Sport Photography

Most of this was written with Rugby, at a local level, in mind. It will apply just as readily to other sports though.

You don’t need the newest and most expensive camera out there to get the best shots. You do need a camera with an instant shutter, and you will need a lens that goes out to at least 200mm… at a minimum. Realistically I wouldn’t want to try and shoot sports with a compact camera… but it might be fun to try!



The first and best piece of advice I would offer to anyone thinking of trying their hand at any sort of action photography is that if you see it in your viewfinder, you’ve missed it! You need to anticipate the hit or shot or whatever it may be in the sport you’re watching.



With any sort of sport you also need to watch some before you go and photograph it. You need an idea of what is likely to happen and to click that shutter just at the right time.



If you haven’t shot a given sport before I would also research online ahead of going if possible. There are lots of free resources online now. Look for images of the sport you want to shoot and see what type of photographs have the most impact for you.



The other big question is where to stand for the best shots. Well for rugby, at the level that I shoot at, I can move around the pitch to an extent. I have two areas in particular that I spend most of my time at. Somewhere around the 22 is a good spot. I’m using a 70-200mm lens for rugby right now, and if my subject is more than about 20m away I’m not going to get the shot I want. The 22 gives me a range from the halfway line to the tryline and halfway across the pitch. If play breaks down around the 22 with my team attacking I move round behind the posts and shoot straight on.



Don’t be afraid to crop your photos in post for maximum effect. As long as the image remains sharp, the bigger in frame the better is a simple rule of thumb!



On an overcast day unless you are shooting with professional lenses, you will find it hard to get sharp images later in the 2nd half. Even with professional lenses, in the middle of winter it can be difficult to get a decent shot. If you’re shooting for fun, don’t give up. Just stand behind the posts and ramp up your ISO. You can get some really interesting shots of players coming straight at camera, with less chance of severe motion blur.



If you’ve taken anything from this that’s helped you, let me know!

Pet photography

This was pretty much a one-off. It worked pretty well and I was pleased with the results but I was a little nervous of my lightstands! Pet photography isn't something I've tried much of. The dog behaved perfectly though.

I rolled up with 2 stands & a crossbar, a roll of white paper, another lightstand with a sb-800 and a shoot-thru umbrella. 5 minutes to set-up.

And slightly more unlikely, a cat who cared more about the treats he was being offered than the flashes firing! Great fun.

Party photos

I had someone hold the flash for me on this (high and left), but it would work in a similar way with on cam flash.

ISO 320, F7.1, Shutterspeed anywhere from 1/20th - 2 seconds depending on the effect you want.

The longer the shutterspeed the more light you let in from the background so you can get some pretty funky effects with this approach if you go for a long exposure particularly if there are room lights in the background. The flash will always 'freeze' your subject if you're in a relatively dark environment. This technique is all about livening up the background and giving the shot more life.

This exposure was about 1/2 a second. Enough to leave some movement in there but not too much.

Try it, just make sure you're in a relatively dark room!

Happy Birthday James.

Mix and match and a little photoshop!

I'm writing this after midnight having just finished processing photos from a dance show I covered last Friday. It's been a long day so I'm going to keep this fairly brief.

This is simply a shot lit by one Studio light through a large softbox, placed very close in and the kick light comes from a flash unit placed on the floor back left fired through a snoot to restrict light spill. The studio light is actually only about 2 feet from her, nicely removed in photoshop and replaced with the black background. The closer the light to your subject the gentler the light looks but that's another post!

There's nothing to stop you from mixing studio lights with flash units. If you're just starting out and you're looking to buy one studio light to start with play with it, but once you're ready to try some 2 light setups use a flash for a while until you're ready to splash out.

What do you want to see here?

If there's anything in particular that interests you that you'd like to see more of drop me a comment!

Are you here to look at photos? Do you want more informative posts on lighting and general photography tips?

Let me know what you'd like to see so I can target this for you.

Thanks.

Tom

Taken in the studio quite a while ago, but I love the look on his face so I thought it was worth posting.

Basic composition

I'm not generally much of a landscape photographer, but once in a while I see something that I have to photograph. I love this photo. I took it last year on a family break in North Wales.

One of the reasons that this photo works so well is the 'rule of thirds'. If you placed a noughts & crosses grid across it you'd see that it's neatly broken into thirds horizontally with one vertical third in play as well. It's a simple method to improve your photography. Use it a lot to start with, then once you're sick of it teach yourself when to ignore it!

Of course I couldn't walk away from all of that moss without breaking out the lights and grabbing a quick shot of the kids. Once you're familiar with your equipment it really doesn't take a lot longer than just setting the kids in place. Just one flash unit for this one... on the right, held by my wife! From getting the kids out of the car to all done was probably less than 2 minutes.

Crosslighting with the sun

A simple technique that works beautifully is to have one flash on a light stand, in this case to the back right of my daughter and have the sun front left, with both light sources directly facing each other with your subject in the middle. The best examples of this type of photography that I'm familiar with can be found at the State of the Nation Blog. Set your exposure so that the Sun lights your subject nicely, then slowly build up your flash until you get the result you want, making sure that your shutterspeed is below your max sync speed on your camera. If that means nothing to you, but you want to know more, drop me a comment and I'll go into more detail in these posts to explain!

