Action photos usually require the action to be frozen in time to the greatest extent possible. Slightly blurred hands and feet are often tolerated, but blurred faces, arms and legs usually don’t do much for a great photo. The biggest challenge facing action-stopping moments is available light (which is often not enough). Learning your camera capabilities, and the basics of exposure are essential to understand to be able to know what, when, and where to take a photo.
EXPOSURE = ISO + APERTURE + SHUTTER SPEED.
Getting the exposure right, AND being able to stop the action can take a while to master. Knowing the range of your camera’s exposure variables will help you be able to spend more time composing the shot, and less time fiddling with settings. If you don’t have this mastered already, you can read more about EXPOSURE SETTINGS in the following articles linked on this site. Balancing these three variables to create the desired exposure often times requires sports photographers to push the limits of the camera – especially in poorly lit venues.
STOPPING THE ACTION
Fast shutter speeds stop action, but fast shutter speeds require more light. To gain that additional light, the photographer needs can adjust the aperture (usually wide open) or/and set the ISO to a higher sensitivity. Either one (or both) have drawbacks, so finding the right balance for the situation takes practice.
ISO
Setting the ISO is usually the best place to start. Sporting event venues often have poor as indoor gymnasiums. It is rare indeed that I shoot with an ISO less than 1600 because of the light needed for cameras to shoot at 1/400 shutter speed or faster.
When outdoors doing wildlife photography I often use ISO 800 because I know my camera’s threshold for noise detectable in the final image is right about that level, and I want to be able to shoot at a fast shutter speed to compensate for the object, as well as any lens shake that might accompany my unsteadiness, or the magnification of the subject.
Higher end cameras with high resolution can usually be pushed to ISO 1600 without introducing too much “noise” into the photo, but again, its best to experiment with your camera.
APERTURE
Aperture is another way to gain a faster shutter speed – opening the aperture as wide as possible (i.e. low f/stop). The trade-off here is losing depth of field; the horizontal range of focus of the image. Often, the action situation requires a wide open aperture to give that extra capacity for shooting at a faster shutter speed. Loss in DOF (depth of field) can be overly apparent (an sometimes undesirable) in events such as swimming – when the face of the swimmer is in focus but the rest of the swimmer is not, or football – when you want more than one person on the field to be in focus, but they are not.
There are two simple ways to compensate for situations in which a shallow depth of field is annoying. First, position yourself so that the action is on a parallel plane to you. Then second is to place yourself at a moderate distance from the action. The effect of Depth of Field appears to be magnified the close the subject is to the lens.
SHUTTER SPEED
The correct shutter speed setting all depends on the speed of motion of the subject your photographing. As a very rough guide here are some thresholds that seem top apply to general action photography.
- 1/125 – 1/250: slow action such as long distance running, walking, slow biking, pets moving, gentle flowing streams, flags in light wind, reactions such as laughter.
- 1/250 – 1/500: faster action such as sprinting, small birds flying, spinning objects, sledding downhill, rushing water.
- 1/500 – 1/1000: baseball pitches or hits, hockey shots, waterfalls
- greater than (>) 1/1000: race vehicles, hummingbird wings, soap bubble popping
WHY ARE LENSES CALLED FAST, OR SLOW
If you’ve ever heard photographers talking about a lens that is “fast” what they are really saying is that the maximum aperture is large; allowing in more light, and, therefore allowing for a faster shutter speed to be used. Most action photographers want a lens with the maximum aperture available (usually f/2.8). Such lenses often make the difference in allowing for fast enough shutter speeds at night games, or with indoor lighting. With lenses that have a smaller diameter maximum aperture (e.g. f/5.6)the shutter speed must often be set to 1/250 or slower in order to gain an exposure that is bright enough to see.
RELATED ARTICLES: ISO | APERTURE | SHUTTER SPEED
SLOW SHUTTER? Capture Slow Action
There’s more to the game than just the action, and most games have moments of slow action – the free-throw line, the huddle, preparing to serve, etc. If your lens is slower than you would like, you might concentrate your efforts on these moments when you can shoot at 1/125. Especially pay attention to player’s reactions to moments of the game, and those great moments of sportsmanship.
