Monday Morning speedlinks

Ever seen the hunderd of camera that line the side of the track at olympic events.

Canon At the Olympics
Also a realyl great insite into the life of a olympic photographer can be found over at sportshooter.com .
Pracical tips for the Olympics
In the Bag, Rookie Packs for the Olympics
Also well worth having a nose around is the SI photo Site .
SI Photo


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How to take better sports photos - Part 3

Last time out I spoke about Location, the Moment and Composition today will cover knowing your sport and safeties.
if you have not read part one or two start here
Know your sport, Know your “safeties”.
Each sport requires different techniques and calls for different angles to be used to maximize the photographic opportunities that each sport presents.

So what is a safety I hear you cry! Well put simply a safety is the shot that you know works that you know the papers like and will get published if you fail to get good action for what ever reason. Once you have your safety shots man heading ball, line out in rugby, bat on ball and so on you can then concentrate on getting interesting action packed shots, taking risks (trying something new that might not work) and generally being more adventurous and pushing your photographic skills. Sports is a game of patients you May be soaked to your skin, sat up to your knees in snow or be involved in a force 9 gale but if there is enough light and the game is carrying on its worth sticking it out as you never truly know what’s going to happen. You cold pack the camera away and be walking to the gate because your too cold and you’ve had enough when the new signing for the home team hits a perfect over the head volley and clears it into the top corner of the goal. What a moment missed!

Its also well worth getting to know the people off the pitch if you have a highly emotional coach keep a eye on him see what makes him explode with emotion and anticipate it and be ready for the shot as he throws the water-bottle back into the dug out in disgust. Also keep a eye on the fans they can really make a photo and help tell the story as well as offering a different angle to what you see on the pitch.

Sharp shots.
No one likes a soft photo, Most modern DSLR’s will give you a shutter speed of up to 1/8000th of a second some go even high. This is enough to catch pretty much everything with pint point sharpness. The general rule is that you should never hand hold a lens any slower than its relative shutter speed e.g if you was using a 300mm lens you should never hand hold any slower than 1/300th of a second. Gadgets such as Image stabilization and Vibration reduction allow you to break this to an extent but as a rule of thumb it works well.

The shutter speed needed to freeze action depends on what your shooting (this goes back to knowing your sport) how ever for football you need ideally 1/1250th of a second how ever you can get away with having anything as low as 1/500th of a second and still get sharp images depends on your technique and the type of shot your going for. If you have a head on shot of a player running towards you you can get away with a slower shutter speed than if you have a player lunging across the frame. To really maximize your abilities to get a sharp shot its worth investing in a good mono-pod to give you a stable platform to shoot from and thus reduce large amounts of camera shake

That Concludes the how to series that covers the very basics of sport photography over the course blogs dissecting shooting style and techniques will be written to help further your abilities.
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How to take better Sports Photos - Part 2

We left of part one after talking about Camera's and lighting (or the lack of) If you haven't read part one yet start HERE
Location
The most important step to achieving a good sports photograph is attaining the correct vantage point, this is often easier said than done as access is highly controlled at sporting events, more for your own safety than anything as there is nothing worse than being on the side lines at a rugby match as some 25 stone bloke gets taken into touch taking you and more importantly your £6000 camera set up with him! Its a pretty scary thing to experience. 

Sports photography is all about the bring the viewer close to the action, making them feel like there are part of the winning play. This is achieved threw selecting the right location and getting as close as possible to the action. if your lucky and get a press pass you can be on the side lines how ever positions will still be limited as you will be there with 10 or 20 other photographers all wanting the same thing. Ok so you've selected the best location to catch the best action from as close as possible, thats half the battle won the next is finding the angles that allow you to create a clean and uncluttered background.
Photo 1

Photo 2

As you can see the people in the background of photo one distract your eye and to not make for such a pleasing image as photo 2.

At major sporting venus cutter is unavoidable but it is all about how you work with it to minimize the effect it has on the image a small DoF (depth of field) helps blur the background into a creamy soup of color allowing your subject to stand out almost jumping off the page. 

The "Moment"
Spray and pray is the only way to shoot Timing and anticipation are two very important parts of sports photography. The art and skill is being able to anticipate the peak of an action and release the trigger so that you capture it. You can’t wait for the moment to happen other wise by the time your retina has seen the moment sent the information to your brain which in turn has interpreted the information and decided that you want a photo of this and sent a command to your trigger finger to take a photo, your finger has then pressed the trigger and then the camera final takes a photo by which point chances are the moments past and the shot has been lost.

