David Hobby from the Baltimore Sun has a great short description of a simple technique including two flash units and remote triggers here.
There is another great source for sports in general by Jerry Lodriguss, see here for more.
In principle you want a shutter speed shorter than 1/200. Use a fast lens, get close to the action. Set your white balance to custom and use a grey card to take a shot that allows the camera to evaluate the white balance. This saves endless time tweaking it later.
I hate to throw water on your intentions, but when I was in school, we used 100wt second power electronic flash units that weight 6 lbs on our hips. But progress marches on. I am not into sports anymore. But who else is shooting your son's basketball game? Ask them. Anybody with a camera loves to speak "photo". Or go to the school photography instructor or the yearbook guy, and ask them what they use and how they handle the lighting, movement,etc.
The simple answer is yes you need a bigger flash, the biggest one available to you. And as usual it would help to tell us the equipment your using so a specific recommendation could be made. ie. What ISO are you using, are you set on manual for the flash?What settings on digital slr camera to take indoor sports (basketball) photos?
Thats a tricky problem! On one hand its a sport (so you need a fast shutter speed) and on the other you have very poor lighting and what is available is usually that horrible orange sodium lamps that don't mix well with camera flashes.
There basically 3 variables on the camera that you can change to expose an image. The film speed, the aperture and the shutter speed. The 4th variable is the external lighting (eg. natural, flash based or both).
The first thing i'd try is placing the "film speed" on manual (in fact: place everything on manual). On a Digital camera this is displayed as ISO. A lower number (100 or 200) gives a higher quality picture but needs a longer exposure. A higher number (800) would allow you to take a faster image but the image would appear more grainy. If you keep the aperture the same, but double the ISO, then you can also double the shutter speed to achieve the exact same exposure. The best compromise between graininess and blurriness will be the result. Graininess can be reduced to a certain extent in Photoshop or similar software whereas bluriness generally can't. So perhaps this will give you an edge. The best thing to do is try it beforehand to see if it will give an effective result.
The second option, If you are using an SLR camera, is to get a fast lense. Many of the "kit" lenses have their widest aperature at around F5.6. If this is the case and If you get beg, borrow, rent or steal a fast lense like an 70-200mm F2.8 then you should gain 2 F-stops. This would give you 4 times the shutter speed (although the depth of field would also be reduced).
The third option is to get more light in the court. David Hobby's website "Strobist" is a fantastic resource on how to use small flashlights to big effect. Theres even a special tutorial on how to light a basketball court if you are willing to invest the time and money. Pay attention to how he is using Gells to match the flash light to the sodium lights so that his pictures come out without the horrible sodium orange. Even if you don't do this, i can highly recommend his site. Using one or two external flashes is one of the cheapest ways to completely alter a picture.
1) ... using a higher ISO setting, like 1600 or higher... If that does not work then you will have to get a faster lense...f2.8 would be nice,
2) I was in the same boat as you kind except the indoor sport was basketball. If someone was standing still the shot was okay. If they were moving, the shot was blurred. It was the same story with outdoor nighttime football action too.
I bought a Tamron 28-75mm f2.8 XR Di lens for my 20D. Unfortunately basketball season is over so I can't test it right now on indoor action shots. I can tell you that I have taken a ton of indoor shots at home and other places with it. The difference is night and day between the photos with it and my Kit Lens.
I also bought an external flash, the Canon Speedlite 580EX. I plan to use it along with my Tamron f/2.8 lens at night football games and indoor basketball games next year.
At some of the games that I mentioned above, there are sometimes a professional photographer or two and a newspaper photographer. I alway go ask them for advice when I can. They are always using an f/2.8 lens and an External Flash.
3) Maybe a combination ISO400, camera set to TV 1/125 should get decent shots.What settings on digital slr camera to take indoor sports (basketball) photos?
First, buy or borrow the book Understanding Exposure. This will help you understand what the camera is trying to do when you put it in any mode but automatic.
