How to Photograph Basketball

With many sports, it can be hard to get close to the action, especially at college and professional games. However, in basketball, almost every seat in the gymnasium is close enough to get some good pictures even without a long zoom lens. Also, there's usually good lighting even during night games.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Perform a manual white balance with your camera. Because basketball gymnasiums are all artificial light, your camera's auto white balance may not properly adjust and your pictures may come out yellow. Setting your camera to the tungsten white balance setting does help, but the only way to ensure pictures with accurate colors is to use manual white balance.
2. Spend most of your time behind the backboards. This is where most of the good picture opportunities will come. From this position you can capture rebounds, slam dunks, lay-ups, blocks and free throws.
3. Move high up into the bleachers for good pictures of the rim. Get to a position higher than the goal and zoom in on the rim. From here, you'll get good pictures of individual players going up to the basket, including their faces.
4. Go down to court level. Here you can get a few shots of players shooting three-pointers and the ball being in-bounded. This is also a good place to get pictures of coaches giving instructions and pictures of the crowd cheering.
5. Get some pictures at halftime. There will be some downtime during halftime at a basketball game, but you can also get some good pictures of team huddles and strategy sessions. For this, you'll want to be as close to ground level as you can get and make full use of your zoom lens.