Episode 5 Sports – Extra
Here’s a recap + additional notes of how to shoot sports. In many of America’s most popular sports there’s a ball involved such as basketball, baseball, soccer, football, and tennis, and they to photographing sports such as those is to always keep your eye on the ball. The reason for that is because more often than not, the athletes are chasing after the ball and if you follow the ball the athletes will come. We are going to use the phrase (that we just made up) to best describe how shoot most sports “If you follow it, they will come.”
Panning (plus a slower shutter) is one technique that is used a lot in sports, and in good reason because panning allows motion in sports. They beautiful streaky blur created through panning gives the appearance of a subject moving very quickly. This is is important especially if you’re photographing sports such as bicycling or car racing. Without a background blur a car race could easily look like cars parked on a road in front of one another.
Take advantage of the burst rate provided in your camera, most dSLRs provide at least 3 frames per second, which should be sufficient for photographing most sports. Start holding the burst before the action and hold it till the end of action, for example if you’re photographing tennis you’ll want to start snapping a little before the ball reaches the athlete, all the way till the athlete hits the ball. Take the shot below for example, in volleyball this shot was taken right before he was about to hit the ball. It shows the action, the expression and the ball.
Our last tip for you in sports photography is you want to get as close as possible to the action, and if you can’t crop as much of the photo as you can to show the action of what’s happening. Anything that isn’t relevant to the sport/action/athlete should be taken out of the photo. This way your photo is able to show the expression, action, and intensity of what’s going on. That’s all for now!
Got any questions? Did we we not answer everything? Send us an email to photosodes@gmail.com
