Indoor sports photography offers great opportunity to take pictures without having to venture out into the snow, rain, and cold. This type of shooting is also good practice for using your custom white balance setting, playing with ISO, and breaking out any fast glass you may have available.
In this podcast, I talk about a recent shoot inside a high school gymnasium where I use my Canon 5D, a 70-300mm IS zoom, and one of my favorite lenses, the 85mm f-1.8 Canon USM. I pulled out my ExpoDisc to help me tame the indoor lighting, and pushed the ISO to 800 or 1600 depending on which lens I had mounted.
I had lots of fun and came away with some good shots. Hopefully this show will inspire you to find some indoor sports in your neighborhood and do a little shooting yourself.
Photo by Derrick Story. Canon 5D, 70-300mm IS lens at 120mm, ISO 1600, f-5.6, 1/125th second, Raw format, Custom White Balance.
Dec. Photo Assignment
I also mention the December photo assignment, "Pool of Light." I originally got the idea for this assignment by looking at some of Steve Simon's existing light pictures when he composed the main subject in a pool of light and let everything else live in the shadows. I think this is very effective.
Listen to the Podcast
Now that I've piqued your curiosity, it's time to listen to today's audio show titled, "Indoor Sports." You can download the podcast here (26 minutes).
Technorati Tags: digital photography, podcast, The Digital Story
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I've been using my NIKON 2020 for years now, i've been so attached, I just recently went digital. I developed a knack for taking shots for indoor sports after a series of tests using different lighting techniques and i am more comfortable now in my approach. I recently started working with a site where i've met some incredible photographers who have given me some valuble tools to create some of the best pictures.
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Derrick,
Thank you for the podcast on photographing indoor sports. It was very useful information. I don't recall any specifics from your podcast about focusing so I hope this question is not redundant. Do you like to use the "Al Servo" setting for sports? Also, do you like to use just one of the focusing points or do you allow all of your focusing points to be active when shooting sports?
Thanks again for all of your help and advice.
As for focusing, this is where my "old school" habits reveal themselves a bit. I usually do one of two things... either use the center focus sensor (because it's the most sensitive) in Continuos drive mode, or I use manual focus and depend a lot on prefocusing in active areas of the action (with minor adjustments as I'm shooting).
AI Servo seems to work better with every new camera model, especially with fast lenses. But it doesn't always focus on the precise areas that I want sharp, so I don't use it as often as the other methods.