Mastering Digital SLR Photography

Mastering
Digital SLR Photography

Introduction | TradeBonanza | Site Map | Resources
Capturing Action
Sports in a Nutshell
      The Importance of Position
      Key Sports: Play by Play
Dealing with Shutter Lag
Burst Mode Basics
      Selecting Your Burst Modes
Choosing Your Lenses
      Zoom or Prime Lens?
      Focal Lengths Needed
Action Exposure Concerns
Attaining Focus
Selecting an ISO Speed
Electronic Flash—or Not?
      Which Flash to Use?
      Power
      Multiple Flash
      Understanding Flash Synch
      Choosing a Flash Exposure Mode
Using a Tripod or Monopod
Basics of Freezing Action
      Motion and Direction
      Some Interesting Anomalies
Action Stopping Techniques
      Stopping Action with Panning
      Freezing Action Head On
      Freezing Action with Your Shutter
      Freezing Action with Electronic Flash
      Freezing Action at Its Peak
      When Blur Is Better
Some Final Tips
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Capturing Action

The essence of all still photography is to capture a moment in time. That’s never truer than when you’re photographing action. Whether the action is frozen or blurred (perhaps intentionally), it’s apparent that the photograph has sliced off a little piece of motion.
Other types of photography also isolate a moment, although it may not appear to be so at first glance. Architectural photos freeze a moment, but a structure can sit stolidly for decades or centuries and change very little.
Still-life photos and portraits also capture a moment in time. You’ll recognize nostalgically that a particular instant is represented in a portrait of your child years later when the child has grown to adulthood. Even so, there’s something special about action photography.
I think it’s because a good action picture provides us with a view of an instant that we can’t get in ordinary life. A snap of hummingbird frozen in mid-air lets us study the fast-moving creature in a way that isn’t possible in nature. A picture of a home run ball the moment it is struck by the bat offers a perspective of a home run that even the umpire never gets to see.
Digital cameras have brought a new excitement to action photography because you can immediately review that moment you grabbed on the LCD screen. Digital cameras have also generated some new problems, chiefly from the interminable shutter lag found in most point-and-shoot models. Action photography, particularly sports, is no fun at all when the picture is taken a second or two after you press the button! Fortunately, dSLRs have just about eliminated the shutter lag dilemma, making action photography fun again for the enthusiast.
This section will concentrate on techniques for capturing action with a digital SLR. If you want more information on sports photography, in particular, you’ll want to check out other source at web sites.
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Sports in a Nutshell

Before we take a closer look at specific action-shooting techniques, we might as well get some of the special aspects of sports photography out of the way. That’s because several of the keys to getting good sports photos have nothing to do with photography per se. It probably won’t surprise you that knowing how to position yourself and learning where to point the camera, and deciding the exact moment to press the shutter can be as important to your success as understanding the right ways to expose and compose your picture.
If you stop to think about it, sports action is a continuous series of moments, each a little different from the last, all leading up to the decisive moment, when the bat strikes the ball, the power forward releases the basketball at the apex of a jump, or when the puck slides past the goalie into the net. A decisive moment can follow the peak action, too, as when a pitcher slumps in defeat after giving up a walk-off home run. The best sports photography lies in capturing the right moment and the right subject under the right circumstances. You don’t want a technically perfect shot of a third-string receiver catching a football at the tail end of a 57–0 blowout. You want to capture the hero of the game at the turning point of the contest.

The Importance of Position
Where you position yourself at a sports event can have a direct bearing on your photo opportunities.
If you’re up in the stands, your view of the game or match is likely to be limited and fixed. You’ll have better luck if you are able to move down close to the action, and, preferably, given the option of moving from one position to another, to take a variety of shots.
After you’ve taken a few sports photographs, you’ll find that some places are better than others for both opportunities and variety. In or near the pits at an auto race provides a great view of the track as well as close-ups of the incredible pressure as crews service vehicles. At football games you’ll get one kind of picture at the sidelines and another from the end zone. Soccer matches seem to revolve around the action at the net. Golf is at its most exciting on the greens.
Each sport has its own “hot” spots. You probably won’t gain access to these locations at professional or major college-level contests.
However, unless you’re a pro sports photographer, you’ll find that shooting lower-level events can be just as exciting and rewarding. If you want to get a good spot at a high school or college match, start out with some of the less-mainstream or more offbeat sports. You’re more likely to be given field access at a Division I-A lacrosse match than at a Division I-A football game. However, at Division II and III levels you might still be able to get the opportunities you need if you call ahead and talk to the sports information director.

Key Sports: Play by Play
Every sport is a little different when it comes to coverage. With some, like football, the action is sporadic, punctuated by huddles and time-outs, but lightning-fast when underway. Others, such as soccer, may have things going on all the time. Golf sometimes seems like it consists mostly of walking, interrupted by a few moments of intense concentration. You’ll do best with sports that you understand well, so take the time to learn the games. Simply knowing that if a football team is down by 14 points with six minutes left in the game and it’s third down with 20 yards to go, you probably aren’t going to see a running play, can be an advantage.

Here are some quick guidelines for shooting some of the most popular sports.
■ Football.
Get down on the sidelines and take your pictures 10 to 20 yards from the line of scrimmage. It doesn’t really matter if you’re in front of the line of scrimmage or behind it. You can get great pictures of a quarterback dropping back for a pass, as shown in the figure below, handing off, or taking a tumble into the turf when he’s sacked. Downfield, you can grab some shots of a fingertip reception, or a running back breaking loose for a long run. Move to one side of the end zones or a high vantage point to catch the quarterback sneaking over from the one-yard line, or the tension on the kicker’s face when lining up for a field goal.

Football, soccer, and other field sports lend themselves to shots taken from the sidelines

