[HN Gopher] Ref Butts and Slam Dunks: What It's Like Photographi...
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Ref Butts and Slam Dunks: What It's Like Photographing an NBA Game
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 40 points
Date : 2025-04-18 19:53 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (petapixel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (petapixel.com)
| brudgers wrote:
| The big thing missing from the article is the strobes.
|
| Flash is how pros get their pictures and there is a network of
| massive strobes that the photographic pool share. Same is true
| for most basketball arenas in the US.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I shoot basketball college games and never use a flash. DxO
| noise reduction software lets me crank the ISO up to crazy
| levels so I can deal with the low light. My weapon of choice is
| Sony's 135mm/1.8 GM which gets results from players on the
| close side.
|
| If you try to follow the ball you find that almost everybody is
| facing away from you or obstructed by someone else. I came to
| the conclusion that sports photography is really people
| photography so I started looking for good portraits (open shots
| on the players are rare) and that sometimes I'd get lucky and
| get good action.
|
| This viewpoint improved my basketball photography but improved
| my other photography more because people's motion is more
| predictable doing almost anything else. I'm getting real work
| doing running events now, like
|
| https://www.yogile.com/strides-of-march-2025
| dylan604 wrote:
| > I came to the conclusion that sports photography is really
| people photography so I started looking for good portraits
|
| That's an interesting realization you made, but what were you
| doing before that?
|
| I'd also say that the flash comment was very uninformed. In
| any arena/stadium that the games/matches are broadcast, they
| will be lit properly in order for the cameras to have a
| proper exposure. This also means there's plenty of light for
| the photogs.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > I'd also say that the flash comment was very uninformed.
| In any arena/stadium that the games/matches are broadcast,
| they will be lit properly in order for the cameras to have
| a proper exposure. This also means there's plenty of light
| for the photogs.
|
| That's not (entirely) accurate. Lighting for continuous
| light (e.g., TV broadcast) is quite different from still
| photography. NBA arenas, at least, absolutely ARE equipped
| with strobes in the rafters that are radio-activated from
| the camera.
|
| Watch as the team comes down the court, and don't watch the
| players but watch the court, you will see the flashes
| reflect on the court (and apologies if you can't unsee them
| after, but they're not overly noticeable). As you say,
| there is a good amount of light, but if you want a tighter
| aperture or are shooting a player at high speed, you need
| more than the arena is lit for.
|
| Further info:
|
| - https://petapixel.com/2017/06/03/bright-flashes-nba-
| games-ma...
|
| - https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/nta77s/anyone_notic
| e_a...
|
| - https://imgur.com/a/puri1RN/
| briandear wrote:
| This is absolutely correct. Can confirm because I did NBA
| photography for many years.
| brudgers wrote:
| _the flash comment was very uninformed_
|
| https://youtu.be/1IyD1mLgyeM?si=FLVemqt1Dui4jLVU
|
| If you are videoing for slow-mo you might have a 1/240
| shutter speed.
|
| If you want to freeze motion in a closeup. You want to be
| about an order of magnitude faster...and about two orders
| of magnitude faster than 30p.
|
| In addition, video typically uses smaller sensors to
| improve depth of field at wide aperture -- you don't want
| bokka -- and to keep lens size down (even though broadcast
| lenses are massive and six or seven figures).
|
| And of course video tolerates a lot of motion blur and
| noise.
|
| In other words, the fire truck doesn't rely on garden
| hoses.
| briandear wrote:
| > I'd also say that the flash comment was very uninformed.
| In any arena/stadium that the games/matches are broadcast,
| they will be lit properly in order for the cameras to have
| a proper exposure.
|
| Absolutely incorrect. The lighting at an average NBA game
| would require a high speed "film" -- take a light meter
| next time you go and you won't be able to get a fast enough
| shutter speed at a low enough ISO for a glossy shot. In the
| olden days, we'd have to push 800 ISO Fuji color film one
| or two stops unless we had stadium strobes. Maybe digital
| post processing is the norm these days, but watch an NBA
| game and at key moments, you'll see strobes firing from the
| rafters. TV shutter speeds are slower than those used for
| still photography and additionally, TV lenses are gigantic
| and let in far more light. The typical sports still camera
| lens is the 300/2.8 or the 400/2.8 and even shooting at a
| 2.8 aperture, you still need a lot more light than the
| broadcast cameras.
| brudgers wrote:
| In addition, ISO and shutter speed cannot light the
| subject 2/3 stop above ambient to create emphasis.
|
| There are approximately zero scenes that would not
| benefit from well executed flash...though there are many
| were flash is impractical...
