New, Basketball beginner; Need advice!

[PhotoStar]

My name is Catherine and I just found this board and I am very happy to have found this web site! I am majoring in photography at my college and I am in my second year. I know you can read as many books as you want, but it takes experience to become something special.

I have a wonderful opportunity of being the new basketball photographer at my college. I am, SO EXCITED! I love doing this. But I have a love of questions and so much to learn.

Now I have a digital Canon Rebel. I have an 18-55MM lenses which is what it came with. This is way too slow, am I correct in thinking this?

The lighting in the gym is not the best so I need a flash. My camera is slow when I use flash, what kind of external flash should I get?

What settings should I use, shutter speed, ISO, setting, etc..... I hear different opinions and would like to know what you all think.

Also, my shots turned out well concerning position of the players, but they are blurry and not sharp. Why???? It drives me crazy that I cannot get a sharp image. Is it my lenses? Maybe I am not on the right setting? How can I get my pictures sharp?

Thank you all so much!

[Old Timer]

Nice to have you on the board. There are some very fine sports photographers here that should be able to help with your questions. I do think they will need a little additonal information however. I would suggest that you post a few of your basketball images and give them a chance to evaluate your work. It will also be very helpful if you post data such as ISO, shutter speed and f stop for each image. One thing that I have found in shooting basketball is that each venue has its own unique set of challenges. The light in most highschool and small college gyms is just not good enough to get quality availible light photographs without high quality fast lenses. Some type of additional light is need. Many conferences and venues don't allow direct flash, be sure and check with the officials of the game or school before using it. I was shooting a girls game last weekend at a small college that had a fairly low white ceiling and had success with bounce flash, but this gym was not typical of most that have high ceil. Please post a few shoots I'm sure some of the guys here will be glad to help.

[Ryguyinlj]

As Old Timer mentioned, shooting basketball can be tough without a flash. I am a sports photographer for the New University at the Univertisy of California Irvine and I cover basketball games, and I shoot with a digital rebel. For the lighting in my gym (Im not too sure how it compares to the lighting in other gyms) I tend to use ISO 800 (not favorable, but for a newspaper it works) and my 70-200 f2.8 sigma lens. When using a flash, I've had success even using the built in flash (believe it or not) with my shorter lenses. Be careful to not shoot it into the players' eyes, or anything that would be obviously distracting. Also, remember that once the shot is made and the ball is in the air, it wont disctarct the person shooting the ball. I know it sound obvious but just keep that in mind.

[livin4lax09]

as far as the blurriness goes, I ran into this problem when I was shooting the other day also. How many AF points do you have turned on? if they are all turned on and you are shooting from a decent distance away, your camera most likely is focusing on the wrong thing. Try using just the center AF point, and you will have better luck as far as focusing goes.