Kids Basketball & 40D

[Canonguy39]

I've had my 40D a couple of months and have been taking some shots of my granddaughters basket ball games using 3200 ISO and I'm very happy with the results. The only noise reduction I used was the one in PE7, I know Noise Ninja would work much better, just have not bought it yet. Here are a couple of photo's from the games. The gym's are not well lite, so having 3200 available is a big help. I set the Tv on 100 and fire away.

[Howard Ting]

images are too lose, try using around 70-130mm to get tighter shots w/ 1-4 players.
4 or more makes the photos look messy.

WB between 1 and 2 are totally different. did the flash fire for the first one and not the 2nd one?

Also Shutter speed at 100 might be too slow.
250-300 with flash will stop action w/o ghosting
500+ for avaliable light

and dont be afraid to stand behind the basket & outside of the foul lines! shoot from the stands is okay for a bit, but it gets boring after a while.

ps. Refs in Shorts look goofy, PIX #1. stick w/ pants. lol

[Big K]

ps. Refs in Shorts look goofy, PIX #1. stick w/ pants. lol

Not as goofy as the other ref with pants about 5 sizes too small. :-)

[Big K]

I set the Tv on 100 and fire away.

I would recommend not using Tv mode and use Av mode then try and move to full manual.

Set ISO to 3200. Av mode. Spot metering or center weighted average. If you are using your 55-250, set the zoom to 55 and set your aperture to f/4.

I don't know the specifics of how the 40D handles zooms with varying apertures so you should test this to see if it works. To test it, take a shot at 55mm and see if the aperture is f/4. Then zoom to 250 and take a picture and see if the aperture is f/5.6. This should be correct. Next, zoom back to 55mm and take another shot and confirm the aperture returned to f/4. If it doesn't, you will be stuck shooting at f/5.6 which is very tough given the poor lighting of most gyms. If this happens, I would suggest using your 28-105 which would give you an f/4.5 aperture. Less zoom but more light.

Av mode will allow you to get the highest shutter speed possible which is critical for improving overall sharpness of your images. Advancing to the level you are comfortable setting up and shooting manual will help increase the number of keepers but will not be as significant an improvement as moving away from Tv at 100.

[Peter Camyre]

Those indoor gym lights are tough, your shots aren't bad!