■ Soccer.
You can follow the action up and down the sidelines, or position yourself behind the goal to concentrate on the defender’s fullbacks and goalie and the attacking team’s wings and strikers. I don’t recommend running up and down the field to chase the action. Soccer games usually last long enough that you can patrol one end of the field during the first half, then remain there when the teams switch goals in the second half to cover the other team.
■ Baseball.
Everyone wants a seat behind home plate, but that’s not where you’ll want to shoot your pictures. Although the grimaces on the pitcher’s face are interesting, the backstop netting will tend to diffuse your photos somewhat. Those vantage points let you photograph the batters at work, get good shots of the pitchers, plus the action at the bases. There tends to be more going on at the first base side, and that’s a good choice if you want to photograph a right-handed pitcher after the ball is delivered. (You’ll see the pitcher’s back during the wind-up.) Reverse sides for a left-handed pitcher.
■ Basketball.
One of the advantages of basketball is that the sport is more compact. The majority of the action will happen around the backboards. High angles (from up in the stands) are generally not very good, and low angles (perhaps seated in the first row) are less than flattering for an array of very tall people. Shots from almost directly under or above the rim can be an exception to these rules, however. If you can shoot from eye-level close to the basket, you’ll get the best shots.
■ Golf.
Golf is one of the most intimate of sports because it’s entirely possible to position yourself only a few feet from world-famous athletes as they work amidst a crowded gallery of spectators. Distracting a golfer before a shot will get you booted from the course quickly, and digital SLRs, unlike their point-and-shoot brethren, don’t have fake shutter-click noises that can be switched off. That clunk you hear when the mirror flips up and the shutter trips is the real thing! You might want to move back, use a telephoto lens, remain as quiet as a mouse, and remember to time your photography to minimize intrusion.
■ Hockey.
This form of warfare-cum-athletic event can look good from a high vantage point because that perspective makes it easier to shoot over the glass, and the action contrasts well with the ice. However, if you can sit in the front row, you’ll find a lot of action taking place only a few feet from your seat. You might want to focus manually if your dSLR’s autofocus tends to fixate on the protective glass rather than the players.
■ Skating.
Skating events also take place in ice arenas, but eye-level or low-angles and closeups look best. Catch the skaters during a dramatic leap, or just after.
■ Wrestling.
Unless you have a ring-side seat and are prepared to dodge flying chairs, wrestling is often best photographed from a high, hockey-like perspective.
■ Gymnastics.
Look for shots of the athlete approaching a jump or particularly difficult maneuver, or perhaps attempting a challenging move on the parallel bars or rings.
■ Swimming.
Some great shots are possible at swimming events, particularly if you are able to use a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the spray as the swimmer churns through the water. You’ll get good pictures from the side if you can get down very low and close to water level. At the end of the pool, turns are fairly boring, but you can get some exciting head-on shots at the finish.
■ Track and Field.
There are so many different events that it’s hard to classify track and field as a single sport. If you can get under the bar at a pole vault, or position yourself far enough behind the sand pit to shoot a long jumper without being distracting, you can come up with some incredible shots. Or, move next to the starting blocks of a dash or relay.
■ Motor sports.
Racing action will challenge your action-stopping capabilities. If you shoot these events as a car or motorcycle is headed down the straight-away towards you, a slower shutter speed can do the job. On one hand, the action can be a bit repetitive. But that can be an advantage because you have lap after lap to practice and fine-tune your technique to get the exact photo you want.
■ Horse racing.
As in motor sports, you might get the best pictures shooting head-on or as the steeds make a turn. Finish line photos are likely to look like those automated finish-line photos used for instant replays, but if you get the opportunity, try a low angle for an interesting perspective.
■ Skiing. It’s unlikely you’ll be out all over the slopes taking photos during the race, but if you can find an interesting turn or good angle at the finish line, go for it. Remember to keep your camera warm and watch out for condensation, and keep your batteries warm.

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Dealing with Shutter Lag

Lack of shutter lag is one of the most popular features of the digital SLR. The most common question from frustrated point-and-shooters is how is it even feasible to take sports or action photos when the camera pauses for a second (or more) after the shutter release is pressed before actually taking the picture? Fortunately, most digital SLRs more or less eliminate the problem. They’re instant on/instant shoot with a lag time that’s virtually unnoticeable in many cases, particularly if the camera’s autofocus does its stuff.

The dSLRs generally snap a picture within 0.1 to 0.2 second of pressing the shutter release. In contrast, very few of point-and-shoot digital cameras produce shutter lag times less than 0.5 seconds. The average performers clock in at 0.8 seconds under contrasty lighting conditions that don’t challenge the autofocus mechanism, but usually take at least 1.1 to 1.3 seconds under low-contrast lighting, even if they have a focus assist lamp. The worst performers may have shutter lags of more than a second at best, and as long as 2.0 seconds or more under unfavorable lighting.
Point-and-shoot cameras require a lot of planning for action photography. Most of them take 3–5 seconds to power up before your first picture is taken, and automatically power down if you haven’t taken a photo for a few minutes. If you disable the automatic sleep feature, battery life suffers, even if the LCD is switched off.

If you shoot almost exclusively with dSLRs, you can forget about that nonsense. Many dSLRs power up in an instant (an exception being the Canon Digital Rebel, which seems to take about 3 seconds to come to life, or to resume shooting after it’s been powered on but idle for a few minutes). Because the LCD of a dSLR isn’t used for previewing photos, and autofocus and metering generally switch off after a few seconds of non-use (to revive instantly when you tap the shutter release), a digital SLR can easily be left powered up for hours or days at a time without draining the battery. The camera is always ready for use. And shutter lag times, while they exist, can be so short that they’re hard to detect. With rapid response, you can perfect your timing, so instead of photos like the one shown in the left figure below, you end up with the version shown in the right one.

Shutter lag and a slow trigger finger will net you photos like this one that miss the mark (left), The fast response of a dSLR can let you capture the peak moment (right)

You can test your own camera for shutter lag by photographing a clock face with a second hand, taking a picture of a stopwatch, or by using one of the many available software applications that produce a stopwatch image on your computer screen. (Surfe the web a few if you’re serious about measuring shutter lag). Windows users can find a free timer utility at www.xnotestopwatch.com.

Should you experience objectionable shutter lags, try anticipating the decisive moment. Press the shutter release a fraction of a second before the action peaks. Partially depress it to lock in focus and exposure even before your subject enters the frame. Set your camera to manual exposure and focus. Use your camera’s burst mode to grab a sequence of shots and improve your chances of catching the key instant.

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Burst Mode Basics

Today, the digital equivalent of the motor drive is called burst or sequence mode, and dSLR technology makes this technique much more practical. Instead of being limited to 36 shots (or 250 shots if you used a special motor drive with bulky 33-foot film cassettes), you can take many photos without “reloading,” typically 300 or more shots with a 1GB film card. Best of all, digital bursts don’t waste film. If your sequence shots turn out to be duds, you can erase them and take more pictures using the same media. Nor do you need a special accessory for your digital “motor drive.” All digital SLRs and most digital point-and-shoots have the capability built in.

One important thing to keep in mind is that burst mode is not a cure-all for poor timing. The typical digital SLR can fire off 3 to 8.5 frames per second (or more) for as long as the camera’s buffer holds out. A few cameras write to their film cards so quickly that in some modes the buffer never really fills, so you can shoot continuously until your card fills. Even so, you still might not capture the decisive moment in your sequence. The action peak can still happen between frames, or, if your dSLR is limited to bursts of a few seconds in length, after your buffer fills and the camera stops firing sequence shots. A brawny burst mode is no replacement for good timing and a bit of luck. Clicking off a picture at exactly the right moment will almost always yield better results than blindly capturing a series of frames at random. Use your camera’s sequence mode as a supplement to your customary techniques, to grab a few pictures you might not have gotten otherwise, or to create sequences that are interesting in themselves, like the one shown below.

Burst mode can let you capture a sequence of shots in a split second

Selecting Your Burst Modes
Your dSLR may have just a single burst mode, and your choices may range from turning it on to turning it off, and nothing more. Other digital cameras, particularly SLR-like cameras using an electronic viewfinder, may have several frames-per-second speeds to choose from. These are often grouped under the category “drive” mode, in honor of the original motor drives found in film cameras.

