L’Observateur / February 15, 1999

Because I normally find myself behind the camera instead of in front it, I forget what it’s like to be blinded by the flash. During basketball games you will findyourself a great deal closer to not only the crowd noise, but the crowd itself, about 3 to 4 feet at times. Frequently when I look behind me I get blasted by aspectator’s flash. When this happens it sort of reminds me of the movie”Poltergeist,” but particularly that little old lady who spent much of her time debating whether or not to “move toward the light.”I’m sure it’s not impossible, but I am pretty sure that not to many of your photographs will turn out that good at that distance, meaning from up in the stands. Flash size and film speed play major parts in getting better photosduring sporting events.

If your using a point and shoot camera it’s not likely that your flash range extends much further than about 20 feet. Even if you are using an off-cameraflash for a 35mm SLR (single lens reflex camera), your flash will not give you much more than a 5.6 f-stop or aperture setting at 20 to 25 feet, and unlessyour zoom lens has an aperture capability of more than 5.6 you are restricted tomuch the same distance. Besides. it’s just about 20 feet from the center of thebasketball rim to courtside, so get closer to the action to improve your photos.

Being courtside will not improve your chances of getting better exposure (good negative density for better prints), it will also allow you to increase the image size of your subject in the final print. It gets a little hard to see who a personis if he’s the size of an ant in a photograph.

When photographing any sport indoors, use a higher film speed. This will allowfor more ambient light (or what some may call available light) to be recorded on film. As you get closer to a balance between flash exposure and ambient lightexposure, you will find that the photos take on a more natural look. Photos takenindoors with slower film speeds, like 100 ASA, will result in photos with good subject exposure and dark background, sometimes just a black area behind the subject. Faster speed films, such as 800 ASA or 1600 ASA, should allow you torecord both the subject and the background area, at least within reason. Thesubject will still appear brighter, but not that much brighter than the background. Keep in mind that as the amount of ambient light reduces, thebackground will still become darker than the subject, just not as much as if you were using slower film speeds.

So, at the next basketball or any sporting event move closer to the action and use higher film speeds to improve your indoor or night time photographs. Oh, Ialmost forgot, if you are courtside, don’t move in either direction from the light if you get blasted, your either going to get hit by a basketball or step on someone. Remember you don’t have wings just yet.

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