Indoor Sports Photography

[Sallyb]

I'm hoping some people out there can give me some pointers on taking sports photos inside a stadium. I take a lot of netball photos and they're ok but they're definitely not great. I have a Nikon D3000 and usually use a Tamron 70-300 on sports mode. I also just purchased a Nikon 50mm 1.8G and I was wondering if this would work and then crop the pic afterwards or would the pic become distorted? The other thing I'm a little confused over is the ISO, how high can I crank the ISO without causing too much grain when I'm shooting in sports mode?
I would be really grateful of any tips and advice from anyone, as I love taking netball pics but I want to be happy with the results!!

[macmich]

if you have a look in the learning area and a post by kiwi on tips and tricks for sport shooting
you will find some very usefull tips there
you will be struggling using the 50mm for sports unless them team photos
cheers macca

[Sallyb]

Great thanks Macca, Yes I thought it might be a bit of a stretch with the 50mm. I'll check out the post you suggested.

[MattNQ]

Hi Sally,
I also have a D3000. Problem is I find visible noise starts appearing over ISO 400. Unfortunately it is simply not a great camera for low light.

My daughter started doing night netball this year, and I'm finding ISO 1600 is right at the limit of what noise I can clean up in pp. Even so with a 80-200mm/2.8 wide open and at ISO 1600, I can't get the shutter much faster than 1/400 which is still a little slow for getting nice sharp action shots. I haven't tried using a monopod yet, which may help a little.

For netball, because the court is relatively small, the 50/1.8 might work ok if you are in the right spot - but you might have to move around a bit to follow the action. The larger aperture will let you get faster shutter speeds, so you may get better shots overall. If your indoor lighting is better than my outdoor court lighting, you maybe can drop to ISO 800, which is more manageable when cleaning up the noise.

As an example, the link below has some of my latest attempts so far with my D3000. The wide shot was with a 14mm/2.8 and cropped, others with the 80-200mm/2.8. The shots further down I have cleaned up a bit better. Still hard to get rid of the noise.

http://www.ausphotography.net.au/forum/showthread.php?100943-More-evening-netball

Have a good read of Kiwi's pointers as suggested. And don't be afraid to post some of your shots. Kiwi and the other sports gurus that frequent the sports forum are always happy to give advice.

Also, a handy tip for the D3000, you can program the 'Fn" (default timer) button beside the lens to change your ISO quickly. I find this very handy.

[kiwi]

hiya, Im the kiwi :-)

50 1.8G will be just fine, but the problem will be the lighting, its impossible to say how good it it until you are there and youll certainly be struggling with the d3000 over 800 iso or so. I quite often shoot indoor sport at 1/500s, f/2.8 and iso4000.....what you use will depend on the light...but its easier to fix noise than motion blur so keep the shutter speed up to 1/500s if you can.

You can but try

[Optical]

Hi Sally

I also had the same problem. I was using the Nikon D60 at the time and was trying to take photos of Judo in action. I ended up using my 50mm 1.4 but I suppose you are limited by lighting (fluro lights) and white walls, and white judo outfits. It is a challenge. I also had increased my ISO to 1600. I also used flash but felt bad "flashing" everyone all of the time.