Here is a list of the most common burst/drive/shot modes:
■ Single frame advance.
This is the default mode of your camera. One picture is taken each time the shutter release is pressed. Because of the capacious and speedy buffers found in dSLRs, you can probably take single frames as quickly as you can keep pressing the button. Only the most fleet of finger, using low-end cameras with deficient buffers, will be able to outrun the camera’s recording capabilities in single-frame advance mode. You’ll know when the buffer is nearly full by an indicator in your viewfinder. Some cameras have an LED that blinks when you must wait; others have a bar indicator that grows or shrinks. I prefer systems that provide a constant update of the available room left in the buffer through a numeric indicator. This will count down from, say, 4, through 3, 2, and 1 until the buffer fills, then count up again as additional room is made available for more shots.
■ Continuous advance.
This is the default burst mode, and may be the only one your dSLR has. The camera continues to take photographs, one after another, for as long as you hold down the shutter button, or until the buffer fills. Most dSLRs have frame rates of at least 2–3 frames per second (such as entry-level models from Canon), to 4 fps or more (with entry-level Nikons and other digital SLRs), up through 8 or more fps with the pro gear favored by sports photographers who make their living snapping off sequences. The number of frames you take is usually limited by the size of your camera’s buffer and the size of the files you’re grabbing. That is, you’ll usually be able to take more JPEG shots in a row than RAW photos or RAW+JPEG shots. However, some dSLRs are so speedy that the file format makes little difference. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to squeeze off 10–20 or more shots in one burst. If you’re not so lucky, your camera may choke after 6 to 9 exposures.
■ High-speed continuous advance.
In this mode, the camera takes pictures continuously as you hold down the shutter release, at a frame rate of 8 frames per second or more. The Nikon D2X takes the unusual approach of capturing a middle-of-the road 5 fps at 12 megapixel resolution, but offers a high-speed 8 fps mode that crops the picture down to 6.8 megapixels (and increases the lens multiplier from 1.5X to 2.0X).
■ Ultra high-speed continuous advance.
This mode has been pioneered in point-andshoot digital cameras, but should find its way into dSLRs soon. Ultra high-speed modes always reduce the resolution (as with the Nikon D2X described above) to allow higher frame rates.
■ Multi-shot.
A few cameras, chiefly non-dSLRs, can produce a quick blast of 16 tiny pictures on a single frame. Such images might be okay for analyzing your golf stroke, but may be too small for other applications.
■ Mini-movie.
You’ll generally find this option only in EVF cameras and point-and-shoot digitals because it’s not excessively practical to shoot movies with a dSLR. (You’d have to shoot blind, because no dSLR is going to flip its mirror up and down 30 times a second). Digital cameras, which have the ability to shoot short video clips (typically 20–30 seconds up to the capacity of the memory card), do so at 320 × 200 to 640 × 480 resolution (or higher). You can use the movies as-is, or save and edit individual frames.
■ Time lapse/interval.
Although this is a sequence mode, it operates over a period that can extend for many, many seconds, and is best used for taking pictures of slow-moving events, such as the opening of a flower. Some cameras have time lapse/interval mode built in. Others require the use of a USB tether to your computer to allow software to trigger the camera’s individual exposures.
■ Bracketing/Best Shot.
Bracketing is a “drive” mode if the camera takes several pictures in sequence, using different settings for each picture. This improves your chances of getting one shot that has a better combination of settings. The most common bracketing procedure is to make several pictures at different exposures, with some underexposed and some overexposed (based on the meter reading). Many digital cameras can bracket other features, such as color correction, color saturation, contrast, white balance, or special filters.
Some cameras have a “best shot” mode that snaps off several pictures, but saves only the best (usually sharpest) exposure. Best shot and auto bracketing are found in EVF or point-and-shoot cameras. With dSLRs, each bracketed picture is usually triggered manually by the photographer pressing the shutter release. The camera adjusts the bracketed values for you after each individual picture.

Sequence shooting is one application where having a faster memory card can pay off. The more quickly your camera can offload its buffer to the memory card, the more pictures you can capture in one burst. As I mentioned earlier, the file format and amount of compression chosen can affect the burst length with some (but not all) dSLRs. You’ll usually find a chart in your camera’s manual showing the number of shots you can expect to get in a particular sequence mode.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you generally won’t be able to use your camera’s electronic flash when shooting more than one frame per second, unless you happen to own a special flash unit designed for rapid-fire shooting. Even so, you’ll probably be limited to close-up photos because fast-recycle flash units operate by using only a fraction of the available power for each shot. At such a reduced power setting, the flash is able to fire over and over relatively quickly, but doesn’t provide as much illumination and can’t reach out as far as the same flash in full power mode. Frequent flashes can overheat a flash unit, too. You’ll do better if you plan on shooting your sequences without flash.

If you’re leery about the accuracy of the specs for your camera’s sequence-shooting capabilities, photograph an actual stopwatch (or substitute an on-screen timer utility), as I described earlier when measuring shutter lag. Compare the time shown on the first and last shots of a sequence, and you’ll be able to calculate both the number of individual shots you can take as well as the frames-per-second rate. You can also experiment with different camera settings to see which provide the best burst mode results.

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Choosing Your Lenses

With money matters, it may be all about the Benjamins, but with dSLRs, the topic always seems to focus on lenses. Of course, the ability to choose which lens you use is one of the undeniable advantages of the dSLR in the first place. That’s why you’ll find so much coverage of lenses in this book. There was a bit in Digital SLR Techonology section when we explored the inside of the digital SLR. That section was devoted entirely to lens topics, and you’ll find a bit more in Special Features section when we look at specialized features like Image Stabilization/Vibration Reduction, which is found in some lenses, but which also can be built right into a dSLR.

Now we’re taking a closer look at action photography, and it’s time to talk about lenses once again. Indeed, lenses are one of the key aspects of action photography. When you’re taking portraits, you’ll probably use (or wish you could use) a prime lens of a focal length considered ideal for portraits, but then settle for a zoom lens of the appropriate range. For close-up pictures, you’ll want a special micro/macro lens if you can afford one, or will make do with what you have. There really aren’t that many choices. There are a few lenses and focal lengths that are best for portraits, macro photography, and other applications, but selecting the one you use won’t take weeks out of your life.
Not so with action photography. The online forums I frequent are rife with never-ending discussions on the best lenses for action photos, with criteria ranging from focal length, maximum aperture, bokeh, or presence/lack of vibration reduction placed under the magnifying glass. This section explains some of the factors to consider.

Zoom or Prime Lens?
If you’ve been paying attention. Until very recently, zoom lenses simply didn’t offer sufficient quality for everyday use for the serious photographer. The only real exception was for sports photography because a zoom lens can be the most efficient way to follow fast-moving action. Reduced image quality came with the territory, and nonzoom, prime lenses were still the preferred optic.

Early zoom lenses were extremely slow in terms of maximum aperture, often didn’t focus very close, and frequently changed both focus and f-stop as you zoomed in and out. Things have changed! Today’s zoom lenses can provide excellent quality. Some of them are sharp enough and focus close enough that they can be used for macro photography. Modern autofocus and autoexposure systems make focus and aperture shifts largely irrelevant. However, one thing hasn’t changed: Zooms that normal people can afford to buy are still relatively slow. Affordable zooms typically have f4.5 maximum apertures at the widest setting, and 5.6 or worse in the telephoto position. That can be a drawback for available light action photography at night, indoors, or outdoors on very cloudy days.

If you’re shooting outdoors in full daylight most of the time, a zoom may be your ideal lens. A 28mm–200mm lens on a camera with a 1.5X multiplier gives you the equivalent of a 42mm to 300mm zoom lens, which from the sidelines of a football game will take you from the bench to the opposite side of the field. A 70mm–300mm zoom sacrifices a little of the wide-angle view in favor of a really long telescopic perspective. Zooms can be great.
However, if you want the absolute sharpest image, or will be shooting under very demanding lighting conditions, you’ll want to consider a prime lens.

Remember that a fast telephoto lens lets you use higher shutter speeds to stop action or reduce the effects of camera shake, without needing to resort to boosted ISO, which can increase the amount of noise in your picture. Also keep in mind that truly fast telephotos cost an arm and a leg. One vendor’s 300mm f2.8 prime lenses cost $4,500, 500mm or 600mm f4 top $7,000, and the same manufacturer’s 400mm f2.8 can set you back close to $8,000. So, your quest for a fast, super-long telephoto lens may be brought quickly to Earth by incredible price tags. Prime lenses may offer better quality and faster maximum aperture, but can get pricey. Zooms are usually economical in the 70mm to 300mm range, even if they’re a bit slow. (However, there’s a very nice 200mm–400mm f4 zoom available for a mere $6,000.)