Sunsets & Flash

Recently went out to Ashdown Forest to take photos of a young couple. It's Callum again from the cricket dive post earlier. We knew before we went that we wanted to get the sunset in there and I decided to light them with a flash on a stand to the left and another on a stand to the right, both with gels on them to match the flash colour to the sunlight. This is a really simple technique once you've tried it a few times and it'll give you good results time and again.

When shooting at sunset start about 40 minutes before sunset and shoot for about 20 minutes after. It's tempting to walk away as the sun goes down, but you will get better light and a prettier background if you wait a little longer. You must keep adjusting your settings as the light changes. I'll cover that in another post.

The technical bit: sb800 w/ cto gel @ 45 deg right. full power @ about 4ft
sb600 w/ cto gel @ 45 deg left. full power @ about 6ft. Started off at F8 1/250th ISO 100 about an hour earlier... Around 1/30th F11 at this point.



While we were waiting for the sunset we tried out a number of different poses and shooting styles. This one was actually Callum's idea. Thanks Callum.

The power of a flash unit

Callum did work experience with me last Summer. It's nice that we;ve kept in touch and done other bits and pieces since. we recently talked about taking some shots to help him promote a cricket tour to Antigua later this year. This is what we came up with. It was a basic net practise and he wanted some shots of the lads just practising. I knew the location and knew I was going to struggle to get what I was being asked for with 'natural' light. I took light stands and flash units anyway and after shooting what I'd been asked for, we agreed to let me try something else.

I set up 2 flash units, 1 directly to the subject's left, 1 to the right. I knew that with natural light 1/250th wouldn't completely freeze motion so reminded of a post at Strobist a few days ago http://strobist.blogspot.com/2008/01/control-your-world-with-ultra-high-sync.html . I dropped the exposure until the background turned black and then added the light. 1/250th F5.6 ISO 200 (ish). This was taken in a normal Gym with normal gym lighting switched on.



Pretty pleased with them.

Where can you take photos today?

Well it seems that even the Police and PCSOs are confused on this one. I saw a post recently from somone local who had been told to stop taking photographs in the Pantiles by a security guard because their camera looked professional. As it turns out the Pantiles is privately owned (surprised me too) so however frustrating this may be, if you're asked to stop taking photos you need to stop. The same goes for Wellington Rocks. If you're carrying a compact camera you're unlikely to be stopped, but more and more people are carrying dSLRs and the clearer everyone is on the legal aspects of photography the better.

The video here is a little dry in places but it sums it up nicely. Spotted it at http://tunbridgewellsphotography.blogspot.com/ (Well worth a visit if you like street photography). If you're in a public place in the UK, for the most part, you are legally entitled to take photographs (although there will be restrictions on what you can do with them beyond personal use). If you're on private property you don't have that automatic right and you should stop if asked.

Disclaimer: Not a lawyer or claiming to be one so if you're asked to stop taking photos in a public place and you believe you're entitled to be there don't quote me! Stop shooting, research it further and complain later.

Urban Rugby Calendar : From start to finish!

1 rugby club, 1 photographer, 3 meetings, over 100 emails and 5 months later we have 12 photos and 1 calendar.



In mid-July I had a conversation with a few of the lads from Tunbridge Wells Rugby Club about the possibility of shooting a fundraising calendar for the club. We discussed various options but no decisions were made right then. I went away and thought about it for a while and went back with the idea of combining 'Tunbridge Wells' with 'rugby' to make 'Urban rugby'. The thought behind it was to produce something which would have appeal beyond just Tunbridge Wells and also raise the club's profile. We agreed on it and started planning.

Once we'd decided that we were going to take rugby set pieces and shoot them in the town centre we realised that we'd need permits. The first step was to decide what we'd shoot and where we wanted to shoot it. Once we'd sorted that out we approached Tunbridge Wells Borough Council for the majority of the permits. We also got permission through Ibbet Mosely to shoot in the Pantiles and through South Eastern Railways to shoot at Tunbridge Wells Station.



By the time we had planned the shoot and organised the permits it was early September. I went out and took some scouting shots on the 9th and we shot the calendar on the 16th. It's fair to say I was concerned about how many players would turn up at 8.30am on a Sunday morning after a hard match on the Saturday afternoon but it worked well. We had 12 players and we shot at 8 locations in just under 4 hours. There'll be another post for the shoot itself. The following week I prepped the shots and Tom Callaway and I picked our final 12. After that it was a matter of putting it all together in Photoshop. I haven't put a calendar together before and I know now that Photoshop isn't ideally suited to it, but the final calendar looks great.

After getting quotes from various companies for print costs we chose a local printer Vision Printers who were absolutely fantastic with the level of support and advice they offered. They also turned around the print order in 4 days when we finally got to that stage. We did realise by now that we would need page sponsors to fund the print costs and Tom Callaway organised those pretty quickly. I then designed most of the ads, dropped them into the calendar and it went off to print.



We collected the calendars on Friday and now we just have to sell them! It's been an interesting process, and it's taught me a lot. I know that if I ever have to put another one of these together it'll be a smoother and much faster process, and I'd certainly start prepping much earlier in the year next time.