© 2015 Dave Dabour
Here’s a quick peek at some of the photos from yesterday’s Readington Recreation 6th grade Girls Basketball finals.
More photos will be available soon online
Happy New Year!
The Greenwich Cheerleaders in action at a recent boys basketball game!
In addition to taking still photos at games I’m now recording some video as well. I generally do photography for the first half and video segments the second half.
This is a fundraiser for GTRC. 20% of sales is donated to GTRC.
In additional to still photography at games I’m now starting to record some video segments as well. I generally do photography during the first half and video the second.
This is a fundraiser for the GTRC. 20% of photography sales is donated back.
In yesterday’s tip we talked about setting your camera in shutter priority mode and setting a fast shutter speed of 1/800 or faster if possible.
Today’s tip #2 is to set your aperture (f stop) as wide open as possible (lower number). You can find how wide your lens will open usually on the front of the lens:
In the above example it’s the numbers after 1: so in this case it’s 3.5-5.6. There being two numbers means it’s a range. The aperture of this particular lens will not stay the same at all focal (zoom) ranges– it all depends on how far zoomed in or out you are. For this lens it means when I have it set wide (18 mm) it will have an aperture of 3.5 (which is good for low light) but if I have it zoomed all the way out to 135mm it will only be 5.6 (which is so-so for low light). This above lens is a typical “kit” lens that comes with your camera if you purchased it with a lens included. Different cameras come with different lenses.
As I stated above, wider (lower number) is better for low light situations. This is my “bread and butter” lens when I’m photographing indoor sports and I can get close to the action. This lens opens all the way up to 2.8. Since there is only one number, it can stay at this opening over it’s entire range (in this case 24-70mm).
So by now you’re saying I’ll just go out and buy lenses with 2.8 aperture. That’s great and will help you tremendously BUT they are more expensive than typical lenses. But these lenses, if taken care of, will last you a lifetime for the manufacturer and camera mount they are intended for.
So in review we have Shutter priority with a setting of 1/800 or higher if possible and use your lens that opens the widest. This will let in the most light and freeze action.
But what happens if that’s not enough and your pictures are still dark? That will be tip #3.
A friend recently contacted me seeking advice on how to create better indoor sports photos. I passed on some tips and thought this would make a good series for my blog. If you agree and want to see more let me know!
Photographing sports outside during the day is relatively easy. You just have to find a good angle and click away.
Indoor sports is a different animal completely. It looks bright enough to our eyes but they can see more range of light than our cameras. Plus the quality of the light isn’t as good as daylight.
So what to do? Tip #1 is to put your camera in shutter priority mode. If you’re not comfortable with that or if it doesn’t support that then put it into action or sports mode.
On my cameras (Canon) it’s the Tv setting. Once you have it set for that then set the shutter speed to at least 1/800 of a second. Some sports will need it faster to stop the action. But the challenge here is you need more light since the shutter will only be open for a fraction of a second (1/800th of a second in this case). Making this change will stop your pictures from being as blurry.
Ok so now you do that but the pictures are dark, now what? Tune in for the next tip 
Photos of the GTRC Greenwich Gladiators U09C Boys Basketball from February 28, 2015 are now available.