Focal Lengths Needed
For most action photos, the longest zoom setting is more important than the shortest. Few sports require a really wide-angle lens. Most of the time you can’t get as close to the action as you’d like. Many benefit from the equivalent of a 135mm to 150mm telephoto optic, particularly if you’re unable to patrol the sidelines and must shoot from the stands. Sports like basketball and volleyball do call for shorter focal lengths and wider angles because you may be literally on top of the action.

For indoor sports, your best focal lengths might range from 35mm to 105mm. Outdoors, you’ll probably need 70mm to 200mm or 300mm, unless you’re forced to shoot from up in the stands. Non-sports action photography may still limit where you can stand to make your shot, as you can see in two figures below. Don’t forget that as your lens gets longer, you’ll need to use higher shutter speeds or a tripod to reduce or eliminate blur from camera/lens shake (or use a vibration reduction lens to compensate; more on VR/IS in Special Features section).
Those using some digital SLR cameras can benefit from using lenses designed for 35mm cameras with a sensor that’s smaller than the 24mm × 36mm film frame. As you’ve learned, when mounted on a non-full-frame dSLR, the focal length of a lens is multiplied, so a 200mm tele actually produces the same field-of-view as a 320mm long lens (when used with one particular digital camera with a 1.6X “multiplier” factor).

At the short tele position, your zoom can take in the big picture (left), Zoom in, and you’re right in the middle of the action (right)

Many dSLRs can be fitted with attachments called teleconverters that provide additional magnification. The extra focal length comes at a cost: The effective aperture is reduced by the addon optics, robbing you of an f-stop or more. For example, one popular 1.4X teleconverter eats up one full f-stop’s worth of exposure; the same vendor’s 1.7X teleconverter demands an extra stop and a half of exposure, while the 2X version needs two extra stops. The good news is that if you’re willing to settle for less magnification, these add-ons don’t reduce the resolution of the final image by very much.

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Action Exposure Concerns

You’ll find a more complete discussion of exposure modes and features in Mastering Your dSLR Controls section. However, for action photography, you’ll want to choose the right exposure mode for the job at hand.

Here’s a quick recap of the kind of options you may have, and how they relate to action pictures.
■ Fully automatic.
Serious photographers don’t use fully automatic mode very much, particularly for action photography. It’s usually not wise to let the camera’s logic choose both shutter speed and aperture using its built-in rules, simply because the camera has no way of knowing what it’s being pointed at. For example, the camera may elect to shoot at f8 using whatever shutter speed provides the correct exposure until the exposure becomes long enough to encourage hand-held blurring (at, say 1/30th second). Then it will switch to a wider f-stop, as necessary. This is not the best mode for action photography.
■ Programmed automatic.
Digital SLRs have more sophisticated programming that takes into account the shooting environment when deciding exposure settings. For example, if photographs are being taken in dim light, the camera assumes that you’re indoors; in bright light, that you’re outdoors. Lens openings and shutter speeds are selected based on typical shooting situations in these environments. In program mode, unlike full auto, you may be able to bump the shutter speed up or down from the recommended setting, and the camera will change the aperture to compensate. This is something like a dumber version of shutter priority, discussed shortly.
■ Programmed scene modes.
Your digital camera has selective programs you can choose for automatic exposure under specific conditions. The one you want to opt for is the action/sports setting. In such cases, the camera will try to use the shortest shutter speed possible. It might even automatically boost the ISO rating (if you’ve set ISO to Auto) or use other tricks to optimize your exposure for fast-moving subjects. If you must use fully automatic exposure, this may be your best choice. At least the camera can be “told” that it’s shooting action pictures and be trusted to compensate a bit.
■ Aperture priority.
In this mode, also called Av mode by some vendors, you set the lens opening, and the camera automatically chooses a shutter speed to suit. Use this if you want to select a specific f-stop, say to increase/decrease depth-of-field. Because aperture priority offers little control over shutter speed, you probably won’t use it frequently for sports photos.
■ Shutter priority.
In this mode, sometimes called Tv mode by Canon and some other vendors, you choose a preferred shutter speed, and the camera selects the lens opening. That lets you select 1/500th or 1/1,000th second or shorter to stop action, yet retain the advantages of automatic exposure. This is the mode to use if you’re taking photos under rapidly changing light conditions. It is used for outdoor sports on partly cloudy days in which a playing field may alternate between bright sunlight and overcast within the space of a few minutes, depending on how the clouds move. It’s also a good choice for photos taken as the sun is setting because the camera automatically compensates for the decreasing illumination as the sun dips below the horizon.
■ Manual exposure.
Indoors, the illumination doesn’t change much. Most sports arenas, gymnasiums, and other sites have strong overhead illumination that allows taking pictures at 1/250th second at f2.8 using ISO 400 or 800 settings. We might also use flash indoors. Outside, just carefully watch the lighting and change exposure to suit.

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Attaining Focus

With action photography, the speed and accuracy of automatic focus can be crucial. Manual focus is frequently impractical when you’re trying to capture subjects that may be racing toward you, away from you, or across your field of vision. The autofocus of most dSLRs operates quickly enough for action photography that the operation doesn’t introduce massive shutter lag delays into the picture-taking equation.

Here are some tricks you can use to optimize your results:
■ Choose your autofocus mode carefully to suit the kind of action you’re capturing. Your dSLR probably gives you a choice between multi-point, spot, or user-selectable focus. If your subject will usually be in the center of the frame, spot focus may be your best bet. If your fingers are fast and your brain is faster, and you can train yourself to choose a focus point as you shoot, you can sometimes select the autofocus area as you compose the picture. Some cameras offer the option to lock in on the object closest to the camera, which can work well for action (assuming the closest subject is the one you want to capture, and not, say, a referee).
■ Your dSLR lens might have a lock feature that disables macro focus distances. That keeps the lens from seeking focus all the way from infinity down to a few inches away. When you’re shooting action, it’s unlikely that your subject will be closer than a few feet, so go ahead and lock out the macro range to speed up autofocus.
■ Some lenses/cameras have an autofocus/manual override setting, which uses the autofocus mechanism first, but allows you to manually refocus if you need to. That can come in handy to fine-tune focus if you have time or can think quickly.
■ You might be able to prefocus on a specific point where you expect the action to take place if you partially depress the shutter button. Some cameras also have a focus lock/exposure lock button that fixes either or both settings at the value selected when you depress the shutter release. With locked focus, you can take the photograph quickly by depressing the shutter button the rest of the way when your subject is where you want within the frame.
■ Manual focus might be a good choice when you know in advance where the action will be taking place (for example, around the hoop in a basketball game) and can help your camera operate more quickly than in autofocus mode. Manual focus works especially well with shorter lenses and smaller apertures because the depth-of-field makes precise focus a little less critical.
■ Manual focus also works when you’re concentrating on a specific area, or want to control depth-of-field precisely. For example, at baseball games you may decide to take a series of shots of the batter, pitcher, or first baseman. You can prefocus on one of those spots and shoot away without worrying about autofocus locking in on someone moving into the field-ofview. The focus point is locked in. Selective focus can also concentrate attention on the subjects in the foreground, as shown in figure below.

