Most sports photographers use lenses around f/2.8. This will give you a lot of light, but shallow depth of field, meaning that this is great for 1 person, and give you a lot cleaner background. But for example a hockey player will give you a sharp face and a big part of the body in focus. but the stick or opponent will be out of focus, this can give a great effect and focus the attention on the one player instead of the whole scene. But the difficult thing about this is, when you have a fast moving subject our AF system just has to get in a very small bit out of focus and your short is immediately useless.

So when use apertures around f/2.8 or f/2. For 1 person, or when you want the focus only on 1 person. or of course when there is less light available. For a group shot, you need apertures around f/8 or maybe even higher to get everything in focus. Be aware that the background will also be in focus, so a good clean background is important in this situation.

Personally i shoot a lot of f/4, but love the effect of f/2.8. Knowing your camera in and out will help you to switch between apertures without watching, this give you both great photos in f/4 (which is a lot easier than f/2.8) but also makes great portraits or solo action in f/2.8.

When shooting indoor the most important part is the available light, you are almost never allowed to shoot with flash, and indoor lightning is never as good as sun or just outside light. You probably want to shoot f/2.8 here or maybe even f/2. Be aware of what you shoot, since your a limited to these apertures and cannot shoot complete groups of fast moving objects. try to focus on 1 target and work your creativity on this.

Good luck shooting!!

Shot at a f/2.8 aperture

Shot at f/4 background is not really clean

If there are any questions about my workflow, feel free to post a comment and i will be sure to reply on it.

A blurry bit underexposed background give a good separation

Shoot in high apertures

Shooting F/2.8 or F/2 will give you excellent blurry background, this way your subject will really pop out and the distractive background will be almost invisible. The hard thing to this is that your shoot is hard to get sharp on the full body of the athlete. If you are shooting offense/defense action its hard to get 2 persons in focus. This is why this does not always work.

Choose a standpoint with a clean open background

Shooting towards clean or structured backgrounds will give you better shots. think of a open field, a part of woods, a empty or filled stadium will do as well. Be aware that a pretty high aperture is required for this to work. probably somewhere maximum to F/4. Personally i love to get a big crowd in the background. with a well exposed subject and a bit underexposed background will give you perfect separation. Getting this the other way around will give you problems.

The spectators in the back are a pretty big distraction

Choose a standpoint with lower chance of players in the background

When you are shooting from the sidelines you often get more chance on a player-less background. Players are often pretty close and wont get blurry by a high aperture, or at least not blurry enough. Shooting from different positions will give you more possibility on clean photos.

A higher perspective

Choosing a higher perspective gives you a awesome background of the field in the back. this way you often have no other players behind the player. the downside to this is that you don’t catch a idea of the field or filled stadium or anything. But this is sure the easiest way to get a clean background.

In this shot i think the distractive background is a good thing.

Blur your background in Photoshop

The other last solution is blur out the background in photoshop. the best way is to duplicate a layer. Gaussian blur the bottom layer and cut out the player. using the feather tool in photoshop will give you a nice even fade to blurry and a more natural look. Be careful do not over-do this. natural shots are important!

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Shutter
The minimum shutter speed you have to get is 1/250th. But personally i never us 250th for a sport. 1/320 is the real minimum for me. it depends on the sport i am shooting, Fieldhockey is a fast sport you defenitly need something like 320 400-> for this. and still you wont be able to freeze the action. This gives you some creative possibilities. try play with it.

Aperture
Go as wide as possible. i suggest 2.8 is the minimum here. Past week i shot a ice hockey game at ISO 3200 aperture 2.8 shutter 1/320. I really wanted to go up to 1/400th but this was a real no-go!

ISO
When i am shooting indoor my ISO is always somewhere between 1600 and 3200. i usually start somewhere at 1600 and bump it up untill i reached the right exposure around 1/320th.

Other tips
1. Shoot raw! – Since the reflection of the courts, walls and ceiling is different then just a bare sky, and the light sources are of a different color temperature your white balance will often be pretty screwed. you have 2 options, use a custom white balance with a Grey card. Or just go auto on this and do it in post-production.
2. Keep your histograms in sight. check once in a while if your shoots are good exposed, since you are already in a high iso, boosting up your exposure/brightness with affect your image noise, and give you a hell lot more then just a good exposure.
3. Be sure your shots a really sharp. with apertures 2.8, 2.0, 1.8 your often get of-focus shots since its focussing on the stick, or ball. This gives you a bad exposure. and photos just a bit of-focus can be good in good light situations (a bit of sharpening in post producton) but with these high iso’s you images will suck pretty much.

Good luck! and if there are any questions, feel free to comment on the article.

ISO: 1600
Shutter: 1/250
Aperture: f/2.8

ISO: 3200
Shutter: 1/320
Aperture: f/2.8

Great article on Aperture – http://www.diyphotography.net/aperture

Article about the 3 basic elements to exposure, iso – shutter and aperture – http://www.digital-cameras-help.com/basic-photography-tips.html

Another must read on basic exposure – http://photo.net/learn/basic-photo-tips/aperture-shutterspeed-iso/