Shooting sport or action images can be one of the more challenging aspects of photography. Get your technique wrong and you're never going to be able to recover you shots later.
Don't worry though as we're here to help with some essential tips and tricks to help you get your best action shots ever.
1. Look for the passion
Sport isn’t just about doing the activity: it is also about the passion of athletes and their supporters. It’s your task to capture the emotion of the event. Look for classic winner celebrations, but also turn the camera on the crowd, where colour and chaos often ensues.
2. Resist chimping
While checking histograms for exposure is useful, don’t do it after every shot – especially at sporting events! While you’re looking at the camera’s LCD, someone scores, a horse throws its rider or two cars collide – and you’ve missed the killer shot!
3. Short bursts are best
Pro DSLRs have fast frame rates and fire continuously when required. But it’s often best to take shots in short sharp bursts. This will help prevent the buffer locking up on less expensive cameras , and means you have fewer near-identical images to edit through.
4. Use natural light
In many sporting situations, you will be dealing with whatever natural light there is. This can be flat, dull, bright, high, low, intense, or whatever other variations nature can throw at us. In most cases, sporting events take place whatever the prevailing conditions are, so you need to adapt to them, with a variety of techniques to control ISO, shutter speed and aperture.
When you are in a situation where the natural light is giving you something a little extra, make sure you use it. Whether you are shooting mountain biking in a forest, a marathon being run through a cityscape or powerboats on the sea, try to use interesting lighting to your advantage. Low sun will throw long shadows and potentially interesting flare into the frame, while storm clouds can add a distinctive backdrop.
You may need to apply some exposure compensation to find the right balance between your subject and the lighting so, without ‘chimping’ too much (see tip 2), take a quick glimpse at your histogram to ensure there is no over- or underexposure.
5. Use space for impact
When you shoot sports with a telephoto lens to get close to the action, it is often wise to fill the frame. However, this isn’t the only way to create impact. Using space carefully around your main subject is a great way to make a powerful composition.
The key to this technique is to keep things simple and make sure that the main subject, even though it isn’t big in the frame, is still clearly the target for the eye. You could do this by choosing a shallow depth of field, so that the subject stands clear of both blurred background and foreground; or you could do it by ensuring the background is free of any distractions. In this case, completely black or pure white backdrops can create a strong contrast to the focal point.
This kind of treatment is also great for editorial use – so if you are hoping to sell your images from an event, leaving space within the frame gives designers the opportunity to place headlines, other images and general text over those areas (just as we’ve done here). Taking these types of shots is harder than simply zooming right into the subject, but if you work on your compositions, you are more likely to come up with an image that is unique.
6. Use high ISOs
High shutter speeds are frequently the key to great sports shots. For many high-intensity sports, you will need shutter speeds in excess of 1/1,000 sec (see tip 17) if you want to freeze the movement. The basic mantra is ‘the faster the better’.
To achieve these speeds in the many situations where light intensity is low, you’ll need to push your ISO up so the sensor is more sensitive. It’s not uncommon for sports pros to shoot at ISO800 as standard, while frequently pushing to 1,600, 3,200 or higher if there is no other choice. With high ISO come potential noise issues – but if you want a pin-sharp shot rather than a blurred one, don’t be afraid of a high ISO setting.
7. Use a good memory card
To get the most from your camera when you shoot action, choose a memory card with a fast write time. Anything from 90MB per second upwards will be enough. Slower cards are cheaper, but they’re not as good for action.
8. Use both eyes
It’s totally natural to shut the eye you’re not using to look through the camera’s viewfinder – but try to keep it open when you shoot sport. This increases your peripheral vision, so you can see more things happening around you.
9. Shoot a silhouette
If you have strong backlighting, add drama with a silhouette. Keep the subject simple within the frame so it’s obvious what it is. Because the exposure is being taken from the lightest area, shutter speeds will be relatively high.
10. Panning
If there’s one basic technique you need to nail for sports, it’s panning! A skilful bit of panning will allow you to combine a sharp subject with a speed-infused background.
Sounds hard? Panning a shot is actually surprisingly easy with a bit of practice, aided by awareness of some relatively straightforward techniques. The main elements you need to think about are the speed of your subject’s movement, your own movement, the shutter speed chosen and what’s in the background.
Let’s start with settings. Unless your lens has an image stabilisation mode specifically designed for panning, you should switch IS off. You’ll also need to lock and keep focus on your subject while it moves across you, so select AI Servo/Continuous AF and make sure you have an AF point group active that will achieve focus at the right place. If in doubt, use a central group or the single central AF point.
Set a slower shutter speed than normal. If you are photographing a car that normally needs a minimum of 1/500 sec to freeze it, for example, change your shutter speed to 1/125 sec. You can use a low ISO setting and a small aperture to achieve this if required.
As the subject comes into view, lock focus and start to pan the camera and lens with it. Your movement needs to be smooth and controlled, like a revolving gun turret. Ideally you will place yourself in a position where there is an interesting background, like vegetation that will ‘streak’ well.
Fire the shutter after your panning movement has started, and keep moving the lens through the arc during the exposure. You may need to change the shutter speed, making it either higher or lower, to find the perfect speed for the subject.
11. Blur the background
You can easily make your subject stand out from the background by choosing the perfect combination of aperture and focal length. Strictly speaking, the effect of depth of field is almost the same at any focal length. However, it appears that when using a telephoto lens, sharpness is reduced even at an aperture such as f/8 because the telephoto lens is magnifying the subject.
You can gain from this by selecting apertures of f/5.6, f/4 or even f/2.8 with a long lens, to maximise the difference in sharp focus between the subject and the background.
