Having been someone who began their journey into sports photography with soccer, basketball was quite a different experience. The first and most obvious difference of basketball is the size of the court, you will come to find this to be both a good and bad thing as a photographer. On the plus side, your subjects are nearly always within a good distance to photograph them even with a smaller lens, however this also mean the ten people on the court are also much closer to one another. Photographing basketball definitely teaches you patience as you will find very often a player or a referee will be blocking your subject. It’s especially difficult at times because photographers sit under the basket to the left or right. However, I personally find some of the most interesting shots to come from the fact that the court is so crowded. Occasionally you can get shots through the crowd, focused on your subject with other people closer or farther, giving the shot a certain depth and sense of pressure.
My settings for shooting basketball are similar to shooting soccer, a shutter speed of 1/800 or more, f/stop 2.8, an ISO ranging from 1000-3200 depending on the venue, white balance usually set to white fluorescent lighting, auto focus set to AI Servo, and High Speed Continuous shooting. You want to have at least a shutter speed of 1/800 or higher because basketball is also a fast moving and erratic sport, so to freeze the action you’ll need a high shutter speed. Having shot both women’s and men’s basketball games in Walsh Gym and the Prudential Center the lighting can be very different so you’ll have to compensate for the with your white balance settings and most likely some post production adjustments. For example, pictures taken Walsh Gym gym tend to come out very yellow and shots in the Prudential center more blue.
Another descision to make when shooting basketball is what lens to use and what types of shots to get. Most professional photographers have both a telephoto zoom lens, usually a 70-200m and a smaller wider angle lens like a 24-70mm to capture both close ups and action like dunking. Since the the photographers are made to sit practically under the basket it is very difficult to capture a player, dunking the ball for example, with a telephoto zoom lens.
Similar to capturing the celebrations and emotions of scoring a goal in soccer, there will also be many opportunities to capture the emotions of an important moment in a basketball game such as a vital three pointer or impressive dunk. You will hopefully be able to get shots of both the players on the court, the players and staff on the bench, and even the crowd.