Selective focus is a good way to emphasize the subjects in the foreground
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Selecting an ISO Speed

By now you’re aware that the lower the ISO setting on your digital camera, the less noise you’ll get, and usually the better the quality. But low ISO settings and action photography don’t mix well. If you’re trying to freeze action, you’ll want to use the highest shutter speed possible, while retaining a small enough f-stop to ensure that everything you want to be in focus will be in focus. When available light isn’t especially available, the solution may be to increase your dSLR’s ISO setting, as was done for the shot below.

You don’t have to stop shooting action when the sun sets: just boost your ISO setting

Fortunately, ISO speeds are another area in which digital SLRs often excel. Because of their larger sensors, a dSLR can usually function agreeably at higher ISO settings without introducing too much noise (see Digital SLR Technology section for a longer discussion of this relationship). Many digital SLRs produce good results at ISO 800, and may still offer acceptable images at ISO 1600 or above. You’ll get betterlooking pictures than point-andshoot cameras at ISO 400 or ISO 800, or, possibly, even better than film cameras using ISO 800 or faster emulsions.
Your digital camera may automatically set an appropriate ISO for you, bumping the value up and down even while you’re shooting to provide the best compromise between sensitivity and image quality. Or, you can set ISO manually. The easiest way to settle on an ISO rating is to measure (or estimate) the amount of illumination in the venue where you’ll be working, and figure some typical exposures (even though your camera’s autoexposure mechanism will be doing the actual calculation for you once you’re shooting).

Outdoors, the ancient “Sunny 16” rule works just fine. In bright sunlight, the reciprocal of an ISO rating will usually equal the shutter speed called for at an f-stop of f16. The numbers are rounded to the nearest traditional shutter speed to make the calculation easier. So, at f16, you can use a shutter speed of 1/100th–1/125th second at ISO 100; 1/200–1/250th second with an ISO rating of 200; 1/400–1/500th second at ISO 400; and perhaps up to 1/1000th second at ISO 800. Select the ISO setting that gives you the shutter speed you want to work with. If the day is slightly cloudy (or really cloudy), estimate the exposure as one-half or one-quarter of what you’d get with Sunny 16.

Indoors, the situation is dimmer, but you’ll find that most venues are illuminated brightly enough to allow an exposure of f4 at 1/125th second at ISO 800. For a faster shutter speed, you’ll need either a higher ISO setting or a brighter venue. In modern facilities, you probably will have more light to work with, but it’s always safe to use a worst-case scenario for your preevent estimates. Don’t forget to set your white balance correctly for your indoor location. If one of your camera’s manual choices doesn’t produce optimal results, consider running through your system’s custom white balance routine to create an especially tailored balance for your venue.

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Electronic Flash—or Not?

One of the chief benefits of high-speed films in the film era, and higher ISO ratings in the digital age, is the ability to use higher, action-freezing shutter speeds without resorting to supplemental illumination such as electronic flash. Flash-less action photography has led to more realistic, more exciting images without much loss in quality.
Still, there is a place for electronic flash in the action arena, and there are ways to get around the drawbacks of using strobe for sports and other fast-moving subjects. In years past, I’ve watched pros string radio-controlled electronic flash units into every nook and cranny at NCAA basketball games just to provide ample illumination for high-speed photography without the deadly direct flash look. Today, sophisticated electronic flash units with through-the-lens metering and multiple flash heads are available to dSLR photographers with relatively modest budgets. Should you consider flash, or not?
Electronic flash has some significant advantages. The brief duration of the flash can freeze fast action even more effectively than your dSLR’s fleetest shutter speed, as you can see in the figure below. High-powered flash can illuminate action venues that are too dim for photography by available light, even using your camera’s highest ISO setting. Indeed, you’ll usually get much better results at ISO 400 and f8 with flash than you will at ISO 3200 and f2.8 without.
Unfortunately, action flash has some disadvantages, too. If your shutter speed is slow enough that two exposures result (one sharp image from the electronic flash, and one blurry one from the ambient light), you’ll get a ghosting effect. Conversely, if your shutter speed is high enough to eliminate the ambient light completely, you can end up with photos that have an inky black background. You’ll also find that using your camera’s built-in electronic flash will deplete your camera’s batteries more quickly. If that isn’t enough, some venues won’t tolerate use of electronic flash.
If you want to experiment with action flash photography, the next sections will tell you everything you need to know.

Electronic flash can freeze the fastest action

Which Flash to Use?
In the old days, most flash units were compatible with most film cameras. That’s because the flash mechanisms themselves had few automated features that relied on the camera. Some flash were strictly manual: you’d use a value called a guide number (GN) to calculate the correct fstop to set. If you were smart, you had a flash meter, which was most often placed at the subject position and used to measure the actual amount of illumination arriving at that location.
Next came automated flash units that measured the amount of light reflecting back from the subject. They incorporated an electronic component called a thyrister, and, once proper exposure was reached, “dumped” the extra flash power remaining in the unit’s capacitor before it could reach the flash tube. These systems worked well, but didn’t measure the actual light falling on the film, so they were often slightly inaccurate. Dedicated flash units were developed to solve this problem. These devices work closely with the electronics of the camera to measure the actual flash exposure being received and make adjustments accordingly. These TTL flash use various mechanisms (including almost-invisible preflashes used to measure exposure) that aren’t particularly important. The important thing to remember is that if you want to use the flash exposure features of your digital SLR, you’ll need to use a flash unit designed for your camera. Often, that means using only flash sold by your camera’s vendor, although some of the larger third-party manufacturers produce compatible flash units.
That doesn’t mean you can’t work with other electronic flash units, especially if you’re willing to set exposure manually, either by guesstimate or through the use of a flash meter. You may have problems mounting the flash on your camera, or connecting it to your camera’s flash-triggering circuitry. Many dSLRs don’t have the PC connection, like the one shown in Figure 8.12, required to connect a standard electronic flash, or require purchasing an add-on accessory to provide this PC connection. (Incidentally, PC does not stand for Personal Computer in this case; it represents ProntorCompur, early shutter manufacturers who developed a connector to synch their products with early flash bulb and [later] electronic flash devices.)

Power
Generally, the built-in electronic flash found in most dSLRs is a step up from the dinky units included with point-and-shoot models. Amateur cameras may have a flash range that reaches out no farther than 10–15 feet, tops, because their flashes are so puny. A good dSLR’s flash will have a bit more pop. A typical ISO 200 guide number for a dSLR is 15, measured in meters. (You’d divide the GN by the distance in meters to determine the f-stop to use in manual mode). With a guide number of 15, you’d need to use f2.8 at a distance of 6 meters (about 20 feet). You can see that even this boosted capability is barely adequate for action photography at a reasonable distance.
An add-on external flash unit might have an ISO 200 guide number of 55 or more, letting you use f9 at 6 meters, or open up your lens to f2.8 and shoot objects almost 20 meters distant (roughly 60 feet.) Obviously, an external flash is the way to go for anything farther away than a few paces.
You may be able to adjust the power level when less illumination is required, but it’s more likely you’ll simply depend on your unit’s TTL metering system to provide the proper exposure.

Multiple Flash
You may be able to increase your flash range, or stop down an extra stop or two, or even out nasty depth-of-flash problems by using multiple flash units. If you’re able to mount the extra flash units securely, using additional flash illumination can make a big difference. Of course, the multiple units will have to be triggered by some sort of slave system, usually a radiocontrol mechanism. If there are other photographers shooting, make sure you coordinate your frequencies.

