shaking up your basketball shooting repetoire

i've shot a lot of girl's basketball for the past four years or so as

i follow my daughter's experiences into high school. i'm kinda

getting stale i think. i generally get down on one knee about ten

feet right and left of the basket of the team i want to shoot on

offense, use a variety of lenses on a 10D, including 50/1.4, 85/1.8,

tamron 28-75 and sigma 70-200. shoot offense and defense. drifted

away from action shots recently to getting the girls in more isolated

moments with and without the ball.

 

two questions -- what do you do to shake things up from the typical,

well-done basketball shot? any unique, interesting

perspectives/angles you go for? while i'm at it, another question --

what do you do to get the ball in the shot as much as possible?

Here's a very cool basketball shot to give you some inspiration:

 

http://abfhm.free.fr/basket.swf

can't access it beau, but thanks.

Beau, that was a REALLY cool video! Took a few moments to load, Ben , give it time to load.

 

I shoot from overhead in a local gym with really nice results, and with a wide angle, 24mm.

 

Ben, grab a wide angle so you can get more of the shot with the ball, i never miss this way.

 

I also get every fight for the ball that ends up wrestling to the ground.

 

I prefer to shoot at 1/125th to show a little blurred action, otherwise, i might as well shoot in a studio.

 

I shoot most of the shots verticle as opposed to landscape.

 

http://www.bishoplynch.org/LadyFriarsBasketball/Varsity%20vs%20Ursuline.htm

 

http://www.bishoplynch.org/LadyFriarsBasketball/JV%20vs%20Ursuline.htm

Oh I think she banged the back of her head on the rim of the basket. She looks like she's in pain to me.

thanks miles, enjoyed your shots. the overhead is a great idea.

With the overhead shots, i had those bright reflections from the overhead lights, i might try a polarizer filter the next time, however the lighting is already marginal as you know with the indoor venues. A good challenge...I was shooting with fuji 800 pushed to 1600 speed at 125th.

miles, wouldn't a polarizer cause you to go down an f.stop though? anyway, if you are interested, i've got a ton of bball photos in the photo albums of www.leaguelineup.com/ebx --try the holiday tournament folders and you will see the kind of stuff i've done. thanks for your ideas.

howdy Ben, yes there is some compensation with the polarizer but as with most good things, there's a give and take situation. i'd be willing to give it a shot and see how the lighting situation plays out. Some gyms are fantastic (lighting) and some, well, crapola...

Ben,

 

I think I am in a "vertical" rut. I shot a prep game Tuesday night and tried some horizontal shots with limited success. It's like anything else...you just have to shoot and work through it and you will get the shots. I tried some wide horizontals under the basket with my 35-70 f/2.8 on my D1x. I needed to go a little wider to get the near floor and goal in frame, but didn't have my 20mm with me. If the action is slow, I shoot players without the ball and watch for interesting expression, etc.

 

As for keeping the ball in frame, I try to follow the action and fire when a player is holding the ball or grabbing a rebound. I have a tendancy to take the camera away from my eye after a player's shot at the goal and miss the rebound action on the miss. This syndrome developed when I went digital and just had to "chimp" all the time. The novelty of this has been slow to go away. I am getting better, but still "chimp" quite a bit, mainly to be sure my lights are all firing.

 

At most prep games, you can move to the sidelines and find a place a few rows up in the stands. You can get some interesting shots there, especially with a longer lens (like an 80-200). Since I usually use a pair of SB-24s at the baseline corners, I would have to add a light or move one to cover that angle. But it you are shooting available light, it easy to do. Here's a link to some of my prep shots:

 

http://www.cyclingphotonews.com/GalleryB.htm

thanks steve,very impressive photos and great tips. question for you -- ive always avoided using a flash out of a concern that itwill disturb the players, or the coaches or refs. what's been your experience with that? what are sb-24s and are they compatible with a 10D? what else do you need wiht them?

An SB 24 is the Nikon camera mounted flash that was dedicated to work with the F4 Nikon, so no, it would not work with a 10D. Two 550 EXs or 580s with some means of triggering them remotely as slaves, such as a Wein infra red trigger would do the same thing. If you mounted them higher than the players eye level the flash should not affect them (gaffers tape to a conveinent wall bracet etc etc). Talk to whoever runs the venue that you shoot at.

>>> question for you -- ive always avoided using a flash out of a concern that itwill disturb the players, or the coaches or refs. what's been your experience with that? what are sb-24s and are they compatible with a 10D? what else do you need wiht them? <<<

 

I typically use two Nikon SB-24 shoe flashes in manual mode at half power and zoomed for 35mm lens coverage (60 degrees horiz.). They are mounted on small ballheads on a bracket that also holds the Pocket Wizard receiver used to fire the remote flash. This bracket is mounted on a camera plate, which is attached to the top of an aluminum telescoping pole that attaches to a pipe clamp. The clamp can easily be attached to the bleachers or a railing in a gym.

 

The most desirable placement is as high as possible and slightly behind the baseline. I aim the light behind me at the center of the free throw circle and the light on the opposite side to the top of the FT circle. This covers most of the half court and provides very good lighting inside the three-point arc.

 

At half power, the strobes recycle in less than a second. Using alkaline disposable batteries, I get about 200 shots from a set of four. Recycling times lengthen a bit at 150-175 shots. I have tried rechargeables with mixed results. I think the Powerex C204 charger and their 2300 mAh 1.2v batteries will work fine from what I have read. I just need to get them ordered and do some testing.

 

I have never had any complaints from players or coaches about this setup. At half power, flash duration is 1/1,100, which is barely noticeable. I don't shoot during free throws. I frequently see shooters from weekly newspapers using direct, on camera flashes. No one ever says anything to them.

 

Any shoe flash will work with your 10d since it is set to manual mode and fired with radio slaves. Several guys I know use Vivitar 283s in the same set up. The Nikon flashes have a GN of about 140, which will get you an exposure of 1/500 @ f/2.8 @ ISO 400-500. The main thing is to be able to shoot at about three stops BELOW the ambient light in the venue. This will let the flash duration govern the motion or blur so that you are effectively shooting a 1/1,100 with my setup. I have sync at 1/500 with my D1x bodies, which helps to cancel out ambient light. I am not that familiar with Canon flashes, but I would expect that the EX550 or other of their higher-end units would have enough power. Make sure you can reduce the power setting to shorten recycling times and extend battery life.

 

Here is a shot of the light setup. I will make another post to show the clamp setup. The telescoping pole is crimped at the bottom to fit into the top of the tubing attached to the clamp. The telescoping poles were from an old unbrella tent I had. Note: It is the price of the Pocket Wizards that scares most shooters away from this system (+$500), but they have other uses and are the best radio slaves in the business.<div></div>

Here is the shot of the clamp and tubing set up. The pole (photo above) fits into the top of the tube attached to the clamp. This is all hardware store material.<div></div>