12. Spot the ball
One element in lots of sports that will make a difference to your image is getting the ball in the frame. You’ll need fast shutter speeds and excellent timing to stop a ball where you want it to be – but when you do, it will provide a natural point of interest. It’s a lot easier with racket sports like tennis, where you can predict where the ball is heading to or from within a relatively tight space.
Don’t try to focus on the moving ball itself – you can only lose that game – but focus on the player and hope the ball freezes at a interesting point.
13. Get in the water
Lots of sports take place in the water. While shooting from dry land is OK some of the time, if you want to create an image that takes you into a different world, jumping in with them is the only option. But your expensive camera isn’t that waterproof, so you’ll need to invest in a housing that will allow you to shoot without finishing up with a soggy DSLR.
Inside a purpose-built housing like an Ewa-Marine, camera operation is a bit more fiddly, but after a bit of practice it’s easy to operate the important buttons through the PVC casing. Alternatively, take a look at a fully waterproof compact cameras that you can just jump straight in with. Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Fujifilm and other manufacturers have a waterproof wonder in their line-up.
14. Tell the story
Always try to capture images with a narrative. Think of each image as an element of a story that reveals something about the event; crop into details sometimes, as well as taking the wider viewpoint. If you imagine an interesting caption in your head as you compose, you’ll find your images become more effective.
15. A different angle
Look for dramatic angles to maximise impact. If you have time to plan ahead of an event, walk around your location to see how many different shooting positions you can find. During an event, don’t take a thousand images from the same spot: hunt out those angles you scouted for earlier.
16. Get low
To inject a sense of dynamism into your photos, shoot from low down. In some sports, like swimming, this puts you into direct eyeline with your subject, while for others it can be used to bring more of the background more into the shot and create a greater sense of depth.
17. Fast shutter speeds
Fast shutter speeds are synonymous with sport because you need them to be able to freeze an action perfectly. As we said in tip 6 (ISO), to stop the motion in the frame, use as fast a shutter speed as you can.
The idea is to remove any potential motion blur from your shot and have every part of your subject pin-sharp. You need to be achieving about 1/1,000 sec or faster for most typical sports. Of course, like any rule of thumb there will be times when you can drop below this shutter speed but, as soon as you do, you will be risking some motion blur occurring in your image.
18. Lock focus
To give your camera every chance on locking focus on a moving subject, make sure you are using Continuous AF (AI Servo on some cameras). In this mode, the camera’s AF system will be constantly trying to keep the AF locked on your subject as long as you have the shutter button half-depressed. That means you can track a subject moving towards you, keep the focus on it as you follow it and simply fire the shutter at the appropriate moment.
You should use Continuous AF in conjunction with continuous shooting drive mode so that you can take a burst of shots one after the other.
19. Master AF
Modern autofocus systems are fast – but don’t try to shoot with AF while you’re using Live View, as the way focus is achieved here is slower. Your camera has a number of different AF points. The exact number varies from model to model, but the greater the number of AF points you have available, the more flexibility for accurate focusing there is. For ultra-accurate focus, select a single AF point. Your camera may allow you to select AF groups, which is a good way to achieve focus on a difficult subject.
Remember that you can change which AF point (or group) is active. On many cameras, the active AF point or group is selected via the D-pad or a little joystick on the rear of the camera body. If you are struggling to get focus, give yourself some space around the subject and use the centre AF point: it’s typically the most accurate.
20. Use a monopod
While monopods aren’t essential, many sports photographers use them to help keep heavy long lenses steady. They are easy to carry and take up less room when you’re hurrying around a track, but they’ll help you get sharper shots when it matters.
21. Get a fast lens
A fast (and inevitably expensive) telephoto lens is recommended. A focal length of 300mm-plus gets you close to the action, while a fast aperture of f/2.8 means the lens can focus accurately, get faster shutter speeds in tough conditions and blur backgrounds.
22. Switch IS on
If you have image stabilisation on your lenses or built into the camera, switch it on. It will significantly improve your chances of getting sharp shots. Some lenses have different types of IS for basic hand-held or hand-held panned images.
23. White balance indoor
When you shoot indoors, you will face white balance issues because the temperature of the artificial lighting can fool the camera. A simple solution is to switch to Live View and scroll through the WB settings to see which looks the most natural on the rear screen.
24. Anticipate action
The excitement of sport is that you never know what is going to happen – but knowing the sport through previous participation or years of watching helps. This knowledge can help you position yourself at potential collision hotspots or simply be aware of when the decisive moment is likely.
25. Use flash carefully
Flash isn’t allowed at lots of sports as it can distract the participants; check the rules carefully. When you can use it, do so creatively. A slow shutter speed coupled with a burst of flash and a panning action can produce an interesting ‘frozen’ subject in a blurred environment.
26. Shoot a sequence
Have you seen shots that show an action sequence and thought, “I wish I could do that? ” Well, you can: it just takes a bit of thought at the taking stage and some patience in Photoshop to stitch the images together. Just about any movement will work as a sequence, but if you can think of a specific action within a sport, such as a horse jumping a fence, a skateboarder traversing an obstacle or a skier doing a trick jump, it will give you a natural start and finish position.
It’s best to set the camera on a tripod so the background doesn’t move during the sequence of shots, as this makes it easier to edit later in Photoshop. Set your camera to continuous shooting (high speed if you have it), select a manual exposure and fire a sequence of images across your frame. Fire off as many shots as your camera will allow, as you can always leave some out of the final image.
In Photoshop, stack all the images together as layers, with the first shot as the bottom layer. Use the Quick Mask Mode to work on each separate layer to blend each into the shot. Keep a separation between each ‘step’ in the sequence. Any that overlap too much can simply be hidden in the Layers Panel.
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