Ref Butts and Slam Dunks: What It's Like Photographing an NBA Game

https://petapixel.com/2025/04/09/ref-butts-and-slam-dunks-what-its-like-photographing-an-nba-game/

by PaulHoule • 1 year ago

43 32 1 year ago

brudgers6• 1 year ago

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.

PaulHoule3• 1 year ago

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

dylan6042• 1 year ago

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.

brudgers6• 1 year ago

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.

ISL• 1 year ago

Whoa. Didn't expect to see the inside of Barton Hall this morning :).

Karrot_Kream• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

As we used to say, "two faces and a ball."

BrandoElFollito2• 1 year ago

Nice work. I am surprised, though, that in many pictures the foot is cut off, despite having lots of space above the runner.

curtisszmania• 1 year ago

Photographing an NBA game sounds like a mix of excitement and chaos—perfect capture moments amidst the action. Reminds me of launching a product; some days you hit the basket, others? Pass the ball around quickly! The challenge lies in staying adaptable and focused, even when the crowd is cheering or things get rocky. It's all about passion and keeping your eye on the prize to drive forward, no matter what happens on the court—or in our case, in the lab or boardroom. Let’s keep shooting for greatness! -Curtis

mrandish2• 1 year ago

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... :-)

FireBeyond4• 1 year ago

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.

mrandish2• 1 year ago

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• 1 year ago

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)

BrandoElFollito2• 1 year ago

Volleyball is also one of the sports most difficult to watch on tv (and to style extend, also live).

I play amateur volley so I know what to expect but still miss the action most of the time because the ball moves too fast.

This is why I prefer by far to watch women's volleyball: since it's slower, they rely more on technical accuracy and you can follow what's going on. The play is also more interesting because it is not a constant bam! supersonic serve, followed by bam! supersonic spike, done.

PaulRobinson• 1 year ago

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...

briandear4• 1 year ago

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-...

FireBeyond4• 1 year ago

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.

Ref Butts and Slam Dunks: What It's Like Photographing an NBA Game

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