Understanding Flash Synch
Perhaps you haven’t fiddled much with your dSLR’s flash synch settings because the default setting probably works well for most photos. That’s not necessarily true with action photography, particularly if you’re looking to reduce or enhance the ghosting effect produced by intentional/unintentional double exposures from flash and ambient light. Now’s a good time to learn just how flash synch settings can affect you.
As you learned in Digital SLR Technology section, dSLRs generally have two kinds of shutters; a mechanical shutter that physically opens and closes, much like the focal plane shutter on a film camera, and an electronic shutter, which controls exposure duration by limiting the time during which the sensor can capture pixels. It’s usually most efficient to use a mechanical shutter for “slower” shutter speeds (from 30 seconds up to around 1/500th second) and switch to an electronic shutter for the really fast speeds (up to 1/16,000th second on some models).
An electronic flash unit’s duration is often much briefer than any of these, as short as 1/50,000th second with some models at some power settings. So, as far as the electronic flash is concerned, the shutter speed of your camera is irrelevant as long as the shutter is completely open during the time the flash fires. If you’ve used flash with a film camera at a shutter speed that was too high, you probably noticed that your exposed image was only one-quarter, one-eighth or some other fraction of the full frame. That’s because the focal plane shutter (which moves immediately above the film plane) was open only partially as it traveled across the film, and that opening was exposed by the flash.
Your digital camera has a maximum flash synch speed, which can be as slow as 1/125th second or as fast as 1/500th second (or more) because that interval is the shutter speed at which the sensor is fully exposed and ready to capture a brief flash. Oddly enough, with some cameras this maximum speed applies only when you’re using a flash’s through-the-lens automatic exposure system. In manual mode, or when using external flash units that can’t use the dSLR’s autoflash features, you can sometimes synch at much higher speeds.
Because the shutter is open for a longer period than is needed to record the flash alone, you’ll end up with that ghost image caused by a secondary exposure from ambient light. If the subject is moving, the ghost will trail or precede the flash image (I’ll tell you why in a moment). If you’re holding the camera unsteadily, the ghost image may be jerky due to camera movement. If you don’t want ghost images, use the highest shutter speed practical to reduce the impact of ambient light, without producing a completely black background. Experiment until you find a shutter speed that eliminates ghosting, but still allows the background to be illuminated a bit.

Here are the most common synchronization options found on digital cameras:
■ Front-synch.
In this mode (also called front-curtain synch), the flash fires at the beginning of the exposure. If the exposure is long enough to allow an image to register by existing light as well as the flash, and if your subject is moving, you’ll end up with a streak that’s in front of the subject, as if the subject were preceded by a ghost. Usually, that’s an undesirable effect. Unfortunately, front-curtain synch is generally the default mode for most dSLRs. You can be suckered into producing confusing ghost images without known the reason why. Next figure shows an example of a photograph taken using front-synch flash.

With front-curtain synch, the blur precedes the sharp flash image

■ Rear-synch.
In this mode (known as rear-curtain synch), the flash doesn’t fire until the end of the exposure, so the ghost image is registered first, and terminates with a sharp image at your subject’s end position, with the well-known streak (like that which followed The Flash everywhere) trailing behind. That can be a bad thing or a good thing, depending on whether you want to use the ghost image as a special effect. The figure below shows the improved effect you get when you switch to rear-synch when using a slow shutter speed.

With rear-curtain synch, the blur trails the sharp flash image and looks more natural

■ Slow-synch.
This mode sets your camera to use a slow shutter speed automatically, to record background detail that the flash, used to expose a subject closer to the camera, fails to illuminate. This mode can improve your flash images if you hold the camera steady and the subject is not moving. So, slow-synch is best reserved for non-sports images, or photographs in which the subject is approaching the camera. Otherwise, you can almost guarantee ghost images.

Choosing a Flash Exposure Mode
Digital SLR vendors apply fancy names to their dedicated flash units, such as d-TTL, or i-TTL, or Creative Lighting System so you’ll know that massive technology innovation is behind you. However, this nomenclature can be confusing. Learn what your flash unit’s most common exposure modes do, and how they can help you.

Here are some typical options:
■ TTL (through the lens) metering.
With this type of exposure, the camera measures the flash illumination that reaches the sensor (often by diverting some of the light elsewhere) and adjusts the exposure to suit. If you’re photographing a subject that reflects or absorbs a lot of light, the exposure setting may not be accurate.
■ Pre-flash metering.
The camera fires a pre-flash and uses that information only to calculate exposure. This is the best mode to use when your exposure is “non-standard” in some way, as when you put a diffuser on the flash, a darkening filter on your lens, or use an external flash unit.
■ Integrated metering.
The camera triggers a pre-flash just before the exposure, measures the light that reflects back, and then integrates that information with distance data supplied by your camera’s focus mechanism. The camera knows roughly how far away the subject is and how much light it reflects, and can calculate a more accurate exposure from that.
■ Manual control.
In this mode, the flash fires at whatever power setting you specify for the flash (full power, half power, and so forth), and you calculate the exposure yourself, using a flash meter or various formulas using guide numbers (values that can be used to calculate exposure by dividing them by the distance to the subject.) Electronic flash units may have firing modes, too, in addition to exposure modes. The most common modes you’ll encounter are these (not all are available with every digital SLR camera, and some models may have additional modes):
■ Always flash.
Any time you flip up the electronic flash on your camera, or connect an external flash, the flash will fire as the exposure is made.
■ Autoflash.
The flash fires only when there isn’t enough light for an exposure by available light.
■ Fill flash.
The flash fires in low light levels to provide the main source of illumination, and in brighter conditions such as full sunlight or backlighting, to fill in dark shadows.
■ Red-eye flash.
A pre-flash fires before the main flash, contracting the pupils of your human or animal subjects, and reducing the chance of red-eye effects.
■ Rear synch/front synch.
As described earlier, these options control whether the flash fires at the beginning or end of an exposure.
■ Wireless/remote synch.
In this mode, the camera triggers an external flash unit using a wireless synch unit. As with all such remote controls, a selection of perhaps four or more channels are available, so you can choose one that’s not in use by another nearby photographer who also happens to be using wireless control. Unless you’re covering a major event, you probably won’t experience many conflicts when using wireless control. Some remote control/slave flash setups trigger by optical means: The camera’s flash is detected and sets off the remote flash. You may be able to set the camera flash to low power so the main illumination comes from the remote.

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Using a Tripod or Monopod

All the big long lenses, even those with image stabilization built in, have a tripod socket for mounting the camera on a support (or, if they don’t, they should). A tripod, or its singlelegged counterpart the monopod, steadies your camera during exposures, providing a motiondamping influence that is most apparent when shooting with long lenses or slow shutter speeds.
By steadying the camera, a tripod/monopod reduces the camera shake that can contribute to blurry photos. Although tripods are used a bit less these days, they can still be an important accessory.

You might not want to use a tripod at events where you need to move around a lot because they take up a bit of space and are clumsy to reposition. Tripods are most useful for sports like baseball, where the action happens in some predictable places, and you’re not forced to run around to chase it down. Monopods are a bit more portable than tripods, but don’t provide quite as much support. Some action photographers rely on chestpods that brace the camera against the upper torso, but today the trend is toward image stabilization lenses and cameras (discussed in Special Features section) which accommodate and correct for slight camera movement although their operation may be too slow for sports.

