Sports and Motion Photography

Use of a fast shutter speed is  essential in sports photography to "freeze" the motion. A telephoto lens is a necessary piece of equipment.

Focusing can be a problem for shooting fast moving athletes and objects. even  a millisecond lag between when the camera focus is locked, and the shutter opens can result in an out of focus picture if the subject is moving fast enough in relation to the camera. More sophisticated cameras use "Predictive Autofocus" in which the computer brain of the camera attempts to predict what the location of a moving subject will be when the shutter opens. This helps but results can be less than perfect, particularly if the subject is moving very fast. Many times however you will want some blurring in order to represent the motion of the object as a blurred trail. For a more artistic effect, you might even slow the shutter speed a bit.

A key technique is to slow down the motion of the subject relative to the camera. There are two ways to do this: One is to shoot the subject from a vantage point perpendicular (sideways) to the direction of its motion. The other is to move further away from the subject. This second technique will require a telephoto or zoom lens with a long focal length.  This second technique is particularly important for shots in sports such as skiing or auto racing where you may want to shoot a subject moving toward the camera or away from the camera at a high rate of speed. Autofocus seems to have a particular problem with this type of motion, but use of a telephoto lens slows the change of distance from the camera relative to the total distance from the camera, effectively slowing down the subject to the camera.

For most sports shots, you will want the subject more or less centered in the frame and filling most of the frame. You will probably want to use a shallow depth of field to emphasize the subject and deemphasize the background. Use of a telephoto lens works out well, because longer focal length has the effect of diminishing the apparent depth of field. Shallow depth of field can also be achieved by a  larger aperture setting.

Night shots in a lighted stadium work well,  because artificial lighting does not get any better than that of a stadium.