One of the great things about photography is that you can view the world in a different way. With the use of different lenses and lighting effects you can take ordinary things around you and modify them in ways the human eye alone could never see.

Play with the light.

The natural light all around us can be a fantastic tool to work with. When possible try to take advantage of this. When I’m shooting for abstract sports photos or just having some fun, I could care less about how much noise is in my photo. Often times this can actually give it more character. Try and have a really bright light in the background of your photo, or maybe in the foreground. The point is to try different things. The more you play with the light the more you will get familiar with the different effects you can achieve, not just for abstract photos but in general as well.

Try a different angle.

Another fun thing to try is moving the camera or yourself in positions you wouldn’t normally photograph in. Try taking photos while holding the camera at waist side, or at a crooked angle. Get down closer to the ground or stand on a ladder or stool. You will find that different angles and heights can change things dramatically. Just as film makers use these techniques in the movies, you can use them in your sports photos as well.

Often looking for angles and patterns for your photos can be yet another way to make them more interesting to the eye. Just by tilting the camera a bit may give your photo that extra something that makes it go from an okay shot to a fantastic photograph.

Use that lens.

Try different focal lengths, in other words, zoom in as tight as you can and take the shot. You will never know what kinds of detail you may pick up. Conversely try some wide angles at different positions. You can achieve some really dramatic emotions using a super wide angle lens.

Keep practicing.

Experiment with different sports. This could include the family on the trampoline in the back yard or jump roping on the driveway.  Try and think of the most ordinary part of the sport practice photographing it in exciting new ways. This will improve your skills in seeing things in a less than ordinary way.

My last suggestion would be to just practice, and as always, have fun with it. Remember, you don’t have to go to a professional sporting event to get some cool and interesting shots.

Have you ever noticed small blotches starting to appear on all of your photos taken with your DSLR? This could mean that either your lens is dirty, or your camera’s sensor has picked up some dust. I strongly recommend you try cleaning the lens before working on the sensor.

Your lens can be expensive, so you should take care not to damage it while cleaning it. You should also be cautious of over cleaning. If it doesn’t need cleaning, don’t clean it. Cleaning too often creates a risk of damaging the lens.

One way to actually protect the glass of the lens is to use a UV filter. This can be especially important in sports photography where you will often be outdoors in harsh environments or indoors with many people.  You can pick these up and place them on your lens at all times to keep the glass underneath safe from scratches. The other advantage is that you will then be cleaning the filter rather than the lens itself.

Before you wipe your lens down with any type of cloth or tissue, you should first blow away any large dust particles. You don’t want to do this with your mouth as you may actually get saliva on the glass. It is much better to get a small blower specifically made for camera cleaning. Make sure you squeeze it a couple times to clear any dust that may have made it’s way inside.

One of the safest methods to clean your lens is to simply breath hot hair on it and wipe it down with a cloth. This can be safer than applying harsh chemicals. If that doesn’t do the job, you can pick up a cleaning fluid at your local camera shop. When applying this fluid make sure you don’t use too much each cleaning session. You will rarely if ever need any more than a drop or two. Make sure you apply the fluid to the cloth first, and then in a circular motion, wipe around the lens to clear off smudges and fingerprints that may have accumulated.

While you are picking up the lens cleaning fluid, make sure you grab some cleaning tissue or a cleaning cloth as well. Use one of these methods to apply the liquid and wipe down the lens. The cleaning tissues are for one time use only, so make sure to toss any used tissues out. As for the cleaning cloth, you can usually just wash them after each use. If they do start collecting too much dust or debris throw it out and purchase a new one. There is no reason to risk the damage it may cause.

You should definitely keep your lenses clean so that your sports photos don’t suffer, and once you understand the basics it’s a snap to keep them in top shape.

ProPix Photography

The Professional Sports Photographers

Just as ProPix is a combination of the words Professional Pictures, Pixel is a combination of the word Picture and the word Element.  A pixel is the smallest element or component that makes up a digital photo or image.  It is a small colored square that combined with thousands and even millions of others makes the digital image you see with your eye.  In the case of a good quality photo at the right size there are so many pixels that your eye cannot distinguish each individual pixel but the entire photo appears as a single well defined image.

Quality and Size
The more pixels included in a photo the more detail in your digital image, they blend together better and make the image look sharper and clear. The quality setting on the camera allows you to adjust the quality of the photo which is in turn adjusting the number of pixels the photo will have when it’s taken.  As you would suspect the more pixels which means more detail or data also means a larger file size.  This only makes sense and can easily be seen by adjusting the quality setting on your camera.  Most cameras will tell you how many photos you have room left to take calculated from the size of your memory card and your current quality setting on the camera.  As you adjust the "quality" of the photo you will be taking, and thus the number of pixels, the number of photos available to take will change.  As the quality decreases the more photos you can take and as you increase the quality the fewer photos that will fit on the card. 

