Good Job on this on this. In my opinion sports photography is hard and not something I shoot.
I do not like the blurred the background because when you enlarge the photo you can see a lot of issues.

I would use original 2 and crop it. Did you use the denoise tool on the original? I think that would help. I would also play with the sharpen end texture sliders
  Posted: 02/07/2025 17:12:44

Good job capturing the action. I think you got yourself into a good position for photos in this game. The players are running into you allowing you to capture their expressions, as you said. It looks like your camera settings were good with high shutter speed to stop action. The high ISO is due, I'm guessing, to being indoors with less than ideal lighting. I would imagine your nephew likes the photo.

As far as the blurred background, I think it depends on the purpose of the photo. If you are trying to focus on your nephew, then a shallow depth of field would be good to isolate him and make him more directly the subject. If you are trying to capture the action of the game, more depth of field would allow more to be in focus. When I took photos of my daughter while running in cross country races in high school, I would try to keep the aperture as open as I could to keep focus on her. There were also times when I wanted more of the racers she was running against to be in focus. So, it just depends on what you are trying to achieve. Keep shooting his games, I think shooting sports can be a lot of fun.   Posted: 02/09/2025 01:16:31

Yvonne, You've taken a great sports photo!
You've managed to capture the emotion, energy and facial expressions of wanting to win.
Your point of view was good, the players are running towards you, I agree with Randy. The situation is perfect, everyone is on the move, the ball is clearly visible.
Unfortunately, I can't give you any tips for sports photography, I rarely do that as it's often a question of image rights in Germany.
I like the original, it also shows the surroundings. Of course, there's too much to see in the image, which is why you cropped it. I also tried my hand at it and made sure that the man on the left of the image was still there. For me, he's part of the story. The top edge is not necessary. Now your nephew is in the middle third, in the center, and his energy is convincing.
In the image processing, I removed the lamp above the head of the player on the left, increased the mid-tones and set a black and white point in the tone correction.
The image with the blurred background focuses even more on the players. The only difficult thing is to really blur or sharpen everything correctly. I have also tried it, but without using artificial intelligence, it is time-consuming.
Keep having fun photographing your sporty nephew.

  Posted: 02/16/2025 19:04:59

  Posted: 02/16/2025 19:05:30

Yvonne, I really like your image. Expressions and actions you captured remind me of the innocence of youth and make me smile. I like Sabine's version of your photo that improves lighting, color and crop size, but I do prefer a blurred background, simply to create separation of distracting backgrounds from your subject.
I don't have experience shooting indoors so I'm afraid I can't offer much in terms of recommendations, but I do think your position was perfect, especially in a basketball court. I prefer seeing the front of the players in action in lieu of side profiles. Given the distance from you and the players as seen in your original photo, I wonder if opening the aperture to f2.8, setting speed at 1/250-1/500 sec and adjusting ISO as needed while keeping focus on your nephew, would have been adequate to allow more needed light to reach your sensor, and fast enough to stop action, while maintaining sharpness and possibly result in more background blur. Adjusting ISO to accommodate those settings might result in a grainer image, but Lightroom (or Topaz) provide tools to help reduce the grain.
I think you did well to capture a memorable moment, especially if they won the game!
  Posted: 02/17/2025 21:54:40

Jim, Seems that I have a consensus on opening the aperture to focus on my nephew. Keeping focus on the subject and blurring the background with the 1/250 to 1/500 is going to take some practice.

And no they didn't win the game. However, his Dad said the photos looked like they won! It's all in who's capturing the images. Thank you for your tips!   Posted: 02/17/2025 22:23:28

Yvonne, this is a great action shot! You really captured the energy of the game, especially with the players running after the ball. From my perspective, I think the left side feels a bit tight, and adding a little more space there might open up the composition nicely. For your first time shooting at a basketball game, you did a fantastic job! I think positioning yourself near the hoop is a great choice for capturing expressions and action, though you might also try a slightly different angle next time to capture the players in motion from a bit further along the baseline. As for the blurred background versus no blur, both look good, but the blur really helps focus on the players.   Posted: 02/18/2025 10:49:03