Next, you're going to want a shutter speed at 1/500th of a second or faster. 1/400th at the very least to capture a fast sport. If you're taking pictures during a slow time, say, getting ready for a free-throw, you can get slower, but what out for camera shake! This is when the image is blurry because YOU moved the camera. Here, what you want to make sure is that you remember the inverse focal length rule: You want the shutter speed to be at least as fast as the inverse of the focal length in mm. So, if you have a 200mm lens, you want at least 1/200th of a second. (Note, crop-factor of a camera doesn't matter for this.)
So, put the camera in Manual mode and set the shutter speed for 1/500th of a second. Next, open up the aperture (smaller numbers) until the exposure meter in your camera gets closer to the center. Note that depending on your lens, you may not be able to get to a proper exposure. Professionals use expensive fast (larger aperture) lenses. A 200mm f/1.8 lens costs $3000. This is a lens that the pros use at NBA games! You'll probably want a 135mm f/2 lens ($750) or 85mm f/1.8 lens ($300), which are more reasonable.
After you've set your camera, take some sample shots and check the histogram. You want a "mountain" centered in the middle or to the right. If there is lots of dead space to the right, you are underexposing. Try knocking the shutter speed down to 1/400th.
Another method is to put your dSLR into "sports" mode, which attempts to do what I said above by guessing. This is not a fool-proof solution.
If you still can't get it, set the camera to 1/250th, f/3.5 or faster (lower) and turn on the flash. If your flash has high-speed sync, turn it on. The camera will have the flash put out enough power to properly expose the shot.
Keep trying! One nice thing is that you aren't spending $$$ on film trying to figure it out.
Indoor sports pose a dilemma for photographers, as you have found. There isn't a huge amount of light, and bodies and balls are moving fast.
So one option is to increase the amount of light out there, with a flash. There are flashes that could illuminate the far end of a basketball court, but you might not like the results. Closer objects would be brighter, maybe washed out. And everything would appear flat, because the light source is so close to your lens, so you don't see any shadows. (Bounce flash is not an option in a gym, probably.)
Another option is to increase the amount of light coming into the camera. You do that by getting a lens that gathers more light, i.e., a "faster" lens, i.e. a lens that has lower f-stop. Fast telephoto lens get real pricey, though. Those big white lens you see on the sidelines of pro football games are multi-thousand dollar fast telephotos (by Canon, actually.) If Amazon carries one, I will include it as an example.
There are a few other tricks. One is to deliberately underexpose the shot, and correct it in the computer. You will need some software to do that, and you probably want to save the photos in RAW format. That means big files, which means big memory cards. It also means software that can work with RAW, and all that also gets pricey.
Another trick is to shoot the shot wide, then crop it on the computer. With an SLR, you can crop considerably without losing too much resolution. That way the lens can gather more light (unless you have a constant f-stop lens, pricey.) And you can use a shorter, cheaper, faster lens. You can get 50 to 135 mm F2.8 lens for not too much money.
Another idea is to use prime lens, not zoom, because prime lens can be made faster for less money. But you might have to do some ebaying to find them.
It might help to get a tripod, because some of the blur might be your own motion, rather than the sports action. Blurred action can add a nice effect, if it isn't overdone, by the way.
Another trick, which you are probably already doing, is to take bursts of five shots or so at a time, so you have more chances of getting a sharp shot, and one that captures the right moment. But again, big memory card.
The last thing is that Fujifilm has a unique CCD with a tremendous dynamic range, which means you can take pictures in low light without losing resolution. Their F30 (now the F31) is a little unremarkable point and shoot, except it can take sharp pictures indoors without a flash. In this it is a total hands down winner. The same technology is in their SLR's, but last I checked they were using it (through the camera's software) to prevent washouts, i.e., loss of detail in very bright areas of the image. You could use it to pull detail out of darkness, but you have to deliberately underexpose, shoot in RAW, etc. Anyway, their cameras have the potential to do great things, even if they don't take advantage of it. They just announced a new SLR. You can read about it at www.dpreview.com.
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