5 Tips to Improve YOUR Sports Photography
What’s going on guys?
Today, I’m here with 5 TIPS to take YOUR sports photography to the NEXT LEVEL! These tips are a collection of the knowledge that I have gained through my volunteer work as an assistant for a local photographer as well as through my field experience as an intern sports photographer for the Fredonia State media department. As a disclaimer, I am by no mean an expert at photography (yet), however I BELIEVE by applying these tips that I’ve learned through my own past experiences (and mistakes) YOU too can ELEVATE your photography much faster than you may have thought possible. So with that being said, let’s get into it…
Tip #1: Position Yourself to Where the Action is Moving Towards You
In sports events, the best chance to capture a big play or a close up of a player's emotion is to position yourself to where the action is moving towards you. This can sometimes be tricky when shooting sports like basketball or soccer where the direction of play is constantly changing. However, I find that positioning myself near the baskets, along the baselines of the court/field, or on one of the corners of the court/field, allows me to get front face action, even on the other side of the field. As the offense heads towards their goal, positioning myself directly behind the baseline allows me to get those head on action style shots!
Tip #2: Know Where Your Light is Coming From
Some of my best composed photos were ruined because I simply didn’t pay attention to where my light was coming from and when I went to edit these photos all the highlights were way overexposed. This can all be avoided by taking a few seconds before snapping a photo to think about where your light source (either studio light or the sun) is positioned in relation to your subject. Although there are many ways to manipulate the light source in your photos, I find the BEST angles of light are when the sun lights my subject from behind or from a 45 degree angle from their front. This light position offers the most amount of contrast between my highlights and shadows and exposes for a natural skin tone look in my images.
Tip #3: Shoot at a High Shutter Speed
Photographing a running target is no easy task, in order to capture the action you have to shoot at a high shutter speed. When I shoot fast action sports, I typically shoot at no slower than 1/1000 for my shutter speed. This allows me to get that freeze frame-like sharpness to my images even when athletes are moving at a fast pace!
Tip #4: Shoot Wide, Crop In Post
Now don’t get me wrong here, shooting at a larger focal length can offer you some outstanding photos! However, when athletes are moving side to side, up and down a field, or in a pack during a race, it can sometimes be difficult to get a sharp close up shot right out of the camera. Instead, a little hack I learned shooting sports this fall has been to shoot wide and then crop into your subject in post-production. This allows you to focus your attention more on the action at hand rather than just trying to get your subject into your composition.
Tip #5: Use Continuous Focus Point
My fifth and final tip, which ties along with my last two, is to make sure you are shooting in the continuous focal point setting on your camera. Continuous focus, or tracking focus will continue to adjust the focal point in your camera to target the subject in which the camera believes you are intending to shoot. Now, once you become more and more skilled as a photographer I would recommend switching to a single focus point as this offers the highest quality clarity to your subject. However, if you’re just starting off, using a continuous focal point will again allow you to focus more on the action at hand and provide you with high quality sharpness a solid 8 times out of 10.
And there you have it! These are my five tips that I would give to anyone who was interested in starting off in the field of sports photography! If you enjoyed these tips or find them helpful at any point, please make sure to go check out my photography page on Instagram @yannie_photography and follow for more sports photography content! Thanks again and I will talk to you guys next time!
Keep shooting,
-Ethan
