How do I take the best pictures of these sports?
Tomorrow I will be taking pictures of high school wrestling indoors in a gym and soccer on an outdoor field. I have the Nikon D40 with18-55mm and 55-200mm lenses and I was wondering what settings I should use to take the best pictures for both sports.
Wrestling.
You’ll want to position yourself so you can shoot from a low angle, particularly when the wrestlers are on the mat. Frame your subject tightly and just keep shooting. What you are looking for is facial expressions which convey the stress of the struggle to those that view your images. I would suggest you use the telephoto lens. I would also suggest you use a flash as well; most gyms are poorly lit using florescent tubes, creating flat top lighting conditions.
Soccer
That will definitely require the use of the telephoto lens and to tell you the truth, 200 mm isn’t big enough. It can be done. You’ll want to move along the sidelines with the motion of the game, shooting only the action on the side from which you are standing. Action on the other side of the field will be too far way for a 200 mm to capture with good resolution.
Look for action where two players are battling for the ball. You can also position yourself to get shots of the goalie making saves. The key thing is to anticipate the action. If you see the image you want through the viewfinder, you’ve missed the shot.
Wrestling.
You’ll want to position yourself so you can shoot from a low angle, particularly when the wrestlers are on the mat. Frame your subject tightly and just keep shooting. What you are looking for is facial expressions which convey the stress of the struggle to those that view your images. I would suggest you use the telephoto lens. I would also suggest you use a flash as well; most gyms are poorly lit using florescent tubes, creating flat top lighting conditions.
Soccer
That will definitely require the use of the telephoto lens and to tell you the truth, 200 mm isn’t big enough. It can be done. You’ll want to move along the sidelines with the motion of the game, shooting only the action on the side from which you are standing. Action on the other side of the field will be too far way for a 200 mm to capture with good resolution.
Look for action where two players are battling for the ball. You can also position yourself to get shots of the goalie making saves. The key thing is to anticipate the action. If you see the image you want through the viewfinder, you’ve missed the shot.
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Former photojournalist.
And you’ll want to keep it on aperture priority mode. Using the lowest aperture number you have. Especially for the indoor because lighting will probably be poor. ISO of atleast 800. ISO 1600 isn’t that grainy and will provide more shutter speed if necessary. I would only use a flash if you have an external flash. It’d be more powerful than the one on the camera. One on the camera may be able to cut through the lighting and overcome the different temperature of the lighting in the gym. Otherwise the different temperatures will clash. Try it both ways.
For the outdoor if the lighting is good you can drop the ISO to say 400 or so and maybe raise the fstop a stop or two. Depends on the background blur you want though. If you are wanting to stop the motion then you’ll need a reasonably high shutter speed. Let’s just say 1/200 of a second or so. Probably still be a little foot blur on that. But that’s not a bad thing. Add feeling to the picture.
Play around with the settings before the events start so you’ll know what you want to set your ISO at and what kind of aperture range you are gonna be limited to. A little rule of thumb is to keep the focal length one to one with the shutter speed. 200mm equal to atleast 1/200sec or faster shutter speed. That is to minimize the blurs that comes from the minute movements of your body. Higher the focal length the more it magnifies those minute movements.
Hope this helps. Peace, Love, and Happiness!! Good Luck!
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