|
| ...doing the impractical is also known as magic.
| brudgers wrote:
| The running pictures are awesome work. For a lot of families
| your pictures might be the only pictures they have of the
| runners running.
|
| My comment was about how NBA "press pool" level photographs
| are made (and big time college hoops). They use flash but the
| flashes are big, wireless and up in the rafters (i.e.
| indirect). Basically, the press pool has access to studio
| lighting and can shoot at low iso and narrow apertures...and
| of course they have access to great shooting positions.
|
| Luck is always a factor...the photographer in Liefer's iconic
| photo is just looking at the backside of Ali's big white
| trunks...
|
| https://neilleifer.com/collections/muhammad-
| ali?srsltid=AfmB...
|
| But for what it is worth, when I was shooting a lot of high
| school soccer, better action shots came from "skating to
| where the puck is going." And turning off spray and pray
| because there's only one best moment to click the shutter and
| mechanical sympathy is the best way to get close.
|
| And fewer photos meant less grunt work later...modulo
| pleasing an editor or the mother of the bride. It was a pure
| hobby, not a jobby.
|
| When that phase of my life passed, I shifted toward tilt-
| shifts and movements and doubled down on one shot at a time.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > when I was shooting a lot of high school soccer, better
| action shots came from "skating to where the puck is
| going."
|
| way to mix sports metaphors. /s
|
| to get better action shots, it really helps to understand
| the nuance of the sport itself. being able to anticipate
| off the ball movement while being able to anticipate a play
| developing will all help you improve your luck to be
| pointing your lens in the right place.
|
| I followed a specific NCAA football team for a season, and
| got to the point of anticipating plays and recognizing
| formations even though I'm not really a throwball fan. I'm
| much more of a proper football fan, and can do much better
| than skating to a puck metaphor as I know tactics much
| better and see how off the ball players are moving and why
| they are doing it. This definitely allowed for better
| action shots of players with the ball.
|
| As anything, someone with specific knowledge of their
| subject will improve their luck over someone just there for
| some shots.
| brudgers wrote:
| At the time I was refereeing a fair amount and so I was
| on the field anticipating player behavior and ball
| movement "in anger." And for a bit of cash.
|
| It informed my photography.
| mysteria wrote:
| _But for what it is worth, when I was shooting a lot of
| high school soccer, better action shots came from "skating
| to where the puck is going." And turning off spray and pray
| because there's only one best moment to click the shutter
| and mechanical sympathy is the best way to get close._
|
| I unfortunately don't have a source but I remember hearing
| about some action photographers trying out 4K60 cameras set
| to a high shutter speed and basically shooting video clips
| instead of stills. They would emphasize proper framing,
| exposure, and focus instead of worrying about timing the
| shutter.
|
| Later the photographer would review the video clips and
| choose the best frames for publication. For web and
| newswire distribution 4K resolution was good enough for
| them, and they indicated that it was very unlikely that the
| perfect shot would fall outside of each 1/60 second frame.
| pixelfarmer wrote:
| Doesn't need video anymore, high end cameras can run wild
| on taking picture after picture and start doing so before
| you even fully pressed the shutter, to account for human
| delays and the ones of the tech itself.
|
| I mean we are talking about a part of photography where
| even back in the days of film a camera would run through
| a roll of film in seconds for exactly this sort of thing.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| It amazes me that I can walk out of a game with 2000
| images, I just read an article by someone who shot 9000
| images of a game. With film it would cost at least $10 to
| buy and develop film for about 30 shots, so I'd be
| spending upwards of $600 to develop film. It's hard to be
| nostalgic for film when you see it that way.
|
| (I still shoot images faster than I can process them, but
| it helps a lot that I got Keysticks working with
| lightroom so I can sit back and use an XBOX controller to
| scan through photos.)
|
| I am thinking about shooting short video clips instead
| because I think those might do even better on social and
| let you tell stories that photos can't.
| brudgers wrote:
| _Later the photographer would_
|
| That's why I prefer one-and-done. Making a photograph
| always creates future work...future chores.
|
| For me, I enjoy the process of making pictures. I don't
| enjoy the rest nearly as much. I would rather paint.
|
| But I have always made pictures for a hobby. What makes
| sense when working for money doesn't drive my process.
|
| Meaning and or expression drive what I do. Documentary
| photography is not so much.