By knowing and understanding your sport you are able better judge the speed at which some one (or something) is traveling and you can adjust your point of reaction accordingly (this can also help for moving out of the way of low flying cricket balls rugby players and the odd stray part of a car).
For example I’m shooting cricket using a 600mm lens and wanting a ball on bat shot. I know the bowler Is probably going to be bowling a fast ball, I know that roughly if I press the trigger as the ball hits the ground I will get a bat on ball shot(assuming that the batsman hits the ball).

Composition
Faces
A regular cry that can be heard coming from most picture desk editors offices is “give me faces!”. Faces are a key factor in a successful sports image as it is the easiest and most effective way to portray emotion. In a ideal world all your photos should have clear faces and you should be able to see the whites of there eyes to really drive home the message of what’s going on how ever this is easier said than done.

Rule of 3rds
A basic rule of all photography is the rule or thirds where you divied the frames into thirds vertically and horizontally and then place the subject at the intersection of the lines thus making the photo more interesting.

In sports the rule of thirds is a good idea. . . . Most of the time. If you are shooting a runner running right to left leave more room on the left than on the right to imply that he’s going somewhere. Shooting the frame as if hes leaving the frame is classed as poor composition and is not desirable or pleasing (try it and see what I mean).

Portrait or landscape?
Logic dictates that you are trying to fill the frame with the action and with humans being tall and thin there for the most effective way use the camera would be in the portrait position. And this works great when your trying to isolate an individual. How ever multiple people don’t fit particularly well in a portrait image with allot of empty space being waisted. So when you are trying to show conflict between two (or more) people landscape is often the best way to shoot alowing you to get as close to the action as you can with out chopping any body parts off or having too much dead space.

Part 3 comming soon!

How to take better Sports Photos - Part 1

At some point in our life we have all been inspired by a image of sport. From Tim Montgomery obliteration the competition in the 100mm sprint to Michael Jordan flying threw the air outstretched reaching for the basket. 

The Camera
In most forms of photography the equipment isn't too important, you can make do with very little impact on the quality of your photos. for example you don't have to have a £3000 d lite studio set up  in order to take good portrait  you can make do with a set of general purpose flood lights. How ever the same can't be said for sports photography. As I'll go on to explain in location In sports you are always limited to how close you can get. Just how close is defined by the sport, for basket ball you can sit in under the hoop and be able to get good shots from the entire court using something like a 70-200. How ever for football 70-200 is probably going to be too short and you need something like a 300 or even 400mm lens depending on the size of the pitch. A general rule of thumb to work out what lens would be best suited to the situation is on a Full Frame DSLR for every 100mm you add to your focal length you will get about 9m closer to the action. 

The other requirement of sports photography is lens speed or to be precise the f stop value, sure you could purchase a 70-300 f5.6-6.3 lens for a couple of hundred pounds, but come half 8 at night in mid december when the football match is in full swing thats not going to be able to let enough light in to give you a high enough shutter speed to freeze the action, resulting in very blurry pictures! 

I’ve mentioned what’s important in a good sports lens the other key part of a camera is the body in the days of film (back in the dark ages) most medium to pro end bodies were nearly equal, how ever since the advent of digital things are not quite as easy a good sports camera needs two things good Auto Focus speed so it can easily lock on and track fast moving objects in low light levels and also High ISO sensitivity with low noise levels. Its fine having a camera that can shoot at iso 12600 but if the image look like a multi colors snow storm its not going to be much good ! Also features like weather sealing and a high frame rate are a bonus but not a must have.

If you was looking to go pro and needed a shopping list something like the following would get you started 
1dmkiii @2,400 x 2 = 4800
400mm f2.8 l is = 4889
70-200 f2.8 l is = 1299
16-35f2.8 l = 1119
Grand total =£12107
That would get you started how ever most full time sports photography will have substantially more equipment that that listed above. Ok so an amateur could get buy with less but it wouldn't be the ideal set up. 

Lighting

Lighting or should I say bad lighting is the bain of my life there is never the perfect light it is always a compromise too much grey sky giving dull drab images and direct sunlight giving harsh contrasty shadows but it gets even worse than just the odd bit of cloud the uk’s passion of football is played through the winter during the rain, snow and wind (why they don’t play the summer I don’t know) meaning that allot of the games are played under dark skies and flood lights. This is where high ISO and low F stops pay off as for most no Premiership pitches the pitch is just about bright enough for the players to see the ball which equates to about 3200 f2.8 1/200th of a second which in sports terms is slow. Flash is a big no no for most sports how ever when you get inside into the realms of basket ball you can get away with mounting strobes in the corners of the room and bouncing the light off the celling the advent of the modern speedlight (canon 580ex nikon sb28 etc) coupled with the ingenious Pocket wizard means you relatively cheaply throw up a flash in opposite corners of the hall and have high power reliable light to work with that doesn’t blind the players.

Part two comming soon !

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