A bit of a change of pace for myself, but I enjoy all aspects of photography so I gave it a try. Dina’s nieces are quite good bball players in several of the local basketball leagues. Their family is nice enough to invite me out and allow me to shoot. Plus they get free photographs . Win, win.

Although I’d like the frame a tad lower then it is I love how it speakers her personality in this shot. You obviously don’t know her, but she has a 19yr old’s attitude in a 9yr old’s body.

Unfortunately I arrived a tad late to the first game so I was a tad biased toward her sister. She plays tough and gives it her all. I have been watching her play at games for over two years I’d say now and it is amazing how she has improved. From these images of you can see she plays real fierce and with great passion. Giving it her all not letting anyone get in her way.

Case and point here seeing her go for the hoop. I love watching athletes that can drive into the paint and cut through the defense. A true testament to what kind of shooter you are.

“Can’t hold me down..oh no..” Haha, a bit of a ‘gangsta’ tune going on here, but from this lightly panned shot I think it helps to complete the picture. While panning I slowed the shutter to the low hundreds area as my minimum shutter speed. I wanted to keep it that way, but I felt I was missing many shots that weren’t always left to right and made for panning. Although I like the look as it gets rid of a lot of the junk in the background (I lack a fast enough lens at the moment.)

This image gives me that in game feel. As much as you might like the ref in this shot, he drove me nuts through most of the game. As you could Imagine the next frame would have him blocking the frame itself. We have to work around it all though. As I am sure any of the big sports photographer will tell you.

Now when it usually comes to shooting these games they have all been spent indoors. Not at your nice well lit gymnasium either. It was in your local gym. Lighting was horrid and I had resorted to shooting with a 50m f/1.8 or my 17-50mm f/2.8 always shooting wide open with the ISO maxed out. Shooting outside was such an improvement. Even though there was a tough shade spot, the camera performed really well. I opted to use ISO auto; which is something I never use on a regular basis. If your curious where to find it in your menu system; it’s under the tab that looks like a camera. Not the pencil mode. Where I thought it was for a good minute or two. What’s great about ISO auto is its simplicity. You set your minimum shutter speed and the ISO you don’t want it to surpass and your set. What I like best is it works at ISO’s I wouldn’t dream of and makes them look so clean. A big part about getting that color noise in your images is dependent on exposure. Improper exposure will bring more noise and the matrix metering looking for that 18% gray helps to avoid that.

I used my 50-500mm on a monopod. Not an ideal sports lens, but that 10x zoom was incredibly convenient. Allowed me to shoot portrait or zoomed out. One thing I learned was the orientation varies per sport. I found that with basketball I am not a fan of the horizontal film plane. Where in baseball horizontal is more realistic to me. I found when I shot horizontally with basketball I cut off feet and heads more often then not. Never capturing the real action shots I wanted. I don’t know how long they will be playing outdoors, but I would definitely be interested in shooting again.