Cropping
A photo with more pixels allows you to successfully crop tighter.  With any photo no matter how many pixels if you crop too tight the resulting photo will be pix elated, meaning you will start to visually see the individual pixels.  This is never a good thing and makes for a poor photo.  So, the more pixels the smaller area you can crop and still have a sharp clear photo. 

Prints
The quality of your prints are determined by the number of pixels as well.  The smaller the print the fewer pixels needed in your photo.  For example a 4×6 will not need near as many pixels as a poster 24"x36".  This is much like cropping you are just going increasing the photo in the other direction.

So, what does this all mean to you?  It means that you control the number of pixels in your photo.  You control it by adjusting the quality setting on your camera.  If your plan is to print 4x6s, or email the photos or view them on the computer you won’t need a lot of pixels.  If you plan to print a poster or closely crop a photo then the more pixels the better.  The trade-off in the number of pixels or quality, and the size of the file that you will be working with.

ProPix Photography
The Sports Photography Professionals

Having the right equipment for taking family sports and action shots is critical.  Pay attention to the photographers at a professional or college sporting event.  You will often see them with two cameras one large lens on a mono-pod and another camera and lens around their neck.  No, you won’t have to do the same thing, but having the best equipment you can will make getting great photos much easier and simpler.  The fields, courts and facilities you are shooting at may be similar in size or the exact same size as college and professional facilities, but hopefully you will have better access for positioning yourself and more ability for moving around.  While this mobility will help you compensate for much of the "professional" equipment you will still need to invest in quality equipment to get the shots you want!

Camera
This is not the time for you point and shoot camera.  While that will work fine for posed photos on vacation and around the house, you will not get quality sports and action shots with it.  Okay, maybe it will work for the 6 year-old soccer game where you get to walk around on the field with the kids, but that’s about it.  For everything else you will need a Digital SLR 35mm camera with a quality lens.  Point and shoot cameras are not fast enough and do not have quality lenses for capturing action without blur, taking shots at a distance and shots in poor light.

Focus
Thank goodness for auto focus, imagine having to manually focus on a soccer player as they run toward you.  A camera and lens with a quick focus is a must.  There is not a lot you will have to do here because the camera and lens will do the focusing for you.  If you do get blurry photos it will not be the focus but rather the shutter speed.  You can help your camera focus in advance if you push the shutter button half way down.  For instance I will do this on a corner kick or penalty kick in soccer.  The ball is this case remains still, the player backs a few steps away and then approaches the ball to strike it.  You know where the player will be in this case when they strike  ball, so I simply focus on the ball and then follow the player.  As they kick I press the shutter the rest of the way and the camera shoots quickly.

Lens
Nothing as disappointing as a action shot that you thought was great only to find out that on your computer the athlete is just a small spec on the screen.  And yes, you can crop that photo until the athlete fills your screen but the photo will be pixilated by then.  The best shots are when the action fills the frame.  This requires a good long and fast lens.  Different sports may require different lenses or if you have one good lens and can position yourself well you can accomplish a lot by moving around. 

You’ll notice professional sports photographers will have one "huge" lens on a mono-pod and another camera and lens around their neck.  Well that "huge" lens may often cost $8,000 and up, so it’s not often a lens that the family sports photographer can afford.  A good quality 2.8 80-200mm lens is not inexpensive ($800-$1400), but it will let you capture most any sport if you are willing to move around a bit.  The 2.8 makes it fast enough to capture action in those dingy poorly lit gyms and long enough to capture action on a soccer field.  Granted on the soccer field if you’re on one end it’s not long enough to capture great action on the far side of the field, but if you move around the field and wait for the action to come to you, you’ll get plenty of great shots.

The ability to crop is a real advantage with digital.  Try to take well framed photos to begin with because it will save you time, but if that doesn’t always happen you can copy the photo to your computer, then crop the image and it will look like you took a professional shot right from the beginning.  Too much cropping is time consuming and your resulting image will be pixilated, but a minor amount of cropping can turn a "fair" photo into an amazingly well composed action shot.

Lens speed
The faster lens you have the faster shutter speed you can shoot at.  You need to shoot at a fast shutter speed to capture/freeze the action.  For both indoor and outdoor sports you will need a F2.8 or faster.  My favorite lens is a F2.8 80-200mm lens which works both outdoors and indoors.  If everything you do is outdoor sports on big fields you may be able to get away with a slower lens, but the 80-200mm lens is ideal for most all family sports photography.

Scott

ProPix Photography

The Sports Photography Professionals