten tips for better basketball photos. This is not a comprehensive list, but it is a good start for newer photographers. The most important tip that I like to give is to relax and have fun. Making photos should be a fun thing, and when you are enjoying what you are doing it shows in your photos.