Improve Photography » Sports Photography

10 Tips for Stunning Action Photography

Jim Harmer — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:15:25 +0000

I shot this photo while covering an event for a newspaper. The people jumped into a pool of ice cold water in the middle of the Winter. - Jim Harmer

Action Photography Tip #1: Plan ahead! Carefully plan where you will set up. This is probably the biggest mistake for action photographers. I can’t tell you how many parents I see on the sidelines shooting their son’s soccer game from the middle of the field. Since the action will mostly occur near the goal, that is a much better place to set up. No matter what action you are going to shoot, you need to predict where you can be to capture the face of the subject.

Action Photography Tip #2: Pre-focus. If the subject suddenly springs into the frame, you might consider using a technique called pre-focusing.

Action Photography Tip #3: Shoot in short bursts rather than one long bursts. This will prevent your buffer from filling up, which could cost you the shot. I usually shoot action in three shot bursts, wait a second, then shoot another burst. To do this, turn your camera to continuous high drive mode.

Action Photography Tip #4: Give the subject space to move. For fast-moving subjects, the best composition is usually to allow some space on the side of the photo where they are traveling. For example, the photo featured on this page has more space on the left side of the frame, since that is where the person is jumping to. This composition will feel much more comfortable to the viewer so they don’t wonder what’s in front of the person.

Action Photography Tip #5: Get a fast memory card! This can help prevent your camera from slowing down if the memory card write speed is the bottleneck in your system. Not sure which memory card to buy? Check out this post.

Action Photography Tip #6: Don’t miss the face. Capturing the expression on the face of the subject will add much more drama to the photo. Did you notice the face of the guy jumping into the icy water?

Action Photography Tip #7: Shoot JPEG. Action photography is one of the only times that I switch over to JPEG. Since JPEG files are much smaller than RAW files, most DSLRs can capture a few more frames per second on JPEG than RAW.

Action Photography Tip #8: Get down low. One of the most important–and lesser-known–composition tips is that shooting from down low will make your subject look powerful. Look at any picture of a CEO in Forbes or Business Week and you’ll see that they are often shot from a low angle to make the person seem like a towering giant. The same is true in action shots, where photographers generally want to make the subject look dramatic and powerful.

Action Photography Tip #9: Shoot with two eyes open. I learned this trick from teaching classes in shotgun shooting. Closing one eye lessens your ability to determine depth and hinder’s your eye’s ability to track movement. It takes some practice, but I always shoot sports and action with two eyes open, and it seems to help me get the shot.

Action Photography Tip #10: Don’t mash the shutter button! Just because you’re shooting action doesn’t mean you should forget last week’s tips on getting sharper photos.

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Tips for shooting little league or high school sports

Jim Harmer — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 11:11:20 +0000

Get high for better backgrounds - Jim Harmer

For many of you, this was the reason you bought your first DSLR. Shooting sports is really fun, and even more so if it’s your own kid. This last fall, I spent a fair bit of time shooting high school sports for the youth in a little Boy Scout group where I volunteer. I figured out a few things last fall that I think will help you to improve your sports photos.

Whether you shoot peewee football or high school track and field, the biggest struggle you’ll have is probably the background. These sporting events are generally not held in professional sports stadiums. In fact, most of these games occur in a park or at a school, so the background is often a neighborhood surrounding the park or school. Even if you get everything else right when photographing the sport, if the background is random buildings, the shot will most likely look like a snapshot. This is all part of simplifying your composition.

So what can you do? Bring a step stool or stand on something high like the bleachers. By elevating your position, you’ll be shooting down on the athletes. This makes the grass the background rather than the ugly neighborhood, telephone wires, or your tan minivan over in the parking lot. Simplifying the background in this way will drastically improve your shots.

Using a step stool is perfect for sports where the athlete is looking up, such as javelin, discus, shotput, shooting free throws, when a swimmer comes up for a breath, etc. However, this method doesn’t work well for sports where the athletes commonly look down to the ground, such as soccer, running events in track, wrestling, etc. For this type of situation, you’ll need to plaster yourself on the ground for hours on end.

By getting as low to the ground as possible, the sky becomes be background, which is much more natural and clean than the typical distracting background. Also, remember that the angle will improve the closer you get to the athletes. If you’re shooting the athletes from 100 yards aways, you probably won’t be able to tell whether you’re crouching down low.

