Sports Photography

I just realised that this is my first blog post for 2021, I really need to up my game and Do Better.

I thought I would touch on Sports Photography with this post. I have touch on this before. Hope you enjoy and I am happy to answer any questions, I also take critique and criticism very well.

Sports Photography is a genre of photography that tends to get overlooked by many sporting bodies. The only time they think about images is after the game is over and they see that there was someone there capturing images so they approach that person and ask if pictures can be sent to the organisation.

Some of the sporting events I shoot are for my own portfolio, for example, my daughter, a competitive swimmer, and her competitors will be my subject for my own records and to freely share with the swim club my daughter is a member of, a parent run club. However, for many events I work under contract and have a time frame within which to deliver images and there are certain images I know I need to capture to fulfill my obligations.

Sports Photography is not for everyone because for the entire time you are on site your need to be keenly aware and be ready to shoot the action as it happens. Sports Photography is also not an inexpensive genre to shoot because of the equipment that makes life easier, long lenses to be able to fill the frame from a distance, fast aperture lenses, cameras that are capable of a high frames per second (FPS), although this is less important than other features like high ISO capability because many sports occur at night and under stadium lights. To the human eye the lights may seem bright but to a camera sensor the scenery is dark and the only way to get sufficient light to the sensor to properly expose is to use high ISO. High ISO introduces noise that degrades the quality of the image. Some cameras are designed to shoot relatively clean images at high ISO. For example, for my sports work I use older Nikon D3s camera bodies, which I can very comfortably shoot at ISO 6000 or 8000 and still have very usable images without much denoise editing.

When I am under contract there are stock images that I need to get for delivery to the client, for example, Football (Soccer) players in action running with ball down the flanks, getting round an opposing player or the opposing player going in for a successful slide tackle. It could be a 100m sprinter that I capture mid-race at a high shutter speed to freeze the action or it could be a long jumper jumping into the pit coming toward the camera. Once I have the stock images I need to deliver I can begin to play, one thing I will often do is set a slow shutter speed and pan the athlete to show some movement. or I will use a shutter speed that will freeze the head and torso of the athlete but allow some blurring of hands and feet to create a sense of movement.

Many do not see Sports Photography as an artform but just as with any other genre of photography, art can indeed be created while shooting sports.

I enjoy shooting sports because sports can be very emotional, anger, frustration, joy or pain are ever present in sports. I also enjoy shooting sports because it is truly the capture of fleeting moments that the human eye will often overlook and the brain will ne register, often times these moments come outside of heated action with opponents.

When shooting sports that involve a ball, Football (Soccer), Golf, Cricket, etc. if I capture an image, no matter how good the image is from a focus and sharpness perspective, I will not publish that image because to me the ball must be in the frame. An image of two footballers going up to head a ball just looks like two players jumping if the ball is not in the frame, if the footballer is kicking the ball and the ball is not in frame, it is just someone swinging his/her leg. The golf swing is the same way, if the ball is not in the shot and it is an action shot, it is just someone swinging a golf club, it could very well be a practice swing. Some may disagree with my position on this but for my own work this is of paramount important.

In closing, it is up to us to help sporting organisations to under stand the importance of photos of event for the documenting of history, a still photo can be published and printed, video requires too many variables to share on a continuous basis and video does not provide the hard, tangible product.

If Sports Photography is of interest to you starting the going to little league baseball, mini-minor football and capture images there as practice. This would also tell you if you are cut out for Sports Photography and help you to decide if the investment in the equipment needed to shoot contractable (may not be a word) work is something you wish to do.

What’s in my Sports Photography bag?

2 - Nikon D3s bodies

1 - Nikon D500 body (this is used when there is good available light and I can keep ISO below 1200

1 - Nikon 200-400mm f4 zoom

1 - Nikon 300mm f2.8

1 - Nikon 70-200mm f2.8

1 - Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 or 28-70mm f2.8

1 - Nikon 14-24mm f2.8

1 - Sturdy Monopod

1 - Portable stool

Pocket Wizards transmitters/receivers for remote camera shooting

Charged batteries

A number of Compart Flash (CF) Cards with a minimum of 32GB capacity (my D3s bodies take 2 each)

A number XQD Cards for use in my D500 body

Towel to wipe my hands and wipe away any sweat from my face

Timing is Sports Photography is key….always be aware

“Stock” image of runner frozen in mid-stride - Natasha Hasting, 2 time Olympic Gold Medalist, 400m Diva

When keeping a keen interesting shots appear

Bowled - Even though it was just bails being removed, I captured this by remaining “focused” the task

For greater impact the ball must be in the frame

To avoid it looking like a practice swing the ball must be in the shot

Without the ball I tend to go for more of a portrait

Shooting Golf

This week I had the opportunity to shoot the Hero World Challenge hosted by Tiger Woods and held at the Albany Golf Course here in the Bahamas. Below are a few things I learned from shooting golf for the first time.

Lesson No. 1

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER be a disturbance to the golfer, be invisible. This means you DO NOT release your shutter to capture an image until the golfer has hit the ball, unless you are far enough away, with a long enough lens, so that the golfer will not hear your shutter. NEVER capture an image during practice swings, with the caveat of distance being in play, as mentioned just now and NEVER capture an image during the back swing.

