My elder daughter's rugby team just landed a spot in the national collegiate championship Final Four, so it'll soon be time for me to again break out my trusty Nikon D70 and try to capture the perfect sports shot.
No, I'm not an expert photographer - not by a long shot - but I have learned a couple of things in the past three years of sports photography that you might be interested in hearing. And as a bonus, I've dolled up the following pages with photos of beautiful women: the Stanford University Women's Rugby Team.
Get the Right Equipment
This is, of course, in the "well, duh..." category - but what exactly is the right equipment?
The right camera: First of all, a digital SLR is highly, highly recommended (today I found Nikon D70 bodies going for under $400 on eBay). Get a digital camera because you're going to be shooting a lot of images, and digital photography make a 200-photograph day affordable. And an SLR gives you the ability to swap lenses, which brings me to my next point...
The right lens: A "long" (aka telephoto) lens is also highly, highly recommended. Good ones cost an arm and a leg, but since I live on an editor's salary, I picked up a relatively inexpensive Nikon 70-300mm 1:4-5.6 G lens for less than $150; I've seen them on eBay for around $120. It's not a world-beater of a lens, but I'm not a world-beater of a photographer. It suits me fine.
If you're stuck with a point-and-shoot camera, get an inexpensive teleconverter for it to increase its lens' focal length. In fact, if you're shooting baseball, with its long distances and lack of easy close-up access, you might consider a teleconverter for your SLR, as well.
The right accessories: To keep you camera's precious lens protected, you gotta get a UV filter. They're only twenty or thirty bucks, and they'll keep your lens from getting scratched when that middle linebacker comes crashing into you.
I always carry extra batteries and an extra storage card - even though I can shoot around 250 images on my D70's 1GB CompactFlash card, I often fill it up in the course of a game. Finally - and this may sound silly, but it's saved this hypercaucasian more than once - pack a tube of sunblock in your camera bag. You won't regret it.
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Get As Close to the Action As Possible
Still in "well, duh..." territory? Maybe so, and maybe not - y'see, it all depends on what you define as "the action."
If you're shooting basketball, for example, a seat at half court is a lousy place to be - all you'll be shooting are the backs of players under the basket. If you're shooting American football, real football (aka soccer), or rugby, you're going to want to roam around the pitch (aka, field) depending upon where the sun is and what the game circumstances are. Baseball? Try to get near a dugout. Bottom line: Place yourself in a location most appropriate to your sport, the flow of the game, and the sun.
If you're shooting an outdoor sport, the sun is your best friend and your worst enemy. Try to keep it behind you - though not directly behind you, as a lack of shadow may flatten your images. A three-quarter angle works well, though I've found that some interesting effects can be had with the sun at a full right angle.
Side-lighting can give depth to a composition.
The sun is a capricious fellow, as well. You can start the day with a sun so bright that it washes out your images, and then later the clouds come in and muck everything up.
While the position of the sun is important, the flow of the game is even more important, so you may have to sacrifice good lighting for good action. If your camera can show over-exposed areas (such as my D70 in its Highlights view), shoot a few white objects in bright sunlight and check to see if they're overexposed. If so, compensate. And when the sunlight changes, you may need to reset your exposures.
An overcast day makes for even, if dim, light.
When positioning yourself, make sure to check out the background. A background with a lot of activity will reduce the impact of the athletic competition in the foreground. A background that's dull as dishwater can do the same.
This might have been a moderately interesting shot, but the fact that the stands were empty robbed it of any impact.
Of course, there may be times when you want a busy background to emphasize the energy and importance of a game. Also, you may want to try to combine an element in the background with an element in the foreground to tell a particular narrative, as in the next shot.
That's my younger daughter in the background, cheering on her older sister in the foreground - who's about to be clobbered.
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Focus on Individuals
If you're not familiar with both teams that you're shooting, find some time before the game to talk to fans of the team you're unfamiliar with (coaches are ideal, but they're rarely free - or accomodating). Ask them about the team's top players, the most emotional players - even the most unpredictable, explosive, or erratic players. Then watch those players for the first minutes of the game to get to know their rhythms - they're the ones who will provide you with your best shots.
Always remember that you're not shooting a sport, you're shooting people playing a sport. Faces are important - they convey the drama, excitement, dedication, and heartbreak of a game. Yeah, I know this is tough if you're shooting football or hockey - or even baseball, with its shadowy caps - but its true.
Here's a shot of two determined individuals - their expressions tell a story.
Don't always focus on the glamorous, play-making position players. There's a lot of heart to be found on the defensive line of any sport.
I love her "Wanna piece of me?" attitude.
If you're fortunate enough to be near the sidelines and a play opens up right in front of you, use the opportunity to focus on an individual rather than on the play as a whole.
A study in concentration.
After a big play, don't always focus on the victory celebration - also check out members of the opposing team; the "thrill of victory" is uplifting, but "the agony of defeat" has a story to tell, as well. And don't ignore the crowd, the coaches, or the bench.
