Diana123

I am in need of help with sports photography! I am shooting for my high school boys basketball team which is inside. I have a Nikon D5600 and I am using the 70-300 lens. Would manual mode be my best option? If so what should my shutter speed, aperture, and ISO be set at? I have been suggested to set my aperture to 2.8 but I can only get it to 4.5, do you know what the reason for this is?

Thank you!

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Assuming your 70-300 is a Nikon variable aperture lens, the widest this lens opens is f/4.5 when set to 70mm. That is the maximum aperture and the aperture closes when zoomed from 70mm to 300mm, where the widest value available aperture at 300mm is f/5.6.

Regarding what values to use, we'd have to be there with you to assess your actual conditions, how near the action, the quality of the light, etc. Given your lens and camera, try the following ideas for those that apply to your available prep time and familiarity with the equipment:

1. Attend a practice in the same gym under the same lights. Or at the minimum, get to the game as early as possible for the team warm ups.

2. Regardless if practice, pregame or starting at the actual game, set the camera into AF-C for continuous auto-focus and shoot 5-minutes using simply the scene mode = sports, do a quick review on the camera display and see if that's good enough.

3. For manual settings, keep the camera in AF-C for continuous auto-focus and assure using AUTO-ISO with no upper limit. Then, test another 5-minutes of practice or pregame / game with the camera in Shutter priority (S). Begin at 1/400 and go up to 1/1000 and check the results, is 1/400 too slow to freeze motion? Is 1/1000 too fast and requires too high an ISO? Determine the best shutterspeed that fits your situation and balances the available light, speed and distance to action and the camera's selection of the necessary ISO.

Basketball is a game of repeated attack in the same direction, offense against defense. You can vary your shutterspeed each trip down the court as you zero-in on the best settings for the light and distance and speed of action. So the first trip is 1/400, next time your team has the ball, try 1/500, repeat each shutter speed until you get to 1/1000 or observe you don't need to test that high. If your distance from the action and zoom length is around 200mm to the max 300mm, you'll probably find 1/500 is a good choice. But, if you can get closer where you're more in the 70-100mm range and have a wider aperture available, you may be able to use a faster shutter speed.

DWU2 Loc: Phoenix Arizona area

These are good suggestions.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

You need a much faster 2.8 lens at least - they are much more expensive especially in a zoom.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

High school gyms are usually problematic with lighting. Too dim, uneven, and they use lights that cycle causing flicker in your images that are taken at shutter speeds shorter than 1/125.

Fortunately the flicker problem is handled by your camera's anti-flicker function (P268 in the reference manual)

https://cdn.billiger.com/dynimg/v24FutFKN59BvtTjsr92dPt4H9rycHjeBa9LTdXG2DAC-UgsmeTcnTSE9C4CnCd3KFm1M9LJO03cEQ54qjdCOI/Nikon-D5600-AF-S-DX-18-140mm-ED-VR-Bedienungsanleitung-e04717.pdf

The amount of light is a whole other story - and without being there, it's impossible to make realistic suggestions that apply to your exact circumstances. But in the most general of recommendations, you'd want to use a shutter speed that is not longer than 1/400, and an aperture that is around F5.6. Even if you had a fast F2.8 lens, which would help you get more light on the sensor, the shallow depth of field at F2.8 would result in parts of your image being soft, so in all likelihood you'll be better served by using a smaller aperture like F8 or so whenever possible. The ISO would be whatever the aperture and shutter speed requires for a good exposure.

As far as why you are only seeing F4.5 as a maximum aperture, your lens is a variable max aperture design that has the largest aperture at the shortest focal length. That largest aperture diminishes as you increase the focal length.

Whether or not you use manual exposure depends on how familiar you are with your camera and how quickly you can make adjustments on the fly. I would probably start with shutter priority and auto ISO (even though I don't use auto ISO myself), and see how things go.

imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida

As mentioned, you will want to shoot at f4-5.6 for DOF - but you will still need a 2.8 lens for accuracy and speed in the AF system ! Shutter speeds in the 1/30-1/60-1/100 range could give "artistic" blurring, otherwise, 1/400 and up to stop most action.

Bultaco Loc: Aiken, SC

Great advice.

billnourse Loc: Bloomfield, NM

I just shot 2 high school BB games for my granddaughter and got a lot of usable shots. I can post a couple if you would like. I shot everything in manual at 1/500 sec. f2.8 and auto ISO. I don't concern myself with DOF when shooting sports because all I want in focus is the targeted action. I found that at that setting the ISO was typically 4,000 to 6,400. Without the benefit of a 2.8 lens, you are going to be shooting with ISO's twice that. I'm not sure how your 5600 will handle that kind of ISO. You might be able to drop the shutter speed to 1/400 or so and help some.

