I decided to try something different while photographing my nephew's recreational basketball game the other day. I captured most of the  pictures using an ultra-wide 14mm focal length! The wider field of view provides more of an environmental perspective of the action. However, for these to be effective at all, it is important to get very close to the action.

For these shots, I was positioned about a foot from the baseline and almost directly under the basket. This position would not be permitted in anything other than a recreational game in which I knew the officials! There were several times when I was forced to bail from my position as a player was about to land on me.

OYA basketball action OYA basketball action OYA basketball action When taking pictures like this, I find that it's important to get really low. If the lens is positioned close to the floor, it makes the players look bigger and more imposing. It also maximizes the space between the player and the floor when they are jumping.

Indoor gymnasiums are typically not well lit. This one is lit better than most due to all the windows--which provides its own challenges. However, for these action shots I try not to let my shutter speed drop below 1/1000th. That required ISO settings of 2000 or higher in this gym with the lens nearly wide open. At night, the ISO settings exceed 6000 to achieve the desired shutter speed. As a result, I tend to favor B&W conversions as they hide much of the image quality issues that exist in the pictures.

I use the camera's manual mode to set exposure for basketball. This is even more critical here because of the bright daylight shining in from the windows. Just a small shift in view causes the exposure to change dramatically. If the meter emphasizes the window light too much, the players get underexposed. So, I usually aim the lens for an area of the court that is neutrally lit--and lock that exposure in manually. I'll check the histogram occasionally to make sure that the lighting hasn't changed too much. During this photo shoot, the light levels dropped from one game to the next and I had to increase my ISO accordingly.