A pre-season, out-of-town women's rugby game draws only the most committed fans.
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Get Clear Shots
You're going to want to isolate your subjects from their backgrounds, and capture them as shaply as possible (unless you're going for some artsy effect, but I'm not good enough to do that). To do so, shoot with the lowest f-stop (i.e., the widest aperture) that your camera or lens is capable of, and the fastest shutter speed that you can use and still let enough light into your lens to convey a image.
In general, the wider the aperture, the shallower your camera's depth of field - depth of field being the distance in front of and behind the in-focus subject that remains in focus. Now, "shallow" may sound like a bad thing, but if you're trying to isolate a subject from her background, you want the subject in focus and the background blurry. The following image wouldn't have highlighted the ball-carrier had all the players been in sharp focus.
The out-of-focus women behind the ball carrier are a mere few feet away - but the depth of field was plenty shallow.
Also, shoot at the highest zoom level possible or appropriate so that you can capture expressions and personality in the shot. Of course, the higher your zoom level, the more difficult it is to keep your camera stable enough for a sharp shot. The standard rule of thumb for zoom shooting is that your shutter speed should be about equal to the inverse of your zoom level. For example, if you're zoomed in all the way using a 300mm lens, your shutter speed should be 1/300th of a second - minimum.
As I mentioned, this is the standard rule of thumb - but it doesn't work for me. Personally, I need to have my shutter speed be a bit less than 2 times that of my zoom level. That is, if I'm shooting at a full 300mm zoom, I need to have my shutter speed in the 1/500th of a second range. Experiment and find out how shaky you are. I've also found that it helps to hold my breath when at full zoom.
Some shooters swear that manual focus serves them better than auto focus - but not many of them are shooting sports. Sports - especially fast-paced ones - are hellish to shoot with manual focus. Maybe after years of practice one could master the technique, but I've found that my D70's autofocus capabilities suit me just fine.
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Anticipate, Anticipate, Anticipate
If you wait for something to happen, it's too late to shoot it. You must think ahead of the athletes - and to do so, obviously, it helps to know the sport. In rugby, for example, before a scrum the front line gets set together - it's a good opportunity for a group shot of three determined women.
Scrum happens - or, in this case, is about to.
Also, you'll often need to focus on where the action isn't, and wait for it to get there. For example, when I'm watching a San Francisco Giants game and Dave Roberts gets on first, I know that there's a good chance that he'll try to steal second. (He hasn't been getting on first much lately, but that's another story.) I then use one eye to focus my camera on second base, and keep an eye on him on first with my other eye. If he breaks for second, I wait a moment, then start shooting in sequential-shot mode. With any luck at all, I'll get one decent shot from the sequence. If not - well, that's why I shoot 250 shots during a game. Remember, one of the reasons you bought a digital camera was so that you didn't have to pay for film again - use those shots. Take a million of 'em.
If I hadn't had the try line (aka goal line) in focus and pushed the shutter right before the athlete crossed it, I would never have captured this shot.
Also, realize that you're capturing details that you may not even notice when you're shooting - especially if you're focusing on the main action. In the following shot, for example, I was concentrating on getting a clean shot of the ball-carrier. I didn't even notice the pursuing woman's bloody nose until I had opened the image in Photoshop.
As the old bumper sticker says, "Give Blood. Play Rugby."
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And Finally...
Just a couple of last thoughts. I'll be brief, as this has taken me longer to write than I thought it would, and there's a ribeye steak downstairs in the kitchen that's calling my name.
Don't be afraid of cliches: There's a reason why cliches became cliches. If you don't overdo them, they can tell a story quickly and effectively.
They just won the national championship; they are number one.
The happy medal-wearing victors. (I just had to sneak another picture of my daughter in here again.)
Don't be afraid of humor: If you find something amusing, there's a good chance that someone else might, as well. Being completely serious is completely boring.
Well, I find her naptime nonchalance and the overlooked ball mildly risible.
Don't be afraid of radical cropping: Who says that images have to all have the same aspect ratio? A scrum, for example, is a rather horizontal affair - why not give it a rather horizontal crop?
You couldn't get me to do this for love nor money.
Don't be afraid of Photoshop: There's been a lot of to-do in the news recently about newspaper and magazine photographers bending reality by using Photoshop. You don't work for the Associated Press, do you? Break out the Clone Stamp and the Healing Brush, and have at it!
A nice bit of ultra-violence, but the fence and ref take some of the punch out of it.
A minute or two of quick-and-dirty Photoshop work, and all we see is the ruck.
Well, that's it for now. I know I've left a million things out - tracking action, framing, and a whole lot more. Do you have some tips you can share? There's a comments area below - tell the world what you've learned through your experiences. Oh, and if you feel like clicking the Digg icon, above, my ego would much appreciate it.
Oh, and "Go Stanford!" The national collegiate rugby Final Four is May 4th and 5th - I'm sure SportsCenter will lead with it both those evenings.
Ah, if only...
