I want to take some photos of myself playing using a 4MP digital camera 6x optical and 10x digital zoom. Do I need to use a flash when taking photos?
no you dont, if the hall is well lightened, you can shoot the photo's without any flash!.... (no flash is also better when playing , no pain in the eyes, and you dont loose the shuttle out of sight
What is make and model of your camra? Does it have manual setting? How far are you (or player) will be from camera? Any other info will help to give you more pointer.
Flash will be worse unless you have a flash that is powerful enough to light up the whole (or half) the court! And if it's that powerful, you'll be blinding people! If the flash is on the camera will adjust it's exposure and anything beyond the range of the flash will be underexposed.
depending on the make and model, you may have to test to see if your camera will be fast enough to capture sports shots. if the gym is bright enough, you can try taking shots without flash. you may need to increase the ISO - maybe up to 400 or higher (if your digicam will support that). The problem tho' with the higher ISO will be more digital noise or 'graininess' of the images. depending on the speed of your autofocus, you may need to lock the focus - prior to the shot. the problem with some autofocus is they are quite slow, and by the time the lens focus and shot taken, the subject has already past the frame. a good way to get the shot is if your camera supports burst mode. some cameras will allow you to take multiple sequence shots with a fixed settings. this way you can pick the best of the group. the other problem sometimes with digital cameras is after the picture is taken, it could take several seconds for the image to be stored, and the camera is out of commision for that time while you wait. experiment with the longer zooms. just beware that when you zoom in, usually the amount of light changes and you may need to increase the exposure time or increase the ISO rating. the built-in flashes are often not powerful enough to support most zooms at the top end. also the trick with the higher zoom is you may need to turn on image stabilization (if your camera has that feature) to reduce camera shake. also, stick with optical zoom only. don't waste your time taking pictures with the digital zoom with a 4M sensor.