| briandear wrote:
| The other interesting thing about rafter strobes is the
| recharge rate: I could sometimes get two shots in a row,
| but more than that and the flashes could keep up. So the
| fast motor cameras weren't that useful because you'd only
| get one or two blasts from the strobes because they had to
| charge for a few seconds. You really had to be good at
| timing the shot. Also during the big moments, you'd often
| get overexposed because all the other big news wires would
| be shooting the same shot at the same moment, so you'd get
| four sets of strobes blasting out your shot.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > The other interesting thing about rafter strobes is the
| recharge rate: I could sometimes get two shots in a row,
| but more than that and the flashes could keep up.
|
| I'm somewhat surprised (although it's certainly a niche)
| that some of those larger flashes intended for commercial
| (sports, primarily) photography, don't have "dual
| capacitors", i.e. keep both charged and essentially
| recycle asynchronously.
| ISL wrote:
| Whoa. Didn't expect to see the inside of Barton Hall this
| morning :).
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Follow my profiles and you will see the inside of Barton
| and everything else Cornell
|
| https://bsky.app/profile/up-8.bsky.social
|
| https://mastodon.social/@UP8
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| Denoising and fast glass definitely works well and is
| versatile even in situations where you don't need fast action
| but you just don't have good lighting available. The only
| problem is this adds to time spent in post. If I have access
| to a strobe and a venue where I can use said strobe, I'm
| using it.
| formerphotoj wrote:
| As we used to say, "two faces and a ball."
| mrandish wrote:
| Related interesting fact (which I learned the hard way). Indoor
| volleyball is one of the hardest sports to photograph well. It
| shares many of the same technical challenges as indoor basketball
| but a hitter's swing and subsequent ball speed are much faster.
|
| As a fairly serious amateur photographer possessing the usual
| higher-end DSLRs and a backpack full of lenses, when our teen
| daughter showed interest and aptitude in competitive club
| volleyball, my wife asked "Hey, with all that gear can you get
| some dramatic shots of her playing?" "Sure!" I naively responded.
| I started to realize just how wrong I was when I tried to shoot
| the first game and largely failed to get shots that were A) at
| the right moment, B) not motion blurred, and C) in focus.
|
| I was shocked. Only once I'd failed did I bother to look up
| "Shooting Indoor Volleyball" and discover posts from Olympic-
| level pro sports photographers commiserating about the unique
| challenges of indoor V-ball. There are two sets of interrelated
| problems that compound each other: technical and practical. The
| main technical problem is that a lot of indoor volleyball courts
| aren't very well lit. Sure, they seem bright enough to the naked
| eye but freezing high-speed motion needs a lot of light to enable
| a fast shutter speed. And you need a long lens (ie a lot of zoom)
| because you can't be right alongside the court due to line judges
| needing clear sight lines and the ever-present risk of players
| chasing an errant ball trampling you. Lenses that do all of that
| at high-quality and auto-focus quickly are big, heavy and _very_
| expensive. If indoor volleyball was outdoors, even on a cloudy
| day, there would be double the light and this would all be _much_
| easier.
|
| The second set of problems are practical. There a 12 players on
| the court, six on a side in two rows of three. As you try to line
| up shots where the action is likely to happen you quickly
| discover that this configuration has players constantly moving in
| front of the shot zone you were aiming for. And this is where
| auto-focus becomes a real challenge as it will constantly be
| refocusing on the players moving into your frame in front of or
| behind the 'shot zone', which is empty because the hitter is
| winding up and still flying toward the shot zone where the hit
| will happen. Of course, you can also take the approach of picking
| a player and having the auto-focus stick to that player, except
| the whole goal of the ball setter and potential hitters is to
| hide which player is actually going to hit the ball for as long
| as possible. Oh, and there's a grid of sharp black lines called
| "the net" just 20-inches away from your shot zone desperately
| trying to get your auto-focus to focus on it instead of the ball
| or hitter (neither of which are there yet).
|
| I did ultimately manage to get enough good shots. My wife and
| daughter were pleased. I only managed to do this by shooting
| literally thousands of shots and spending hours reviewing shots
| to find the few keepers. Having a camera capable of shooting over
| 20 50 megapixel shots a second helps. I spent a fair bit of that
| time wishing my daughter had taken a liking to softball
| instead... :-)
| FireBeyond wrote:
| There's definitely a technique to it.
|
| I rented a Canon 400mm/2.8 lens for SeaFair (with numerous
| military flybys) back in the day.
|
| On the first pass, I was extremely frustrated as I was learning
| how to shoot with the lens (very fast objects, and a very heavy
| lens). I mistakenly tried to do it all with the viewfinder
| rather than keeping both eyes open so I could get good
| aim/framing.
|
| The second pass I got better, and by the third and later passes
| I was doing pretty well.
