Sports photography is one of the most difficult photographic disciplines for an amateur photographer, even a great challenge for an expert photographer. We have all tried to make a photo session in a stadium or sports center and we have been frustrated after seeing how almost all our photos have been blurred, moved or out of focus. A disaster.
Here I propose a series of tips and tricks with which you can improve your technique and get sports photographs with a minimum decent level.
Tip 1: Use long focal length lenses
It is difficult to get good sports photography without a good specialized lens. These objectives usually have a slightly high price, it must be said, but if you plan to dedicate yourself to this frequently, I recommend that you invest some money in one of these objectives, it will be worth it and you will notice a lot of difference.
Here we need what is called telephoto, lenses with a long focal lengthyou will need something about the 200mm minimum. If you can reach 300mm better. And if it can be more, even better.
These long focal lengths allow you, from the comfort of the bleachers or the bench or wherever you are sitting, to effortlessly ‘chase’ your subject. You will be able to do all the zoom you need and you will not feel the limitation of the usual 18-55mm lens.
Tip 2: Light, light, lots of light
In the search for that ideal goal, he also tries to make it have a diaphragm opening as generous as possible. A large aperture will let in more light and help you get more sharpness. Remember that the larger the aperture of a lens, the smaller its f/value will be. For example, an f/2.8 lens has a much larger aperture than an f/3.5 lens where it is smaller, and so on…
Let me warn you that the size of the aperture makes the lenses very expensive, so be careful with this point, value the investment, value the frequency with which you will take this type of photos, and make a decision.
Tip 3: No stabilizer
Normally at long focal lengths (100, 200mm) the photo tends to be blurry and shaky. The explanation behind that is very complicated for the case, but you should know that in those types of focal lengths that are used for sports photography, the lens should be equipped with an image stabilizer.
The image stabilizer is a button or function that helps make the photo less shaky. It doesn’t eliminate vibration every time, but at least it helps to avoid it.
At Nikon this feature is called VR and you will find it on the lens. In Canon it is called IS.
If your SLR camera is Sony or Pentax, it will most likely have an image stabilizer built into the camera body.
Tip 4: Manual or semi-manual
Your DSLR camera offers you a preconfigured mode for sports by default. Use it, it’s a good alternative especially for times when you don’t have much time, when you have to take few photos quickly, or times when you are not interested in the beauty of the photo but rather document the event with correct photos and sharp. Something to get out of the way come on.
However, if you want to go a step further, to be able to have a little more control over the photos, improve your technique and add a little more creativity to your photos, I recommend that you use the Manual mode of your camera.
With the manual mode you can control both the shutter speed as the diaphragm opening. It is a difficult mode at first but I find it to be the most suitable.
If you feel a little insecure with Full Manual mode, I suggest you use at least one of your camera’s semi-manual modes: shutter speed (S, Tv) or aperture priority (A, Av).
Tip 5: Fast, always fast
In photography if you want to freeze the moment and get sharp photos you have to use fast fire speeds. It’s the thing about sport, everyone moves fast and if you don’t use fast shutter speeds you run the risk of getting shaky and blurry photos.
My advice is that in sports never shoot below speeds of 1/300s.
Tip 6: High ISO, but be careful
Following my previous advice to shoot very fast, depending on the lighting conditions and the type of lens you use, it is possible that the photos will come out dark. In that case you can mess around a bit with the ISO sensitivity of your camera, but do it very carefully, since the higher the ISO sensitivity, the more noise (grains) will appear in the photo. Try ISO 200, try ISO 400, and so on, until you get to a value where the photo is bright enough but without that damn noise that spoils them.
Tip 7: Autofocus
If in a match or competition you try to take photos in manual focus mode you can go crazy. I recommend that you use the autofocus of your camerasince it is fast, autonomous and most of the time it is right.
Tip 8: Shoot in burst mode
If you fiddle around in your camera menu a bit you will find something called “Shooting modes”set it to the mode of “Burst Shot”, so you can take 3, 4 or 5 pictures in a row each time you press the shutter. This way you make sure that of the 3 or 5 photos you will surely get a decent one.
Tip 9: Photographing sports is itself a sport too
In a sports photography session, shooting everything from the same point of view ends up getting boring. All the photos will come out the same and you will also end up getting frustrated sometimes seeing how some players cover up the main subject you are trying to photograph.
better instead move from time to time and change perspective. If you have that facility, get close to the players and shoot closely, then try 18mm panoramas for example, and so on. Go changing position and you will see how no photo will be similar to another. Move constantly and stay in each place for about 5-10 minutes, before changing your perspective again.
If you combine these tips with a pinch of creativity you can achieve impressive photographs. Remember to always be creative, capture scenes from new angles, for example shooting from the ground, or from an unusual corner. You will see what results you will achieve.
As always, if this article has been useful to you, do not hesitate to recommend it to others. I will be very grateful to you 🙂