How much camera shake can you expect? One rule of thumb is that if you’re not using antivibration equipment, the minimum shutter speed you can work with is roughly the reciprocal of the focal length of the lens. That is, with a 200mm lens, if you’re not using a tripod you should be using 1/200th second as your slowest shutter speed. Step up to a 500mm optic, and you’ll need 1/500th second, and so forth. Your mileage may vary because some lenses of a particular focal length are longer and more prone to teetering, and some photographers are shakier than others.

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Basics of Freezing Action

To freeze or not to freeze? That is a question? Actually, for many types of action photos, totally freezing your subjects can lead to a static, uninteresting image. Or, as you can see in the figure below, completely stopping the action can produce an undesirable effect. A little selective motion blur can add to the feeling of movement. However, including a little, but not too much blur in your pictures is more difficult and challenging than simply stopping your subjects in their tracks. Some of the best action pictures combine blur with sharpness to create a powerful effect. This section will show you how to put the freeze and partial freeze on your action subjects.

The helicopter’s rotors were frozen in midspin by a fast shutter speed

Motion and Direction
From your dSLR’s perspective, motion looks different depending on its speed, direction, and distance from the camera. Objects that are moving faster produce more blur at a given shutter speed if the camera remains fixed. Subjects that cross the field of view appear to move faster than those heading right toward the camera. Things that are farther away seem to be moving more slowly than those in our immediate vicinity. You can use this information to help apply the amount of freeze you want in your image.
■ Parallel motion. If a subject is moving parallel to the back of the camera, in either a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal direction, it will appear to be moving fastest and cause the highest degree of blur. A high pop fly that’s dropping into the infield will seem to be moving faster than one that’s headed out of the ball park (away from the camera) for a home run, even though, in reality, Barry Bonds can probably propel a baseball much faster than the impetus the laws of gravity will apply to a falling popup. A racing car crossing the frame is likely to appear to be blurry even if you use a high shutter speed.
■ Head-on motion.Motion coming toward the camera appears to move much slower, and will cause a much lesser amount of blur. That same race car headed directly toward you can be successfully photographed at a much longer shutter speed.
■ Motion on a slant. Objects moving diagonally towards the camera will appear to be moving at a rate that’s somewhere between parallel and head-on motion. You’ll need a shutter speed somewhere between the two extremes. Motion coming toward the camera on a slant (perhaps a runner dashing from the upper-left background of your frame to the lower-right foreground) will display blur somewhere between the two extremes.
■ Distant/close motion. Subjects that are closer to the camera blur more easily than subjects that are farther away, even though they’re moving at the same speed. That’s because the motion across the camera frame is more rapid with a subject that is closer to the camera.
■ Camera motion. Blur is relative to the camera’s motion, so if you pan the camera to follow a fast-moving object, the amount of blur of the object you’re following will be less than if the camera remained stationary and the object darted across the frame. On the other hand, if the camera motion isn’t smooth, but is jittery and not in conjunction with the movement of the subject, it can detract from the sharpness of the image.

Some Interesting Anomalies
When attempting to stop action, there are a few anomalies you might want to consider. Some of them may not have a great impact on your pictures, but they’re interesting to know about nonetheless.
■ A moving subject isn’t all moving at the same speed, so you can get a sharp image and some blurriness in the same subject. For example, you might be able to freeze a runner’s body as she passes in front of your lens, but find that her furiously pumping hands and feet are still blurry. Notice that while the ball carrier in the next figure is captured in mid-stride, his left and right hands, and both feet are a little blurry because they are moving faster than the rest of his body.

Faster-moving objects, like this runner’s hands, may blur even at a relatively high shutter speed

■ Sometimes you’ll notice that subjects crossing your frame may appear to be elongated. If an object is moving fast enough and is going in the same direction that your camera’s focal plane shutter travels, you might get this stretching effect. Faster, allelectronic shutter speeds aren’t prone to this phenomenon, however.
■ Reciprocal exposures sometimes aren’t. It’s well-known that very long exposures may suffer from a phenomenon known as reciprocity failure with both film and digital cameras. A 60-second exposure might not provide twice as much illumination as a 30-second exposure, because the response of the film or sensor begins to decrease over such long exposures. Action photographers may notice the same effect when using very brief exposures, particularly from flash units that clip off durations of 1/50,000th second or less.
■ It’s been observed that some cameras produce blocky artifacts at very high shutter speeds, usually 1/8,000th second or less. The cause is thought to be some kind of electronic shenanigans, and there is no known cure other than using a slower shutter speed (which most of us do, anyway.)

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Action Stopping Techniques

This section will summarize the basic techniques for stopping action under the most common types of shooting situations. Your particular photo opportunity may combine elements from more than one of these scenarios, and you’re free to combine techniques as necessary to get the best results.

Stopping Action with Panning
The term panning originated in the motion picture industry, from a camera swiveling motion used to follow action as it progresses from one side of the frame to the other. Derived from the term panorama, a pan can be conducted only in a horizontal direction. The vertical equivalent is called a tilt, which is why your tripod’s camera mount may be called a pan and tilt head. You’ll rarely need to “pan” vertically, unless you’re following a rocket as it takes off for outer space. Suppose a marathon runner is racing across your field of view. If she’s close enough and moving fast enough, even your highest shutter speed may not be able to stop the action. So, instead, you move the camera in the same direction that the runner is moving. Her apparent speed is much slower, relative to the camera, so a given shutter speed will be able to freeze the action more readily. Blur from subject motion is reduced. Yet, the background will display more blur, due to camera motion. Or, if you’re shooting a baseball game, your photograph may have a tack sharp base runner surrounded by a blurry background, as in the example shown below. That’s probably a more exciting and dramatic photograph.

Panning the camera with this base runner stopped the action at a relatively low 1/125th second shutter speed

Panning can be done with a hand-held camera (just plant your feet firmly and pivot at the waist), or with a camera mounted on a tripod that has a swiveling panorama (pan) head. The more you practice panning, the better you’ll get at following the action. You might find that if your panning speed closely matches the subject’s actual speed, a shutter speed as slow as 1/60th to 1/125th second can produce surprisingly sharp images. Use of a lower shutter speed causes the background to appear more blurry, too.

To pan effectively, you should try to move smoothly in the direction of the subject’s movement. If your movement is jerky, or you don’t pan in a motion that’s parallel to the subject’s motion, you’ll get more blurriness than you anticipate or want. Take a step back, if you can. The farther the subject is from the camera, the longer you’ll have to make your pan movement, improving potential sharpness.

Panning is a very cool effect because of the sharpness of the subject, the blurriness of the background, and some interesting side effects that can result. For example, parts of the subject not moving in the direction of the overall pan will be blurry, so your marathon runner’s body may be sharp, but her pumping arms and legs will blur in an interesting way.

Freezing Action Head On
Another way to stop action is to photograph the subject as it heads towards or away from you. A runner who is dashing towards the camera can be effectively frozen at 1/250th or 1/125th second, but would appear hopelessly blurred when crossing the frame (if you’re not panning). Head-on shots can be interesting, too, so you might want to use this angle even if you’re not trying to boost your effective shutter speed. The water skier and boat in the figure below were moving at a pretty good clip, but because they were headed away from the camera (albeit at a slightly diagonal angle,) it was possible to freeze the action at 1/125th second. The fact that the water spray is a little blurry probably adds to the picture, rather than detracting from it.

