NEW user with sports mode

OK I guess I will have to look at the gym ..
One more thing when I try to load some pic it says they are too large what do I do to make them smaller?

Ricky1066 wrote in post #16730193
OK I guess I will have to look at the gym ..
One more thing when I try to load some pic it says they are too large what do I do to make them smaller?

What are you using to edit/manage your photos? Normally you can export or resize and save a copy to whatever dimensions you want. I believe the limit here is 1024 pixels horizontal.

You can also upload to flickr, photobucket, etc., and add the image to your post using the "Insert Image" icon in the toolbar.

I am not using anything really I just started getting into photos . I just load them to my cpu an try to put on Twitter account and says exceeds the 32mb limit

bumpintheroad wrote in post #16729884
Basketball was always one of my favorite sports to shoot, but high school basketball is a challenge because of consistently poor light. Most high school gyms are lit for cost efficiency and not photography or video, and many (at least in my area) have taken to turning-on only half the lights for most games to further save energy costs. Fast primes and pushed ISO ratings (1200 or above) were the rule, and even then you had to employ every trick in the book to grab sharp shots.

First thing is to see if you can get closer. I always had a photo pass or agreement with the coach to shoot from the sidelines. Perhaps you can talk to your son's coach and see if you can get permission to do the same in exchange for a liability waiver and free copies of photos for the school. Whether or not determines which focal length primes you will want. If you can't get sidelines access at least show-up early enough to get a front row seat behind the net. Closer is better, because the more you magnify images (either by longer focal lengths or cropping), the more any camera motion/shake will be evident.

Whether shooting from the sidelines or the stands, you want to be behind and slightly offset from the net. It doesn't really matter which net since teams change sides every period. Being behind the net means the action is coming towards the camera instead of crossing the frame. The appearance of blur is reduced when subjects are moving directly towards (or away from) the lens.

Once you've got your shooting position determined you can better choose lenses. On a crop-body camera like the T3i, I'd start with a 50/1.8 and 85/1.8. From first/second-row seats I'd go with the 85/1.8 and 135/2. Of course, faster is better if you can afford them (and available).

Shoot wide open and manual or Tv, with a shutter speed of 1/640 to 1/800. With the action heading directly to/from the lens, you can possibly even shoot as low as 1/500. Boost your ISO to whatever is needed to get correct exposures with the lens wide open at the desired shutter speed. A noisy image is better than no image whatsoever.

Choose your shots wisely. Wait for the action to come close instead of shooting mid-court or beyond and attempting to crop later. Although there's no big harm in a spray and pray approach, you'll get more consistently-good shots if you practice shooting dead-on to the action, panning the action and anticipating the moment where movement reaches a temporarily equilibrium. Shooting dead-on means waiting for the players to be moving directly towards the camera, when motion blur is minimized. With panning, you move the camera to keep the moving subject in the same place within the frame as you snap the shot. If done well, the subject will be sharp (except for some motion blur in moving arms/legs) while the background will get blurred out. Anticipating equilibrium means waiting for that moment when the player's movement almost comes to a complete stop, such as the brief moment when a charging player plants for a shot or block, or the apogee of a jump just before pumping the ball.

Then keep on practicing. Basketball is both a comfortable (being indoors) and exciting sport to shoot. The fact that your son is a major contributor to the team's success makes it even sweeter.

Great tips and excellent explanations!

Ricky1066 wrote in post #16730261
I am not using anything really I just started getting into photos . I just load them to my cpu an try to put on Twitter account and says exceeds the 32mb limit

You might want to consider purchasing Adobe Lightroom 5 (Lr5). You can normally find it for around $120 but often on sale for as little as $70. It provides very good photo cataloging, organization and general editing features, including the ability to export resized photos for uploading to sites such as Twitter. Adobe Photoshop Elements 12 is also a good photo editor and cheaper at around $70, but I think that LR does a better job at organization and basic corrections, and use Photoshop (the full version) only for more advanced edits.

On the free side, your camera should have come with a CD containing Canon Digital Photo Professional (DPP). If you can't find the CD you can download the software from the Canon support site (you might need to register and provide your camera's serial number). DPP will also allow you to save resized copies of your image.

If you upload your photos to a sharing site such as Flickr, Photobucket, Google Picasa, etc... they should automatically get resized to fit with either their default or your user-defined maximum dimensions. Use of all of these sites is free up to a certain amount of storage. Google Picasa is actually now Google+ Photos, it's own social media site competing with Facebook, but you can use just the photo portion and ignore the rest. Google also has a free basic photo management/editing app named Picasa that offers some features similar to Lightroom. I used the Picasa app for many years before switching to Lightroom and Photoshop.

