Una milésima de segundo:deportes de tiro y acción rápida

Tanto si eres fanático de los deportes como si no, si eres fotógrafo, probablemente te encuentres tomando fotos de alguna acción competitiva de ritmo rápido en algún momento.

Si está acostumbrado a fotografiar en un entorno agradable y controlado, como un estudio, o si está acostumbrado a la fotografía callejera, donde los sujetos probablemente caminan a un ritmo normal y relativamente lento, fotografiar un evento deportivo puede ser un desafío.

Tus súbditos se niegan a quedarse quietos; la iluminación casi siempre dista mucho de ser la ideal y, a menudo, tienes que buscar un buen lugar donde puedas ver la mejor acción.

O tal vez eres fanático de los deportes o padre de un joven aspirante a atleta en sus años de formación, y te gustaría saber cómo usar esa cámara que recibiste en Navidad para capturar grandes momentos.

Cualquiera que sea su situación, puede tomar muchas tomas de acción de calidad, siempre que haga un poco de trabajo de preparación y tenga en cuenta algunas cosas. Para ayudarte con todo eso, hemos elaborado una lista de consejos y consideraciones para tomar buenas fotos deportivas y de acción.

Todo se trata de la ubicación

Llegue lo suficientemente temprano para replantear un buen lugar. Busque lugares donde tenga lugar la acción más interesante. Tienes que poder ver la acción si quieres fotografiarla.

Sea consciente de sus antecedentes. Trate de ubicarse de modo que los fondos de sus imágenes estén limpios y no distraigan al sujeto.

Considere tomar algunas fotos del lugar en sí. Si tiene una lente gran angular en su bolso, colóquela y tome algunas fotos importantes del campo, la cancha, la arena, etc. Estas son bastante fáciles de tomar, así que ¿por qué no tener un poco más de contexto?

Algunas notas sobre el equipo

Utilice una lente de zoom. Muchos fotógrafos sugieren tener una lente que pueda hacer un zoom de al menos 200 mm. You don’t want to have to crop your photos too heavily.

Consider using a monopod. I’ve extolled the virtues of the monopod many times before. They’re easy to carry around and move with while shooting. They provide a lot of stability without the mobility issues a full-sized tripod entails.

Set your camera to continuous burst mode, then shoot in short bursts. I typically like to take 3-5 pictures per burst. Bursts longer than that mean you’ll have a lot more nearly identical photos to sift through afterward. If that doesn’t bother you, feel free to shoot longer bursts.

However, if your memory card is on the slow side, your camera will freeze occassionally as the card saves the images. You can use a memory card with a fast buffer, however, to alleviate this issue. Make sure it has a lot of room, and pack plenty of extras. Those images stack up quickly.

If you’re still having issues with your camera freezing up while it processes photos, consider shooting in JPEG instead of RAW. You’ll lose some quality and some post-production options, but your images will save to your memory card faster, and you’ll have more storage space.

Know Your Camera

Know the exposure settings in your environment before the action begins. Don’t waste time checking your images on your camera’s screen. If you have your settings dialed in before the action begins, you won’t waste time looking at the tiny screen on your camera, subsequently missing the action.

If you’re shooting an indoor event, also take some time to check your white balance. Indoor events, especially in gymnasiums, often have a mix of different terrible light sources, such as fluorescent and tungsten lights.

Get to know your camera’s shutter delay. On most DSLRs, this isn’t too much of an issue. But there is always tiny delays that can add up – the delay from your eyes to your brain, the delay from your decision to press the shutter and your finger actually moving, and the delay from when you press the shutter release to when the shutter actually fires.

When you’re shooting fast-moving action, these precious micro-seconds could mean the difference between the shot you’ve always dreamed of snagging and wasting space on your memory card.

Focus!

Use your camera’s zone auto-focus system. Practice with it until you can switch areas with little thought. Set your camera to Continuous Focus. In this mode, as you hold your shutter release button halfway down, your camera will continuously adjust to keep your selected subject in focus as he or she moves.

Practice prefocusing. This means that you predict where your subject is going and focus for that spot. This works best if you have a static object on the same plane as the spot where you expect the action to go down. Prefocusing might be tricky to get the hang of, and it might not prove useful in every circumstance. But knowing how to pull it off can really come in handy.

Shoot with shallow depth of field. Keep the focus on the subject; the person with the ball or the runner who’s out front. The key is to minimize anything that might distract your audience from the intended subject.

Conveying Motion

Action is all about movement, right? So what’s the best way to capture movement? Typically, this means using a high shutter speed. I’d personally keep it no slower than 1/500 to 1/1000. Don’t be afraid of bumping up your ISO if you don’t have enough light for  a high shutter speed. Image noise is typically more acceptable than blurry subjects.

Master the panning shot. This means following your subjects as they move, shooting while you do so. Make sure to match your movement speed to your subject’s and follow through with the motion after you’ve got the shot. You might find a slower shutter speed helpful here. The end result is that your subject is in focus while the background is blurred, conveying a sense of movement.

Other Ideas

Keep an eye out for small, yet emotionally telling moments on the sidelines. Teammate and crowd reactions can sometimes provide some great context for the event.

Change your point of view. It’s often a good idea to get low and shoot up. This can add some drama to your shots.

Find out beforehand what the rules for photographers are. Many venues prohibit the use of flash, and many will have rules about where you’re allowed to be. Do a little research before going to the event to save yourself an awkward confrontation with a security guard later.

Do you have experience shooting sporting events? What are some tips you’ve found helpful? What gear do you use? We want to hear from you in the comments below.