Lesson No. 2

This is very much related to No.1

While my cameras can run off 10 frames per second (fps) I found timing to capture the image I wanted was a much better approach to shooting than just holding the shutter button down to “spray and pray”. Here’s the thing, I truly believe that any sport that involves a ball MUST have the ball included in any action shots and to accomplish that in a sport like Golf is more about timing than fps. I discovered that for action shots there is impact with the ball, the follow through and the reaction, if any, from the golfer. You see holding the shutter down and using maximum fps creates two problems:

1) You will end up with hundreds, if not thousands of shots during a tournament that can be deemed unusable, that is, the ball is not in the shot.

2) Often times when firing off 10 fps you will still miss the point of impact or just after impact

So how did I accomplish my goal? I simply locked my focus, I use back button focus ALWAYS, I looked through the view finder and watch the movement of the golf club, once the golfer unwound to play the shot I would wait a split second and fire the trigger. No, this will not always be successful but I got some pretty good keepers. Unsurprisingly much of my “focus” was on Tiger Woods, big surprise there……and to be honest, I found timing his impact to be a real challenge. The two days I shot the event Tiger was paired with Justin Thomas and I could nail the impact or immediate post impact of Justin time and time again but with Tiger I continued to fail. it got frustrating for a while………then I learned the next lesson……

Lesson No. 3

When used correctly, using the maximum fps was actually a much better option than single shot…….so that throws No. 2 out the window…..well not really because there were times I did use the single shot in quiet mode with success.

Ok, so why did I first say I learned not to use maximum fps and now I say I found to be a better option?

I treated the maximum fps in the same manner as I did the single shot, I looked to time the impact of club face to ball and the extra fps almost guaranteed my success. While you should not capture an image until after the ball has been struck, timing remains key but the extra couple of frames allowed to capture the dirt moved from the divot and allowed me to include the ball in the frame. See examples below.

Lesson No. 4

This is one very simple, you do not always have to shoot at the widest aperture, there were often times I stopped down to f5.6. I was close enough that f5.6 would allow me to blur the back ground but still get more depth of focus on the golfer’s face.

What I really learned

Shooting golf successfully is all a matter of timing.

Other shots to capture to round out the portfolio from a Golf Tournament:

Capture the golfers follow through
Capture the golfers putting and include the hole in the image
Capture pitch shots and chips
Capture bunker play
Sometimes shoot a little wider to get a sense of space

I trust this has been of interest and as always I welcome questions and/or comments.

In case you were wondering about the gear I used for capturing this event:

Nikon D500 (DX body)
Nikon D3s (older full frame body)
Nikon 200-400mm f4 lens
Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 lens

Sports Photography

One genre of photography I thoroughly enjoy and I have had many opportunities to shoot is Sports Photography.

Sports Photography is not as easy a genre as some may believe it is to shoot , especially action and fast moving sports, as a photographer you always have to be alert as moments are fleeting. Also, location and positioning relative to the action is key to shooting quality sports images.

You will see from images under my Portfolio and on my other website (www.guildengilbert.photodeck.com) I very often look to fill the frame with my subject and there are times where I will shoot at a slower shutter speed in order to show movement of the athlete.

Sport Photography can make you feel exhausted after the event because you have to be so “focused” on capturing the right images at the right time that it takes total and complete concentration.

Camera Settings I typically shoot in Manual mode because first and foremost my initial objective is to freeze the action so I know I will need a fast shutter speed (different sports require different shutter speeds in order to freeze), after my shutter speed I will manually adjust my ISO based on lighting conditions and changes in those conditions and on most occasions I look to isolate the subject from the background so I generally will shoot my Aperture wide open.

Shutter Speeds For events like swimming my minimum Shutter Speed is around 1/2000th, not so much to freeze the swimmer, as that can be done with a slower shutter speed but more so to freeze the water being splashed/pushed by the swimmer. For Football (sorry, I find it blasphemy to call it by the name beginning with “S” that some called) I find I can comfortably get away with Shutter Speeds as low at 1/1000th or sometimes even a little slower. For Football I do not mind having a little bit of blur in the extremities of the players because it invokes a feeling of movement. For Track and Field, when I am looking to freeze the subject I know I need to be up around 1/2500th but as with Football, I often want a little bit of motion blur in the extremities, so often times I will shoot at slightly slower shutter speeds.

Equipment I am a Nikon shooter, there, I said it………But seriously, camera brand does not matter. Below is a list of the gear I typically carry:

Nikon D3s (older technology but still very much relevant and a great high ISO performer)
Nikon D500
Nikon 24-70mm f2.8
Nikon 70-200mm f2.8
Nikon 300mm f2.8
Nikon 200-400 f4

There also times I will go as wide as a 14-24mm f2.8 for perspective or when using the stadium as a background.

For Track and Field and sometimes during Football I will use a Monopod but often times, even with the 200-400mm I will shoot handheld because it affords me more maneuverability.

As I mentioned above I often times look to fill the frame so more times than not I will be using my 200-400mm or 300mm to achieve that.

The key, in my mind, when shooting sports is timing of the capture and in sports where a ball is used I always look to include the ball, otherwise the subject just looks to be in a strange body position. I have included images from some of my Sports Photography work to give you some examples.

As always, I welcome any questions or general feedback.