Can a Canon T1i with the 18-55mm kit lens shoot indoor basketball well?
Asked 12/15/2011
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I’m trying to photograph indoor basketball with a Canon T1i and the Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 kit lens. Is this setup capable of getting good results for indoor sports, or is the lens/camera combination too limiting? I’d also like to know whether poor results are more likely due to technique or the equipment.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
14y ago
2 Answers
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Good is a relative term. I can explain how to get the best shot with your current equipment. Of course with added equipment, you could achieve better results.
The first obvious option is to select the sports mode from the dial on the top. This auto mode will help with sports the majority of the time, but may not select the ideal settings always. That is what the fully automatic modes are for.
You can of course get indoor sports shots of basketball with this camera/lens combination. You could get better shots with better equipment such as a lens in the 100mm range with an aperture wider then f/2.0 or so, but that is an additional cost that you may not be interested in.
Diving into the manual settings, here is a guide that will help:
Aperture
This is a big one. This is very important, especially with a variable aperture zoom such as the kit lens you have. You want to select the largest aperture, which happens to be the smallest number, such as 3.5 or 5.6. This will let in the maximum amount of light, and allow a faster shutter speed(reduce blur or subject movement). Another added benefit of a large aperture is a shallower depth of field, this will blur out your background and foreground and highlight your subject(player). Your lens may not achieve much of this, but the more the better typically in my opinion.
Shutter Speed
The faster the better. This will help to freeze your subjects, and lessen the chance of your body/hand movement jarring the camera and blurring the shot. Something in the range of 1/250th or faster(eg 1/500) is desirable, but without knowing the exact arena you are shooting in this is up in the air. Just try to make it faster without under exposing the image(too dark).
ISO
You want to increase this to make the sensor more sensitive to light. Since you are probably in a dark arena, higher sensitivity lets you do better things for the shot in regards to shutter speed and freezing the subject. Be careful, as increasing this too much may make the images more noisy, and create undesirable effects in the image that you will see later.
Conclusion
You want to combine the three sections above to form an image that is exposed properly. Eg - Large aperture, fast shutter speed, and high ISO(not too high). This is what photography is all about. Another option is to select the sports mode for your camera. It is on the top dial denoted by a running person. This will help out and make it easy to use.
Originally by user4892. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user4892
14y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Yes, you can get usable indoor basketball photos with a Canon T1i and the 18-55mm kit lens, but this setup is fairly limited for that job. Indoor sports usually need fast shutter speeds, and gym lighting is often dim. The kit lens has a relatively small maximum aperture, so it won’t let in as much light as a faster lens, making action-stopping shots harder.
You can still improve results by:
- using Sports mode as a starting point, or shooting manually
- setting the lens to its widest aperture
- using the fastest shutter speed you can manage
- raising ISO as needed
- timing shots carefully rather than relying only on burst shooting
So it’s not just you—the gear does make indoor basketball challenging. A faster lens, especially something around 100mm with an aperture wider than about f/2, would make a noticeable difference. But with good technique, your current setup can still capture some decent shots.
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