5 Photo Tips

Tip 551 (Having great equipment is not a must): For shooting great photographs at a baseball game where the distances can be large, you can see people toting along some great equipment such as 600mm ultra-zoom lenses, and having such equipments do carry some advantages, but if you learn about techniques and keep on learning, you can learn how to make the best of your equipment.

Tip 552 (Keep your reflexes toned): Like any other sport where a ball and a instrument to hit the ball is used, the actual time that the ball is in the air is limited, but when it is moving, it can move pretty fast. Capturing an event such as a home run or a critical out can take quick action and fast reflexes, so ensure that you are fully alert and can move pretty quickly.

Tip 553 (Keep your equipment ready): When shooting at a sports event, keep in mind that you need to have your equipment ready and loaded, including the compromises you make on your lens. If you have specialist lens for different situations, either you can change your lens very quickly, or you have a lens that fits most situations (such as a 18-200 or maybe even a 70-300 lens).

Tip 554 (Focus on the riveting stuff): Look out for the best photos in a baseball game, they will invariably be of a close out or the dust rising from the contact with a base with a feet sliding in, or of the ball at the time of contact on the way to a home run. Keep those areas in focus while shooting, and see how many great photos you can get.

Tip 555 (Get a lens shade): You would have seen those, a plastic flare that fits on the end of lens and increases the thickness of the lens end. This is a lens shade, meant to ensure that the photos do not suffer from sun glare that can cause a lot of imperfections in your photos. If you don’t have one of those and are taking photos where the sun can directly see your lens, then use your hand to prevent the sun rays from directly touching the lens.

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February 8th, 2010 | Tags: Baseball, Motion, Movement, Photo, Photographs, Sports, Techniques, Tips | Category: Lens, Motion, Movement, Photo, Photography, Sports, Techniques, Tips | Leave a comment

Tip 546 (Get the crowds involved): For mass sports events such as football, rugby, cricket, there are some interesting shots where you need to use either wide angle lens, or the wider end of the lens and get the crowd. For places where you have full large stadiums and with full crowds, try and get the crowds as part of photos where you also get the playing arena. You can get some great shots this way.

Tip 547 (Look for children, with team colors): For events such as American Football, especially as the fever builds up, you get fans decked out in the team colors. Look for these fans, especially children, and you can get some great photos.

Tip 548 (Have a good equipment bag for carrying your accessories): As you get more interested in sports photography, you will start to build up a repository of the different types of specialized lens that you have. However, during the actual event, there is a certain time required to change the lens’, and you need to have good lens bad / belt so that you can minimize the time required to get these lens’ and change them (and ensure that they are safe when you are carrying them).

Tip 549 (Aim to get lens with a lower F value): When in the market for shopping for a lens, look for those with a large aperture such as f / 1.4 or f / 2.8. This helps ensure that you are have the required aperture to be able to shoot fast, especially when the light conditions may not be so good.

Tip 550 (Look out for the sunlight): When shooting a sports events in the middle of the day, learn about the light conditions, especially when the sunlight is bright, since that puts hard shadows if the light is direct on the face from overhead. Look for getting light on the faces of the person, either through fill flash, or looking for an exact time when the shadow will be less.

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February 1st, 2010 | Tags: Action, Camera, Motion, Movement, Photography, Predict, Sports, Strategy, Techniques, Tips | Category: Action, Harsh Light, Image Stabilization, Light, Moisture, Motion, Sports, Techniques, Tips | Leave a comment

Tip 541 (Select the equipment per type of sports): If you have the budget, then consider the need to have different equipment depending on the type of sport. If you consider a sports such as bowling, you have a good vantage position, you don’t have too many sharp movements, and so on, you can use a much wider lens. On the other hand, if you are considering a fast moving game such as professional basketball or soccer with a much larger field of movement, you will need a zoom lens that is fast. Consider these options before you go in for the type of equipment.

Tip 542 (Try and get front row seats): You have a good zoom camera, but still need to be in position. Consider when you are shooting a major event such as a home row, or near the end of a close basketball game, everybody will be either standing up, or on the edge of their seats; in such cases, it is very hard to get enough clear space to get a good photo.

Tip 543 (Don’t give up on a boring game): Sports being unpredictable, anything can happen in a game. Even when the game looks very boring, some sudden twist can happen in the game, and makes a lot of fun to capture such twists. So, show some patience, and wait to get something interesting happen in the game.

Tip 544 (Read all the rules before starting): Some sports events have restrictions about when to photograph, and the use of flashes in the photo. For example, during gymnastics events, using flashes when somebody is going to perform is severely limited, and can get you kicked out from the event.

Tip 545 (Modern digital cameras and high ISO): Modern high end cameras such as the Nikon D3 and the Nikon D3X are very good at low light conditions, and you can use very high ISO levels without worrying about a high level of noise that used to happen with other cameras. This is very useful when light conditions are very low.

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January 31st, 2010 | Tags: Action, Camera, Motion, Movement, Photography, Predict, Sports, Strategy, Techniques, Tips | Category: Action, Camera, Motion, Movement, Sports, Techniques, Tips | Leave a comment

Tip 536 (Be ready to use a high ISO): Unless you are shooting for stock photography where a high ISO is a cause of rejection, be prepared to use a high ISO for your shootings. When you are faced with low light situations such as when the light is falling, or when you need to shoot a fast sports event, the only option left for you would be bump up your exposure. The worry is that a high ISO can cause noise, but most modern DSLR’s can shoot pretty well without noise even at ISO levels as high as 640; and if you are using professional level cameras, the ISO level can go much higher.

Tip 537 (Use Auto ISO): The previous tip talked about setting a higher level of ISO to compensate for low levels of exposure. However, there is an option to do this automatically, where you can set the Automatic ISO feature in your camera, and the camera will set a ISO level to adjust for the exposures.

Tip 538 (Try something original): With sports photography, the standard shots are now passe. Look for different angles, such as shooting from a different height level, shooting the support staff or the supporters when something happens, shooting the disappointment of failure, and so on.

Tip 539 (Set high speeds): When capturing action, you need to set high speed levels. Consider a professional sports game such as Tennis or Basketball, where you would want to shoot the actual action; typically for such shots, speeds of 1/640 or 1/1000 are normal; it is with such speeds that you are able to capture the single frame that seems magical.

Tip 540 (Look at the background while taking a position): When you are taking your position on the sports ground, watch out for the background that will come in your photos. You could be shooting from a position where there are some jarring objects (such as poles, some bright advertising, or similar) is in the background, and will look pretty bad in the photos. So, before finalizing a position from where to take photos, be careful about such environmental issues.

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January 28th, 2010 | Tags: Action, Camera, Motion, Movement, Photography, Predict, Sports, Strategy, Techniques, Tips | Category: Motion, Movement, Sports, Techniques, Tips | Leave a comment