If you’re stuck with distracting backgrounds, you’ll have to use depth of field to blur out the background as much as possible. Unfortunately, if you’re shooting a cheap telephoto lens whose maximum aperture when zoomed out is f/5.6, it can be tough to get as much blur on the background as possible. But, remember from the post last week that aperture is not the only thing that affects depth of field.Further Reading:

Pre-focus the moment

Jim Harmer — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 11:57:48 +0000

Please comment below on how I could have improved the title of this post. It’s an article about pre-focusing your DSLR to capture moments that otherwise couldn’t be captured, but I can’t think of a clever title. I guess I should just write the article already…

There have been several situations where I walked away from a shoot with a great picture that no other photographers at the event were able to get. The trick I used to get the picture is called pre-focusing, and I think photographers often overlook this helpful technique. This technique is extremely useful for sports or action photographers who want to capture fast-moving moments.

SMASH! - Jim Harmer

One of the first times I used this technique was shooting a high school Junior Miss Pageant. The girl was about to smash three blocks of ice with her head and two hands at the same time. Especially in the low light, I knew that I probably couldn’t wait for the camera to try and autofocus at the very instant that the girl smashed the ice. Autofocus would take too long and I’d miss the shot. So I focused on the blocks of ice, locked the focus by using the switch on the lens to change it to manual, and then waited for the moment and snapped the shot. Since I didn’t have to wait for focus, I walked away with a cool shot, and the other photographer (with a $6,000 lens on) walked away with a blurry mess that was barely recognizable as a photo.

Another time I used this technique was while watching a dolphin show. The trainer climbed to the bow of a boat and held out a stick. I didn’t take a genius to know that the dolphin was about to leap out of the water and touch the stick with its nose. All the other photographers waited and waited for the dolphin to come out of the water, then tried to autofocus and grab the shot at the right instant. It didn’t work for most of them. I focused on the stick, locked focus, and then simply waited for the dolphin to squish my shutter button. Yahtzee!

Another great situation where pre-focus is helpful is when shooting the classic water drop falling into a beautiful blue bowl of water. Since the lens is so close to the subject, and a low aperture value is used to get a fast shutter speed, there is usually a shallow depth-of-field in this type of shot. Because of the short depth-of-field, it can be tough to capture proper focus at the very instant the drop hits the water. The answer? Obviously, it’s pre-focusing. Take this shot by putting the camera on a tripod, place a pen or your finger on the surface of the water where the drop will hit the water, focus on the pen or your finger, lock focus, then just wait for the moment and don’t worry about not focusing fast enough.

An alternative to using the traditional pre-focus technique is to use back button focusing. This will allow the photographer to separate the focus from the actual taking of the picture which will help dramatically in getting action photos.Further Reading:

5 Tips to improve your sports photography

Jim Harmer — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 16:42:06 +0000

High School Football - Jim Harmer

Fine. It’s a lie. I got you to read this post by promising general tips on sports photography in general, but these tips are only about team sports. But give me a break. Would you really have read this article if I named it “Five tips to improve your photography of team sports”? Didn’t think so. Now on to the show…

Sports Photography Tip #1: The worst place to stand on the field or court is the fifty-yard line or the half-court line. Every time I see new sports photographers go out for their first event, they plant themselves on the fifty, thinking that they will be able to see both sides of the field from that viewpoint.

Sports Photography Tip #2: Don’t just focus on the winning team. Sometimes the most impactful sports photos are of the facial expressions of the athletes on the losing team.

Sports Photography Tip #3: Consider shooting in JPEG. Generally, you’ll be able to capture 2 more frames per second, and the buffer on your camera won’t fill as quickly. This can really help you to capture the perfect moment.

Sports Photography Tip #4: Learn to shoot with both eyes open. In fast-moving games like soccer where the ball can suddenly be kicked 100 feet or more, you can look with one eye open and see the ball more clearly and the other eye open in your optical viewfinder to place that ball within the frame. It’s tricky at first, but can really help capture many more shots of the action. The camera won’t block your view of the left eye because usually you’ll be shooting in portrait mode when shooting sports.

Sports Photography Tip #5: Kneel down on the ground and use a monopod. Shooting up at people makes them seem powerful. This will add a lot of drama to your sports shots. The monopod will help you to keep the camera steady in this less-than-stable shooting position.Further Reading: