Action or Sports Photography - My First Try - Polo

ShaolinTiger posted this at 12:50 am on Wednesday, July 26, 2006 —

Action photography is something I’ve always been interested in. Capturing the moment, getting a sense of the action.

It looks hard, and well after trying it I have to say it is.

You need good light, preferably a long expensive FAST lens with VR/IS and you have to stand/sit in the sun (Unless you have those super canngih 30,000RM lenses then you can sit in the clubhouse and shoot with your beer by your side).

I recommend setting Spot Exposure Metering for the subject, boost up the EV compensation about +0.33 or 0.7 and use continuous or servo focusing (AF-C for Nikon, not sure what it’s called on Canon Servo-mode I think).

I used Shutter Priority (S for Nikon or Tv on Canon) at about 1/1000ms.

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If you have a slow lens though normal focusing might work better.

As I don’t have a telephoto lens I literally had to stand in the middle of the action and had to crop some shots to bring them ‘closer’ (I was using an 18-70mm lens).

I didn’t manage to get any panning shots..or any nice bokeh (depth of focus) on the horses due to lens capability, it would have been nice to blur out the distracting backgrounds.

I could freeze the shots quite nicely and clearly though with the above settings.

Have to save up for that 70-200mm VR…poison poison (Costs about RM6000).

Anyway less talk more photos.

Capturing the Fall

Polo Action

Scored!

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Swing the Stick

Chasing the Ball

Scorer

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973 views - Filed under: Nikon, Photography, Sport/Action

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8 Comments »

164

Comment by flaneganb

July 26, 2006 @ 7:13 am


i have tons of extreme sports photography at http://www.b3session.com and http://eyecatching.flaneganb.net/

feel free to check it out

165

Comment by yothemans

July 26, 2006 @ 7:22 am


ST,the pictures are fine.but iam sure you are not satisfied with it.Investing in a 70-200mm F2.8 lense will solve that temp.

167

Comment by Lanatir

July 26, 2006 @ 9:47 am


good job for what you had. you can PS out the cables at the background. that 1st photo is ouch!

169

Comment by Intensecure

July 26, 2006 @ 1:00 pm


Nice! Ditto that ouch for the first pic tho!

172

Comment by Brad

July 26, 2006 @ 11:22 pm


Er, isn’t 1000ms equivalent to 1 second? I think you meant 1/1000s or 1ms…

174

Comment by ShaolinTiger

July 26, 2006 @ 11:55 pm


Thanks all :)

flaneganb: Nice work, thanks! Love the X-games stuff.

yothemans: Yah always want more, that lens costs 6k man, that’s double my cam. Unless I’m pro I don’t think I can justify it.

Brad: Yeah sorry my bad I did mean around 1/1000s so 1/1250s or 1/800s should also be ok. I’m not so familar with all the terms yet.

252

Comment by Silencers

August 3, 2006 @ 11:07 pm


How about shooting at 1/10 or 1/20 with a small aperture and get some motion blur? Shooting doesn’t mean you have to stay still. Next time you get the chance, try moving WITH your subject[s] and use a slower shutter speed so you can motion blur your backgrounds :D

But yeah, if you’re gonna attempt at motion blurring at long ends of the zoom [200mm or more] you might need antishake. I’d like to see how the Sony A100’s built-in antishake performs at long zooms.

266

Comment by ShaolinTiger

August 4, 2006 @ 12:29 pm


Silencers: Yah someone else suggested panning aswell, the horses move a bit erratically though. I will try again, hopefully with a bit more focal length, 70mm is short! I don’t have much hope for the Alpha ;)

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