Mastering The Art Of Sports Photography With Your Digital Camera
For sports enthusiasts, there's nothing more exciting
than sports people playing their favourite game. The sight of the
field, rink or golf course initiates the thrill and anticipation.
This, combined with digital photography, can provide some amazing
photographic opportunities. However it's not a matter of point the
camera at the person diving for the ball or puck and snapping away.
It's a lot more complicated than that.
In digital photography sports can be quite challenging.
The sports people do not present an easy task of being photographed
because of the amount of high movement. However, you can indeed
achieve great sports digital photography. Most excellent sports
digital photography requires good planning and execution.
Here are some exclusive tips for gaining fantastic
sports shots in your digital photography.
First things first; know your digital camera. I
recommend taking note and practicing first all the settings that
sports photography needed. You may find yourself going for the faster
shutter speed, increased ISO and burst mode. Let's take a look at
all these things on your digital camera and see how they can be
applied to give you sensational sports photos.
High shutter speeds:
As with all moving objects, in order to capture the "frozen
in time" look in digital photography a fast shutter speed is
required. The faster the movement the fast the shutter speed will
need to be. In digital photography the general consensus is that
the shutter speed needs to be faster than that of the subject. For
example if you have a sliding puck across ice and there is a someone
about to take a dive for it then its necessary to quickly mentally
assess how fast that person might be traveling at. If they are traveling
at approximately 50 kilometers (approx 32 miles) per hour then you
may find a very fast shutter speed is needed for this digital photo.
A very fast shutter speed in digital photography
may be anything from 500th of a second or higher. For high speed
movement you may want to consider an even faster shutter speed of
1000th of a second or something in that range.
Keep in mind that in digital photography a fast
shutter speed works to reduce some of the light which is why a higher
ISO is often necessary. (I'll talk about that in a minute.) Usually
a if a ball, such as a baseball going at around 145 kilometers an
hour (90.09 miles per hour) a shutter speed of around 1/4000 will
get you that "suspended ball in mid air" type of photo.
For physical movement, such as someone leaping to catch a football,
a shutter speed of 1/500 or over is a good place to start.
Now this is all very well if your scene if well
lit. But what if you are taking your digital photography shots indoors
at night and the light is not quite enough to provide enough light?
In most instances, an indoor stadium at night time will be well
lit, but that doesn't always ensure good digital photos. In sports
photography we need to understand that we can only control the artistic
value and input of our digital photo and the control of the camera.
We can't control the lighting on the scene being such a public event.
In digital photography sports photos we must realize that it's going
to be a challenge to begin with. So here are something's you can
in your digital sports photography to increase the amount of light.
If you have a light tool on your digital camera
such as a histogram you can get a good idea of what the light levels
are like on your sensor. With this handy tool you can adjust the
ISO at the time of your pictures taking.
Increase your ISO: A high ISO in digital photography
simply means the sensitivity to light that your digital camera has.
In a nutshell the more ISO you have increased the image to, the
less light the sensor needs. In sports photography an ISO of 400
or higher can work really well. The downside to this is that it
does increase noise. To combat this you can use noise reduction
software in the post editing process such as Noise Ninja or increase
the LAB mode in the post editing process. Don't be afraid to try
a few shots at 400, 800 and even as high as 1600.
Burst mode:
In most sports digital photography this will be one of the settings
you will turn to. Burst mode is also known as 'continuous shooting'.
This 'continuous' shooting mode allows you to get a sequence of
shoots in succession. You can increase your chances of getting that
ideal "split second perfect shot" that you might not be
able to get by pre-emption or in normal shooting. This also works
so beautifully if your digital camera has a painfully long lag time.
I've used this so many times to get around the high lag my Sony
Cyber shot has got. Some cameras have 3 frames per second and some
go up to 12 frames per second. You simply select this mode and hold
your finger on the shutter button and it will fire off as many shots
in 1 second as it can.
Okay so I've been talking about your digital camera
and the setting's used for ideal sports digital photography, so
what about any external equipment? If you have been thinking about
this you're spot on. You can take as much time with your settings
but there's not much point if you can't get close to the action.
There's no point having a picture with perfect lighting and perfect
action if the players are like dots on a sheet of paper. You need
a good telephoto lens if you can't get close up. A telephoto lens
brings you closer because of its long distance capability. It will
get you closer to the action but will need a faster shutter speed.
Many fantastic sports digital photos are taken
with an emphasis on a very fast shutter speed, an f stop of around
the 2.8 mark to blur the background and focus in on the subject.
You may find that if your sportsperson is visually separated from
the background and you take the digital photograph with a telephoto
lens you'll have a more shallow depth of field which can give you
a more powerful feeling in your digital photo. You can get away
with a good optical zoom lens, but you'll get far better digital
sports shots with a proper telephoto.
So what about the artistic side of sports
photography with your digital camera? Plenty!
Pre-emption and Emotion is the key to good art.
When taking sports photography you probably won't find a more public
display of human emotion. The emotions of a sports person range
from intense anticipation to extreme disappointment or extreme exhilaration.
Pre-empting when these emotions take place is they key to getting
artistic and impressive sports photos. This comes with practicing
your digital photography.
SO much pressure is placed on our athletes, expecting
them to perform so we can enjoy the show and the investors can enjoy
their returns. This is another reason why I say to get a telephoto
lens so you can capture the emotions on their faces and their body
language. It makes for superb photography. For ideas on ice hockey,
have a look at some ice hockey images that are great study tools.
Don't just look at these digital photos, you must
study them. Take on the attitude that studying sports photography
will improve your digital sports photos ten fold. You will have
a style to emulate and copy to start with then eventually, when
you become confident, you'll start to adopt your own style.
Happy shooting,
Amy Renfrey
* * *
To study digital sports photography
check these sites out: http://www.espn.com
and http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com
Amy Renfrey is the author
of two major successful ebooks “Digital Photography Success”
and “Advanced Digital Photography”. She is a photographer
and also teaches digital photography. Her educational ebooks takes
the most complex photography terms and turns them into easy to understand
language so that anyone, at any level of photography, can easily
move to a semi-professional level of skill in just a very short
time. She’s photographed many things from famous musicians
(Drummers for Prince and Anastasia) to weddings and portraits of
babies. Amy also teaches photography online to her students which
can be found at http://www.DigitalPhotographySuccess.com
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