Movement toward or away from the camera can be captured at lower shutter speeds

Freezing Action with Your Shutter
A third way to stop motion is to use the tiny time slice your shutter can nip off. A fast shutter speed can stop action effectively, no matter what the direction of the motion. The trick is to select the shutter speed you really need. A speed is that is too high can rob you of a little sharpness because you’ve had to open the lens aperture a bit to compensate, or use a higher ISO rating that introduces noise. There are no real rules of thumb for selecting the “minimum” fastest shutter speed. As you’ve seen, action stopping depends on how fast the subject is moving, its distance from the camera, its direction, and whether you’re panning or not.
Many cameras include shutter speeds that, in practice, you really can’t use. The highest practical speed tops out at around 1/2000th second. With a fast lens and a higher ISO rating, you might be able to work with 1/4000th second under bright illumination. Yet, there are digital cameras available that offer shutter speeds as brief as 1/16,000th of a second. So, the bottom line is usually that to freeze action with your shutter speed alone, you’ll probably be using a speed from 1/500th second to 1/2000th second, depending on the illumination and what your camera offers.
A shutter speed that’s fast enough can freeze even the fastest-moving objects, such as the ski-jumping daredevil shown below.

A fast enough shutter speed can stop just about any action

Freezing Action with Electronic Flash
Electronic flash units, originally called “strobes” or “speedlights,” are more than a great accessory for artificial illumination. The duration of an electronic flash is extremely brief, and if the flash provides the bulk of the illumination for a photograph, some great action-stopping results. One of the earliest applications of electronic flash was by Dr. Harold Edgerton at MIT, who perfected the use of stroboscopic lights in both ultra-high-speed motion and still (stop-motion) photography capable of revealing bullets in flight, light bulbs shattering, and other phenomena. Some flash units have a duration of 1/50,000th second or less, which is very brief, indeed. One way of controlling an automated flash unit is to vary the duration of the flash by using only part of the stored energy that’s accumulated in the unit’s capacitors.
If the subject is relatively far away, the entire charge is fed to the flash tube, producing the longest and most intense amount of illumination. If the subject is relatively close, only part of the charge is required for the photograph, and only that much is supplied to the flash tube, producing an even briefer flash. Yet, even the longest flash exposure is likely to be shorter than your camera’s shutter speed, so electronic flash is an excellent tool for stopping action.
The chief problem with electronic flash is that, like all illumination, it obeys that pesky inversesquare law. Light diminishes relative to the inverse of the square of the distance. So, if you’re photographing a subject that’s 12 feet away, you’ll need four times as much light when the subject is twice as far away at 24 feet, not twice as much. Worse, if an athlete in your photograph is 12 feet away when you snap a picture, anything in the background 24 feet away will receive only one quarter as much light, giving you a dark background.
That generally means that a digital camera’s built-in electronic flash is probably not powerful enough to illuminate anything two-dozen feet from the camera. You might be able to use your camera’s flash at a basketball game, but not at a football game where the distances are much greater. A more powerful external flash unit, like the ones discussed earlier in this chapter, might be called for.
However, flash is especially adept at freezing close-up action, as illustrated by the water drop picture earlier in this section.

Freezing Action at Its Peak
The final method for freezing fast motion is simple: Wait for the motion to stop. Some kinds of action include a peak moment when motion stops for an instant before resuming again. That’s your cue to snap a picture. Even a relatively slow shutter speed can stop action during one of these peak moments or pauses. Figure below shows a gymnast on a trampoline, captured at the very top of his upward movement when he finished a backflip.
The end of a batter’s swing, a quarterback cocking his arm to throw a pass, a tennis player pausing before bringing a racket down in a smash. These are all peak moments you can freeze easily. Other peaks are trickier to catch, such as the moment when a basketball player reaches the apex of a leap before unleashing a jump shot. If you time your photograph for that split second before the shooter starts to come down, you can freeze the action easily. If you study the motion of your action subjects, you’ll often be able to predict when these peak moments will occur.

Capture action at its peak and you can use a slower shutter speed

When Blur Is Better
Some kinds of action shouldn’t be frozen at all, as we saw in the helicopter photo earlier in this chapter. Better yet, you can use blur as a creative effect to show movement without freezing it. The left figure below shows a 4-second exposure of a Ferris wheel, shot at ISO 1600. The blur turns the moving lights into an interesting pattern, making a much better image than a static shot of the ride at rest. The right one is a shot from the same test, an 8-second exposure of the amusement park’s midway. Notice that stationary objects are rendered just fine, but that people and other moving objects are rendered ghost-like, appearing multiple times in the frame as they stopped for a second during the exposure.

Some subjects are more interesting in a long exposure (left), Very long exposures can render moving people as blurry ghosts (right)
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Some Final Tips

Even this section has you psyched up to take some great action photos, but there are a few additional points to consider before you embark on your photo assignment. As with any other kind of shoot, it’s always best to be well prepared. There are things you should never leave home without, and not all of them are your MasterCard.

Make yourself a checklist like this one:
■ Take spares.
One of the first things I learned as a professional is that excuses like “My flash cord didn’t work!” won’t fly. I used to carry at least three of everything, including camera bodies and key accessories. I duplicated only the most essential lenses, but always had a spare along that would suffice in a pinch, such as an f1.4 normal lens as well as an f1.4 35mm wide angle. You don’t need to be a pro to have a lot invested in your pictures. Don’t let your vacation or once-in-a-lifetime shot be ruined. Take along extra batteries, extra digital film cards, and perhaps a backup flash unit. You might not be able to afford a spare dSLR body, but you can always squeeze an extra point-and-shoot digital camera into your gadget bag to use if all else fails.
■ Charge your batteries.
Some dSLRs can shoot 1000 to 2000 pictures on a single charge, but those figures can be achieved only if you’re starting out with a fully charged battery. Nickel Metal Hydride and Lithium Ion batteries can be recharged at any time without causing any detrimental side-effects, so you’ll want to give all your batteries a fresh jolt just before embarking on any important photo journey. Have a spare battery if you think you might be taking more pictures than your original set will handle. And remember that if you expect to use your flash a lot, battery life will be reduced significantly.
■ Offload your photos and reformat your memory cards.
You don’t want to grab a new card, get ready to take a crucial picture, and then discover that the card contains older photos that you haven’t transferred to your computer yet. Nothing is more painful than having to decide whether to preserve some junky but interesting photos currently residing on your film card, or to erase them so you’ll have some space for new pictures. Transfer your old pictures to other storage, and then reformat the card so it’s fresh and ready to go.
■ Review your controls.
Perhaps you want to take some pictures using rear-synch. Do you know how to activate that mode? Can you switch to burst mode quickly, particularly if the light isn’t great? Do you know how to use shutter priority mode, or select a fast shutter speed? Practice now, because the pressures of trying to get great pictures of fast-moving action can prove confusing.
■ Set up your camera before you leave.
If you’re planning on using a particular ISO method, want to change from your camera’s default focusing mode, or intend to use a particular exposure scheme, make those settings now, in calmer surroundings. In the excitement of the shoot, you may forget to make an important setting. I once shot a whole batch of action photos in full daylight, not remembering that I’d manually set white balance to tungsten for some table-top close-ups the night before. If you’re shooting in RAW format, you can fix goofs like that, but if you’re not, you can’t provide perfect correction, even with an advanced image editor like Photoshop. ■ Clean and protect your equipment.
Unless you’re looking for a soft-focus look, you’ll want to make sure your lenses and sensor are clean. If you expect rain or snow, use a skylight filter. If necessary, make a “raincoat” for your camera out of a resealable sandwich bag with a hole cut in it for the lens to stick out of.

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