|
| It's still not cheap (I think I paid about $200 for a three-day
| rental from LensRentals, but that would give you practice
| time), but it could be worthwhile for the championship,
| playoffs, etc.
| mrandish wrote:
| That 400mm f2.8 is a nice lens. I ended up buying a Tamron
| 70-300mm f2.8 for around $400 to shoot volleyball. It's one
| step down from top tier premium level but got good reviews
| and worked well enough. The zoom and constant aperture helped
| for v-ball. Another upside is that it wasn't as large or
| heavy as the top premium glass. Another tip for shooting
| anything like v-ball is to get a good carbon fiber monopod
| and pair it with an Arca Swiss quick release. Flexible and
| very fast.
|
| I think to really shoot indoor v-ball well requires a
| specialized high-end sports camera like the Sony A9-II
| matched with a 300-600mm f2.8 premium lens. I was shooting
| with a Sony A1 which is a great all-around top pro camera
| with fantastic auto-focus ($6k when new) but the A1 was the
| generation before the flagship cameras came with buffer pre-
| record which is the killer feature for v-ball. That feature
| loop records a second or so of full res frames at >20fps so
| that when you press the shutter button it saves frames up to
| a second back in time. V-ball evolves so fast it's basically
| impossible to anticipate the moment of the hit (hitters
| change up their swing timing on purpose to fake out blockers
| (and photographers)). Pro sports shooters must develop
| inhumanely fast twitch reflexes. The new A9-II has that
| buffer pre-record feature. Having neither pro-level reflexes
| or the pre-record feature, I was left with "spraying and
| praying" (and then reviewing for hours).
| m463 wrote:
| > auto-focus becomes a real challenge
|
| I wonder if the new crop of cameras with eye-focus help. (focus
| on what you're looking at)
| PaulRobinson wrote:
| Used to know a guy who became a freelance sports photographer
| focusing on EPL games in Manchester. Paid better than his
| previous role as a writer for the local paper, but seemed much
| more challenging on various technical matters - you get all the
| issues covered in this article, but also you're having to get to
| an outdoor game, in Manchester, in the middle of January. I'd
| meet him warming up in a city centre pub after the games, and it
| would take him hours to thaw out. Although the beer was decent in
| there, too...
| briandear wrote:
| I photographed NBA and Final Four (among other sports for
| Reuters, and occasionally Sports Illustrated) in the late 1990s
| and don't recall their ever being 60 photographers on the court,
| but back in those days, we'd have film runners that would get our
| film from courtside and run it up to a makeshift processing room
| then scan the negatives on their suitcase-sized scanners and
| terminals that communicated over a modem. It could take 20
| minutes to transmit a single photo. I started at 18 as an
| assistant to the Reuters staffer, but quickly got promoted to
| shooting rather than running. Crazy to be 18 and right there for
| key moments of some of the biggest American sports of that era.
|
| Also, some of us would be allowed to set up photo strobes in the
| rafters which would provide a flash that would let us shoot on
| 100 ISO film. The majors would each have four strobes in the
| rafters and we'd also set up remote triggered cameras behind the
| backboard and sometimes aiming down from the rafters.
| Interestingly, despite far better technology, the quality of the
| "moments" photographers have captured hasn't really improved
| much. Most of us didn't trust the autofocus and did everything
| manually. For Reuters, even something that was slightly soft
| focused would never make the cut. It was either perfect, or it
| didn't ship.
|
| I remember when the AP started testing these gargantuan Kodak
| digital cameras that were essentially these modified Nikons. They
| were novel but the quality wasn't good enough for the magazines.
|
| Fun times.
|
| If anyone is interested my photo of the San Antonio Spurs's Sean
| Elliot was one of Sports Illustrated's All Time Clutch Shots.
| Sports photography (at Reuters at least,) was all about the
| reaction shot rather than peak action, but somehow that Sean
| Elliot shot still lives on even though photographically it wasn't
| that interesting. But I was the only photographer to get the shot
| that night because all the other agencies got blocked.
| Unfortunately given those were the film days, I have no idea
| where all of my negatives are anymore.
|
| https://www.si.com/nba/2010/05/28/28all-time-clutch-playoff-...
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Very cool! I follow Bruce Ely (Trail Blazers photographer) and
| love some of his BTS work.
|
| > If anyone is interested my photo of the San Antonio Spurs's
| Sean Elliot was one of Sports Illustrated's All Time Clutch
| Shots.
|
| Still a good shot - and as noted, it's that context that is
| everything. And perfectly timed at the moment of release.
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