Express Action Sports

like is it portrait, sports, party, high sensitivity etc?

Each of these different picture modes changes the settings of the camera so that they perform best under those conditions. For example, ‘sports’ mode will try to use a faster shutter speed to freeze fast action, but each one is also a compromise so ‘high sensitivity’ will allow you to take pictures in low light without flash, but may result in lwer quality ‘grainy’ pictures. As you learn about photography – these are the things that you start to understand – each shot is a compromise between shutter speed (freezing motion) aperture (contol of depth of field) and sensitivity (quality of image).

If you are in a hurry and can’t figure out which is best, then put the camera onto full auto – most of them will take a reasonable picture, but if you have the time it is work trying to learn about the different modes.

http://www.pixcellence.co.uk

I have the Canon Rebel T1i, and I’m looking to take better pictures of outdoor sports as well as indoor events. I currently have the Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/1.4-5.6 IS, Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS, as well as a Canon EF 50mm f/1-1.8. Would a Speedlight be beneficial? Or more cost efficient?

It sounds like you have the lenses that should do the job. There are of course better faster lenses but they cost a ton of money. What I think you need to do is learn how to use your camera better. A good class in photography and some practice will improve your pictures.

The 55-250mm should do a fine job with outdoor sports during the day. You will have trouble with it indoors or at night because of the small aperture. The 50mm F1.8 should do a good job with indoor sports if you are reasonably close.

A flash is not recommended though. It would be completely useless with outdoor sports as the action would be too far away for the the flash to be effective. Indoors it would work if you were within about 30ft. but do you really want to be sending a bright flash in the athletes eyes over and over again. I think they might have a problem with that.

If you really want to upgrade lenses be prepared to lay out some serious cash. The 70-200mm F2.8 IS lens is nearly $2,000. A 50mm F1.2 is also nearly $2,000 and a 24-70mm F2.8 or 18-55mm F2.8 are over $1,000.

I have a Canon Rebel T3. I take a lot of sports pictures mostly basketball and volleyball so indoor sports. I have a 18-55mm lens and a 75-300mm lens.. I usually use the 75-300 and I get really good pictures! but I was wondering if there are better lens’ for sports that wont cost more then around 200 dollars or so. thanks so much! or any tips on getting better indoor sports pictures would be great too!

There’s really no good lens you can buy for $200. Unfortunately, the price is everything when it comes to lens. For fast action, you need a lens with a large aperture. Unfortunately, the larger the aperture, the more expensive, exponentially. Check out the pros with those bazooka style lens, that what it takes to freeze the action from far away. But those will cost you tens of thousands of dollars.

What you can do is try to get closer to the action, that way you don’t have to zoom as much. Also, try to pan with the action. With enough practice, you can actually get a nice focus shot of a moving object. So like when a basketball player jumps up diagonally, pan your camera in the same direction. You can get some cool effects with the player being in focus and the background blurred.

Hope this helps,
-Wei
www.artofwei.com

i take a lot of sport shots,during the day i have the camera set on the sport mode and i get fantastic photos,but when the light goes,and try taking shots at night at a sportsfield under lights,and still on sport mode,the pics are dark,but mainly they are very blurry,and not worth keeping.I have tried to take the same sought of photos on the Aperture mode,but the pics are too dark.Its all been very frustrating.Can someone help me please?

As mentioned, a P&S does not have the controls necessary to freeze action in low light, nor does it have a large enough sensor to produce nearly noiseless images at high ISO settings.

Here is what you could expect if you had the right tool for the job, mainly a dSLR with long, fast lens

http://s862.photobucket.com/albums/ab182/fotomanaz/Answers%20album/?action=view&current=i_AIA3008copy.jpg

That shot was made using a 300 mm lens with aperture of f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/500th second.

If you look on your camera, you will notice that none of those settings are possible on your SX20

If i go to the Dodgers Stadium at a night game with a Canon T2i body and a Sigma 50-200mm f/4.0-5.6 lens, would i be able to get good pictures under the bad stadium lights.
What would be the best settings for taking a picture of the player standing around?

What would be the best settings for a player in action?

Thanks. If you have a flickr with pictures of your sports photography, leave the link and ill check them out if you’d like.

Under stadium lights at night your going to have a lot of trouble taking action shots.

With that f-number you are really constricted to daylight action shots. It is still possible none the less, but the ISO is going to be so high your going to see a lot of noise in the images.

Best settings is setting the aperture as low as possible and then boost the ISO till you get at least 1/250 of a shutter speed but around 1/1000 would be ideal.

I recommend you stick to daytime action shots though.

Hi! Im 14 and im looking to get into sports photography skateboarding in particular. I was wondering what camera I should buy. Used is the only option since my family is not the wealthiest. I was thinking of the canon 40d do to its high burst rate. I live near Vancouver British Columbia which is pretty much the skateboarding capital of Canada so finding people to photograph isn’t a big problem. And if anyone here has experience in skateboard photography can you give me some tips?

Ok, let’s start by looking at what "you" need.

-You want a camera to shoot skateboarding, well most camera can dot it and the Canon 40D can do it pretty well, forget about the other answer who recommend you a 7D or a newer camera, stick to your budget.

– The 6.5 fps ont he Canon 40D can give decent sequence, for those of you out there, burst mode is a nice tool for skateboarding & snowboarding photographers. It’s very normal to watch a skateboarding movie and hear some camera burst from time to time..Heck all you need is to buy a skateboarding magazine to find plenty of sequence.

Now let’s start with the advices.

