Basketball Photography Tips

Anyone have some basketball photography tips to share? I'm especially interested in ideas on where to position myself when standing behind the basket isn't an option.

I'm also having some focus issues I'm hoping to straighten out. I'm using the 7D and I'm finding that a lot of my action photos are slightly out of focus. Here's my setup from the last time I had this focusing problem:

Canon 7D
Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II (autofocus, IS on with Mode 2, 2.5m-infinity)
1/400
f/2.8
ISO 3200
Partial Metering
Portrait orientation, focus point one up from center with expansion on


I'm starting to think it may just be the camera--I've heard the 7D has focus issues.

The 7D is a good camera for sports. I would set all focus points unless you're trying to get one particular person. Use the center point only if you're looking for one person. The center point is the most accurate.

Do you use just center point or center point with expansion?

Thanks!

I use just the center point

Stupid question, but you're using AI Servo, right? And did you set the AF to the fastest setting? Lots of tweaking you can do in the menus. Using back button AF also helps.

I haven't chimed in because I am a Nikon shooter. But if the Center with Expansion is similar to Nikon's setting (which is ANY AF point can be made larger) it is really useful when your target may move erratically in the frame at high agnification.

At airshows, it is invaluable, as it is for bird in flight photography. The central AF is always used to lock on, but if the target moves away from the central AF, the other AF points surrudnign will take over.

There is also Tracking which allows you to tell the AF sensor algorithm to ignore other objects in the scene for a certain amount of time before ignoring the primary focus lock and targetting another potential target in the frame. We have short/normal/long for the delay all of which are less than a second.