Good and Bad Sports Photography

As many of my peers know, I photograph sports for my school yearbook. At games, there are usually 2-4 serious photographers (I’ll define that as anyone with a DSLR and lens of 100mm +.

Here is an example of the WRONG way to take sports photos. 

I have seen here at a few sporting events now. She uses what I is either a Canon Rebel XS or XSi. The max ISO on it is 1600. The lens is a 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6. This is a very slow lens. Overall, this is terrible for shooting sports in low light. I was shooting at f/2.8 at 3200-6400 ISO later in the night. That shot of this photographer is even shot at 5000 ISO. Here is what is wrong – slow camera, slow lens, but most of all…. Flash! With a full size football field, there is no way an on camera flash will reach players 25 yards away let along across the field. In addition to that, the Rebel cameras only have a flash sync of 1/200th or 1/250th, thus making impossible to get sharp action shots.

Here is an example to the RIGHT way to take sports photos.

I don’t know her name, but I had a few words with her. She takes photos for the Citizen Times, a local newspaper of Asheville. I did not see exactly what camera it was but I think it’s a Nikon D700, D300 or D300s. She told me the lens is a 300mm f/2.8 (just over $5500 new). Of course, only those on a professional budget can get that kind of lens. The monopod is a good choice, and even a must with larger lenses like that one.

Here is one photo I took with my 70-200mm. 

Info: 6400, ISO f/4, 1/750th

Strobist

I was really inspired by those pro stobists out there. For those that don’t know, a strobe is just another word for a Flash or Speedlite. So, a strobist is just someone who uses strobes to take photos. I invested some money to start my strobe setup. I bought a 580EX II ($500ish) and some cheap wireless flash receivers and a trigger. I also have a second strobe in the mail that should be at my house soon. I’m really just testing the waters, but I've realized I opened up a whole new world for myself. There are an infinite number of places each light or strobe can be placed, giving your photo different lighting.

 

 

(not done an unnamed person found on google images)

 

 

   Here I had an idea for some shots. I would show the chess pieces in two dramatic views – one from the perspective of the pawns and another from the view of the large king or queen (these indian chess sets have pieces that are really hard to tell what they are). Anyway, you can see my set up from the 3rd shot. I had a normal light (very orange with used alone) and then my 580EX II. So it was 580EX II camera left, and lamp light camera left. The way you see it in the 3rd photo is the same way I shot both shots. You can see, when I fired the shot, the 580EX II went off.