Any of the above methods should allow you to get your photos on-line. Once on-line one places, you can link to the images from other places.

That looks like Rose Hill Gymnasium at Fordham University. The lighting there is likely much better than most high school gyms. It has high bay light fixtures which can cause problems as they cycle. You should still be able to get usable photos with ISO 6400 and your lens. An f/2.8 or faster lens is much better.

You are going to be frustrated until you get a fast lens. There are several f/2.8 or faster lens available for less than a thousand dollars. The Canon 85mm f/1.8 for less than $400 has been mentioned several times.

Keep the shutter speed fast for action, at least 1/500 sec. for basketball, to avoid motion blur.

There are several post processing programs available to edit the noise in images shot at higher ISO, see post #35 above. Search POTN and YouTube for some great editing tips.

One more thing: Get away from those automatic camera settings. I use nothing but manual settings when inside with constant lighting. You know more about what you want than the camera knows. Take control and tell it what to do. Many of us learned with totally manual cameras, including manual focus. You can do it and it doesn't take very long to learn once you make the commitment.

peeaanuut wrote in post #16730002
Go to the Tv mode. Set to the lowest possible f stop you can, 3.5 if I remember correctly and then set the ISO to 1600 and choose 1/1000 as your shutter. If the image is too dark on the screen, then drop to 1/800 shutter. Keep going a slower shutter until you get to 1/400 at the very slowest. If the image is too dark, change the ISO to 3200 and start the exercise over again. 1/1000 down to 1/400 at the slowest. Again if that doesnt do the trick, move up to 6400 ISO and start again. You should find the sweet spot somewhere in there but just remember the higher the ISO, the noisier the image is. Hopefully you find something to your liking in the ISO 1600 range.You can do this all before the game starts and blow a bunch of photos on warm ups and stuff. Once you find the right balance, you should be happy.

In general, good advise.. but I would still recommend just going to the "M" mode to get over the shock of "shooting in M mode"...

Reason. In TV, iso 3200 or even 6400, the camera is probably still calculating "under exposure", so when he hits the exposure lock (probably tied to focus lock on the shutter), the aperture setting in the viewfinder that the camera picked is probably blinking. Which means it WANTS to pick something lower, but can't. It will still take the picture. So, what is the difference in going to Full manual and just dialing the aperture as low as it will go and leaving it there?

Also, IF he is using the 18-55, then it is f/3.5 ONLY at 18mm. IF he zooms in to 55, it's f/5.6. <eek> This is one area where TV may actually help in an odd way. TV will always select the lowest possible aperture based on the zoom setting. With my 18-55 in Av/M, I can dial it in to f/3.5 at 18mm... then as I zoom in, the aperture will change to whatever the lens limits itself to at that focal length. IF I go back to 18mm, most of the time the aperture setting will also go back down. I have seen times when it doesn't though.

/shrug.

Ricky1066, I was in your shoes a year ago. The good news is that you will get great shots, the bad new is it takes some time and money but it's worth it when you get a great shot of your son.

Buy a used Sigma 70-200 2.8 lens. I searched and it is the most affordable lens in that range. You should be able to get it for $400-470. The good thing is you can sell it a year from now for the same price. If you do have the money go for Canon 70-200 2.8. You need to be in the f2.8 or lower range because you need the shutter to be fast to capture the action and with indoor lighting 2.8 or lower is going to be required.

Another tip is the ISO. I am stealing the idea from a book I read but think of ISO as little magic bees that gather light. The darker it is, or the faster you are shooting the more you need ISO to boost the photo. That is why you need to shoot in Manual mode, so you get your speed, f-stop setting and ISO all working together for the shot you want.

Lastly you will probably need to perform noise reduction to your shots on your computer. Light Room (LR) is the most widely used on this forum. There may be some cheaper or free alternatives but if the photos you get are grainy, the noise reduction will get rid of the grain and make the photos really pleasing.

Read this forum constantly. There are real pros who spend a lot of time helping others. I am just a hack amateur but I started last year so I figure you can benefit from a real beginner's experience.

I have used this program to resize photos for years and it works very well for me. If you want to email them to someone or load them to Photobucket or another hosting site just resize them first.


http://imageresizer.co​deplex.com/

The 85/1.8 is a great lens for basketball.