Learning Center

Shooting Indoor Kids Sports

by Ken Hubbard

Recently I had the chance to shoot some images of my niece's volleyball match, which was a much appreciated change of pace for me. Knowing that the lighting conditions were going to be less than ideal I decided to use the Tamron 28-300mm VC lens on a Nikon D700.

The Vibration Compensation feature is an important feature when shooting in situations of very low light, causing a slower shutter speed as well as having to hand hold at such long focal lengths. Luckily, the D700 has a sensor that handles high ISO like 3200 with ease, which helped increase my shutter speed to 1/125 sec. This was high enough to somewhat stop (freeze) some of the action happening on the court but still a little slow for hand holding at 300mm. The Vibration Compensation performed well in helping me to capture my niece in many action shots.

ISO 4000 (yes 4000), F/6.3, 1/125 Sec. Auto White Balance

Since this was held in a Junior High school gymnasium, where seating is at a premium, I was not fortunate enough to get close to the middle of the court, where I would have been able to capture the action on both sides of the court equally. Once again the 28-300mm lens with it high powered zoom range became the perfect choice. Being able to zoom out to 300mm allowed me to get in close to the action without moving from my seat.

I wanted to show the action going on on the court while maintaining my niece as the main subject of the image. Using a wide open aperture of F/6.3 (widest @ 300mm) I created a shallow depth of field, which blurred out the opponents & teammates, allowing my niece to be more of the focus in the image.

ISO 4000 (yes 4000), F/6.3, 1/125 Sec. Auto White Balance

Don't expect all your images to be perfect, sports are difficult to capture. With some trial and error and practice you will be capturing great images in no time