Techniques for photographing action subjects with any camera.
Take Action Photos with Any Camera
Windsurfer Mike Colombo shot on Long Island Sound from the seawall in Stratford, Connecticut. By waiting until the windsurfer was heading directly toward the camera the viewer gets a much more immediate sense of speed and motion. I shot the picture with a Nikon D90 camera body using a 70-300mm Nikkor lens set at 300mm (so the equivalent was 450mm in 35mm). ISO was set to 1250 because it was a relatively overcast day and it was late in the day.
The Cortes Family, Trapeze Artists.
Action and fast-moving sports are among the most challenging things to
photograph because not only is your subject constantly changing
position--requiring a lot of fast reactions and good technique on your part--but often even
your subject isn't 100-percent sure where their action will take them. While they certainly have a particular destination (the end zone, for example) football players, for example, tend to go where the play takes them and then don't necessarily travel a predictable route.
But there are certain techniques that you can use and skills that you can develop that will vastly improve the number of "keeper" shots that you get with any type of action subject, whether it's a wild animal or a high-school soccer player.
Where to Focus
Trying
to focus on moving targets (even this little duckling photographed at
the New York Botanical Garden) is tough. The minute you think you have
them in focus, wham, they're gone before you can trip the shutter.
Again, even the most organized action has random possibilities (and nothing about this duck's attempt to get on a leaf is planned). Instead, one technique a lot of pros shooters use is to put your camera in manual focus and focus on a spot
where the action seems to be repeating itself--home plate in a baseball game or
the top of a piling where a seagull keeps landing and taking off, for
example.
That's just what I did for the shot of a duckling. I tried (and
failed) about a dozen times as it kept hopping up on the
lily leaf and then--just as quickly--slipped back into the water. But
once I put the lens in manual focus and focused on the center of the
lily pad, all I had to do was wait for the duckling and fire when it
came into the frame. I had the camera on a tripod and locked down
tightly, so I didn't even have to watch through the viewfinder. I just
kept my eye on the lily pad and then fired whenever she hopped up
there. I also used a very fast shutter speed (1/1000 second) which was
easy since the sun was very bright. Not only did the shutter speed stop
the baby duck, but look how it froze the water on the leaf and the crop
coming out off of the beak!
By the way, even if you are shooting
with a camera that doesn't have a manual-focus mode, you can still use
this technique. Just frame the spot where you want to focus and press
the shutter release button halfway down (and hold it halfway down);
that locks the focus (and exposure) and then when your subject comes
into the frame, press the shutter release the rest of the way.
Direction of Action
The direction of motion is also extremely important--particularly when
it comes to freezing action completely. At any given shutter speed action is far
easier to stop when the action is heading into or away from
the camera. In the shot of the windsurfer, for example, by waiting
until the subject was heading toward the lens, I was able to stop action
using a slower shutter speed than I would have had to use if he had been passing
left-to-right in front of me. Action passing in front of you
(side-to-side) requires significantly faster shutter speeds to stop completely.
Also, the direction of action--particularly with sports photography--has a significant impact on the emotional reaction that your viewers will have. Action is heading directly
toward the lens is perceived as more exciting because it gives the viewer the sense that they are more
involved in the action: a football player running into the lens is a lot more interesting (not to mention intimidating to both photographer and viewer) than one catching a pass running away from the camera. I'll tell you from experience that when a tight-end is running at your 300mm lens full speed your instinct is to drop the camera and run for your life--though that probably won't help you get better pictures!
Interestingly,
many of the forms of action we photograph do repeat themselves in some
predictable way and predicting where and when that action will occur is
the key to photographing it sharply. Because the windsurfers that I was photographing on Long Island Sound (above) have to work with the wind, they tend to follow the same paths--sailing out a given distance from shore and then tacking to return to the same point over and over again, for example. Similarly, with the Cortes family trapeze artists, I found that they often made their jumps and transitions at exactly the same point over and over again. If you just take a few
moments and study the scene before you start to shoot you'll have a
good idea of where you need to focus and how often the subjects will
come into the frame.
Timing
Timing, of course, is one of the most critical aspects of photographing action because if you are off by just a millisecond with some subjects, you will completely miss the shot. Again, with most action subjects if you just take the time to watch the action and take some practice shots, you'll find that you'll fall into the rhythm of the sport or motion, making it much easier to know when to shoot. Often, too, there is a pause at the peak of action when you can use much slower shutter speeds and still get very sharp images. In photographing the trapeze artists' routines I knew that there would be a brief instant when they would all reach the apex of their jumps and for that brief instant the performer would appear to levitate in space. I waited repeatedly for that instant and then fired off a fast burst of shots.
Anticipating the peak of action and using a high shutter speed are great ways to get sharp action photos.
Soccer action photographed at close range with a wide-angle lens.
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Entire Site Contents Copyright 2012 Jeff Wignall
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