– You don’t need a fast AF because with this sport you can easily use the manuel focus, that’s what I use most of the time, here is how I do it:

I find a good spot, work my composition, make my setting, aperture, shutter speed (always make sure you’re using a fast shutter speed, for me the minimum is 1/800 when the light is low, otherwise it’s faster), iso. Once this is set, I will auto focus where most rider will do their trick then I will switch my AF into manuel to lock it up. Keep in mind I am not walking around when I do this, I stay still, if I have to lay on the ground I’ll do it.

Heck you can always do the same thing using a tripod and a remote control, and you can use this technique for sequence, that way you’re sure the AF won’t fuck it up because you missed the guy and the AF did the focus on the background.

– Try to use the rule of thirds.

– Timing is everything, you want to take the picture at the peak of the trick, if the guy do a flip down some stair you need to hit the shutter before he start coming back down. Anyway I am sue you get the point.

– Do not do butt shot, unless it give you a nice composition.

– All focal lens are good, fish eye give a special effect but you have to be very close and sometime it can be lethal for the lens or you if there is too many people skating around.

– Long focal lens (70-200, 70-300) I like them because they allow me to get physically further away from the action therefore I do not put unnecessary pressure on the riders, after a while they forget you’re there and you can get some really good shot.

– I use short focal lens when there is only few people around.

– Like I said, use a fast shutter speed (at least 1/800) to freeze the action, lower than that and you’ll hand up having some blur on the finger etc..

– Skateboarding ain’t football or tennis, so close up shot are not what give the best result around, try to include the environment surrounding the rider.

– Be creative, play with the DOF, sometime a particular shot will be best when the subject is isolated with a big aperture (f/2) and sometime a small aperture (f8) will give you allot more DOF to get the surrounding in focus. Play with the angle, don’t be afraid to try different things..Read some Transworld Skateboarding magazine, Thrasher Magazine to see what’s done in the sport.

Be aware of cheap 70-300m lens, they’re kind of soft, especially at 300mm.

The 50mm 1.8 is a nice lens for skateboarding, it’s cheap and you get a nice f/1.8 aperture, but "you will might find it hard to work with" because you really need to work on the composition.

Have fun.

I am learning sports photography and would like some opinions on best settings for outdoor, sunny sports such as soccer, football and maybe baseball. I am going to starting by using an ISO of 100, f5.6, let the camera select the speed. I have a Nikon VR 70-200 mm. Your ideas and opinions would be great. Thanks

To be honest, I would FLIP the fashion in which you are planning on shooting. Faster subjects require faster shutter speeds. I recommend getting faster film, ISO200 would be good. If you have the option of selecting your shutter speed, and letting the camera select the FStop(Aperture) I would do that for now. Set your speed to a minimum of 1/250sec (I repeat, minimum). The higher the speed the better the stop action in the image. Another cool thing to do is to set the speed a LITTLE slower, 1/125, MAYBE 1/60, and then following (panning) your subject. Say it’s a soccer player. Then AS you are following the subject, keeping him in the frame, take the shot while still panning. You’ll get some really cool shots.

I have a Canon EOS Digital Rebel with an 18-55 mm lens. I want to get a lens that will get me closer to the action for sports photos for example. I also will be using it for landscapes and other outdoor photos.

Your 18-55mm lens is a zoom lens, all it means is that the lens has a variable focal length between X and Y.

A telephoto lens is one that is greater focal length than the "normal" lens for a particular type of camera. On a 35mm, that is anything more than 50mm. On a 645 or 6X6, that is anything greater than an 80mm.

On your Digital Rebel with the 1.6x crop factor, it is anything greater than about 35mm. Your 18-55 is actually a short telephoto, with an equivalent field of view of approximately 29-88mm as compared to a 35mm camera.

What you can get to fulfill your need varies mostly with your budget. The Canon 75-300 III is the least expensive method to get a lot more reach, but is also the worst option. Better, yet still fairly low cost, is the Sigma 70-300 APO. Make sure it is the APO version, there are several.

Upping the budget a little, there is the Canon 55-250 IS, supposed to be a pretty good lens.

For another step up in price, there is the Canon 70-300 IS, which is an image stabilized version of the lens, but is a much better lens to begin with. For only a little more, you can get the Canon 70-200 f/4 L, a constant aperture zoom. Anything with an L in the name is a good lens. Even the 28-300 IS, even though it costs $2,300.

I’m looking for a camera for preferably under $300 for skiing movies, that means it has to handle at least 60ffs, full hd, and also have good focus for interviews. It dosnt have to have auto focus or auto aperture, and i would prefer it to be manual. Thanks!

Sony DCR-VX2100 3CCD MiniDV Handycam Camcorder w/12x Optical Zoom is just the right size when it comes to handheld filming. Most of the weight of the camera is towards the front, but is perfectly balanced from the top handle. The camera is also not too long, allowing you to get closer to the subject when using a fisheye and allowing you to manipulate the camera in tight quarters.

I am a real novice. Only used a point and shoot before, so please don’t get too technical on me. I’m trying to shoot indoor volleyball. I bought the camera to eliminate the shutter lag, but now what?

You should find yourself using the 55-200mm lens more often than the 18-55mm. The 18-55 is useful for wide shots of the game and the crowd but will do little to bring in any action.

Since the lenses you have aren’t very fast (open the aperture as wide as possible) and the games are indoor you’ll either need to use a flash or a higher ISO (ISO 800+ should be adequate). Keep the shutter speed as fast as possible to minimize blur. The pop-up flash is nice but will not help you at a distance. I’d suggest buying a Speedlight or a cheap slave at the very least.

If you have no idea what I’ve just said, just use the sports scene mode and the camera should automate everything for you to the best of its ability.