There was another photographer at the first game shooting a Canon Rebel T6 and even though he had an f2.8 lens, the ISO he had to shoot was preventing him from getting what he wanted because the camera did not have very high ISO capability. Anything above 3,200 for him was resulting in poor image quality.

High school gyms are tough because of the lighting and is an area of photography where equipment does make considerable difference

mas24 Loc: Southern CA

Diana 123, I own the Nikon 70-300mm. And I have used it for daylight High School games in the past. To stop the action, you have to use a faster shutter speed. As for High School Basketball, I have never used it. Referees will not allow a camera flash unit of any kind to be used in the gym, while the game is in action. The dream lens for any sports is the 70-200mm f2.8. Most are not cheap, but I've heard, on this forum, the Tamron 70-200mm f2.8 G2, is your best bargain for such a lens. About $1300. I would take the advice of CHG_CANON, regarding the Nikon 70-300mm. Since I'm an owner of that lens. I will follow his advice also. He offered some really good points. Good luck.

ggab Loc: ?

The Tamron 70-200 G1 (Model A009) is no slouch either. It's my go to sports lens. I don't see many in the used sites, however if you can find one it should be around $600 - $700.00 and is well worth the cost. I guess many do not see the need to upgrade from G1 to G2.

GENorkus Loc: Washington Twp, Michigan

With that size lens you're either wanting extream closeups or shooting at a full court distance. Why you're even bothering with a 70-300mm lens for basketball is a big question to me?

Since you are in a semi-official mode, (I read you're working for the team), why not get back but still under the basket? Or near the corners just out of the parents view so you don't mess up their view.

On a crop camera, I found somewhere between 20 and 35mm is a good choice for lens size for most HS games. Possibly a 50mm at most. Several model lenses prime or zoom, around that size can be had with faster aperture values.

BTW, I applaud your not mentioning the use of a flash.

*(With a shorter lens, speed will become less problematic also.)

leftj Loc: Texas

Since it's high school games I assume you can sit real close to the floor. In that case minimum zoom range of 70mm is to much. 50mm is just about perfect. Use continuous focus. Shoot manual with a shutter speed of 1/500 and with aperture wide open and set your ISO so that you are not over exposing or under exposing to much. I shoot a lot of high school boys basketball and this methodology works very well. Any exposure issues that result can be easily adjusted in post processing.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

I shoot in RA, use Program mode and Auto ISO, and I don’t worry about grain with high ISO's. I just try to get an acceptably exposed photo and adjust in PP as best I can. Also use AF-C for your focusing mode so you can track a moving target. Given all that, hope for a few good action shots. I try to anticipate where a subject might be so the motion is frozen, like the peak of a jump shot. Burst mode helps with that.

mikeroetex Loc: Lafayette, LA

We have a sports photography section and a lot of good discussion going on there. read posts and examples by Jules. Your lens is a challenge, but on your camera 70-100 is all you will really use. If it comes with a 18-105 or 18-140 you can use them. Most shots will be under the basket where you fill the frame.

i usually use an f2.8 70-200 or my 24-120 and shoot at f4, 1/640 ss, 3200-6400 auto ISO, sometimes even up to 8000.
Because gym lights don't change, I shoot on Manual, auto ISO.

As I shake the rust off, I often drop to 2.8, 1/320 to lower ISO and shoot even tighter. If you are interested, I have some middle school playoffs here https://www.flickr.com/photos/mikeroelaf/albums/72157676617006894/with/32695933922/

Oh, and use Single point metering when setting up and use the lighter color (usually white) team's jersey. unless your team is in dark. But you risk blowing out highlites.
Good luck and have fun!

2mdman

I shoot my grandson's basketball games with a D5600 and a Nikkor 18-300 3.5-5.6 lens. I have my F-stop at the maximum (this lens is variable aperture), Focal lengths vary from 50mm to as high as 155mm depending on the shot. Shutter speed is set to 250 (this could be bumped higher but at this speed, I don't see much blurring) and Auto ISO. ISO will vary from 3500 to as high as 8000 which come out fine. I use Back-button focus with continuous auto focus, center spot metering, single point auto-focus. I shoot in RAW. I set white balance to cool-white but this gets changed in post-processing depending on the shot.
I'm generally pleased with the photos but could use a sharper lens. Next purchase.