Photo Tip for today

To photograph sports, photographers must react as quickly as the players. It helps to know the game. You need a long lens, a fast shutter speed and the highest f-stop that will support that fast shutter speed. Setting your camera to a fast ISO may also help.

The shutter is the mechanism that controls how long the light passes through the lens before it hits the image sensor. Faster shutter speeds, such as 1/250-second, will freeze all but the fastest-moving subjects.

Timing is everything. Get the timing of the action down when following your subject. You pan or follow the action so that your subject stays toward the back edge of the your frame. You have to practice shooting action to get a sense of the speed at which the subject passes through the fame so you develop the timing as to when to hit the shutter release. And you continue to follow the action after you have pushed the shutter release.

For the racing dogs I wasn't fast enough for panning. I pre-focused. I pointed the camera in the area where the dogs would run through, then pressed the shutter button down half-way so that my lens focused on a spot on the track. When the lead dog got to the spot I started my panning (and shooting). I keep shooting until the dogs were collected and carried off the course. That way, if I missed the peak action I'd still have photos.










Tech notes:
Shutter speed 1/1600 sec .
F-stop F/9.0
ISO 800
Focal Length 200 mm