Photographing basketball games can be a lot of fun. There is always action in the game, plus there is so much you can shoot in additional to just the actual basketball action. Check out my tips for everything to shoot during a basketball game (add link).
Even with all the shooting options during a basketball game, a photographer can get bored when shooting 2 or 3 games a night for multiple nights during a tournament.
During one of these tournaments, I was photographing basketball at a game between UNLV and Rice. I thought I might get some additional creativity in my photography by trying a long exposure shot of the action.
Long exposure photography is one of my favorite things to do. Usually, I shoot long exposure when I want to create light trails, capture moving clouds, expose the milky way or make people disappear. While those are the usual uses of long exposure photography, it can be a great tool anytime you want to show a flurry of movement or passing of time.
In the image above, I was able to capture the long exposure shot, despite sitting on the court (where you could never use a tripod, by using the Platypod Pro Max. Using the Platypod, I was able to set up a ball head and mount my camera just inches above the floor where no one, except the photographer next to me, even noticed my set up.
I tried a handful of different exposures to get the right blend of action where you could still make out the action and not have a lot of people standing still. Ultimately, one second proved to be my favorite setting. To get proper exposure in the gym at one second, I had to close my aperture down to f/18 and set my ISO at 200 (native ISO for a Fuji).
Long exposure photography can be so much fun and a great way to break out of a rut or show something a static image can’t express. Please let me know if you have any questions about how to do long exposures and I would be happy to share. And, don’t forget to join our Facebook group, Photography and Travel, to share tips, favorite locations and questions!
