FPS and Sports

[gary88]

I know having a higher FPS burst rate is better for sports photography, but could someone explain exactly why?

[inzite]

having low fps u can use timing to aid u in gettin that golden shot, with high fps and timing u can have a significantly higher percentage of gettin that shot

[sirsloop]

Depends on the sport really... and your shooting style. I shoot sports on one shot, but some people like to blast away. Perfect example would be a baseball swing, tennis swing, or a receiver leaping and getting hit while catching a football....its kinda tough to perfectly time the shot because if the speed. By having 10fps you can capture the exact moment you want. IMHO for most sports photography its a little much. Your keeper rate drops considerably... and with practice you can time shots very well. I suppose if you are looking for a very specific shot of a ball just coming off the bat or something you have a better chance of getting it. You can pan while shooting high fps too... lets say you are shooting top fuel racing and want to pan a 300mph car. Well the car literally blows past in 2 seconds, so if you want a panning shot you can set your camera to like 1/100th sec and get ~15 chances of nailing a shot before the car blows past you.

[NickR]

This probably sums it up, couldn't have got this sequence without 8FPS, you also need a large buffer so the shots keep coming.

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=377809

Cheers

[KIPAX]

It doesn't matter how good you are. one shot wont get you the ball in the right place and a players eyes open. the difference between eyes open and shut is mega and I say boo hoo to anyone who says they can capture the exact right moment with practice in the middle of a football/soccer match :) Luck yes.. but not every time.

I typically do a 3 shot burst at 8+ fps

[inzite]

totally agree with kipax. i learned how lucky i was when i shot fifa u20 with a 5d this summer for most of the tournament.. god how much i wished i had a 1 series..

[_aravena]

Yeah, I'll switch between single and continuous or I'm careful on continuous so I don't always shoot a bunch. But sometimes you need to know when to hold the button down and keep the camera pointed in the right direction.

Of course I'm making this sound easier than it is.

[Lord_Malone]

An example of when FPS is not "needed" but helps...

5D on single shot mode

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/3033/img0138ev5.jpg

[tonylong]

I haven't gotten into sports shooting, and I don't have the faster fps cameras (I have a 30D with a high-speed of 5 fps and a 5D with max 3 fps) but I can definitely vouch for the benefits of the continuous shooting mode with my wildlife photography.

Here's a sequence of shots that I love, even though there is softness due to max telephoto, an ISO speed that was too slow, and the fact that I was hand-holding the camera:

http://www.pbase.com/tonylong/image/79601219.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/tonylong/image/79601221.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/tonylong/image/79601222.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/tonylong/image/79601223.jpg
http://www.pbase.com/tonylong/image/79601224.jpg

Cheers!

Tony

[sirsloop]

also remember... when the mirror is up you can't see what you are shooting.

[LMP]

Also consider that camera's with a higher fps rate tend to have more AF points and greater ability to track a moving subject.

[M24]

Now that I have a 40D that does 6.5 fps, I can't believe I ever lived without it. Sure, one can overdo it and end up with way too many useless images, however, sometimes, in the heat of the moment, spray and pray can net you some great shots.

The 40D can be switched from 6.5 fps to 3 fps or one-shot mode. I find that very useful. I've shot with a 1D MKIII for all of ten minutes and it's a machine gun for sure. For fast action, the more fps the better. I've found that even for shooting people, walking and talking, the high fps shows very minute changes in guestures and expressions. It's kind of fun to me to look a those strings of images. You'll need a big CF card, that's for sure!

Good luck.

Michael

[bildeb0rg]

I'm constantly thanked by coaches for highlighting players "ideocincracies", when kicking or tackling, and it gives them the chance to work on stuff to improve their game. Usually the guys have no idea they're doing little oddball things, until someone points them out.

[sirsloop]

Also consider that camera's with a higher fps rate tend to have more AF points and greater ability to track a moving subject.


Mre AF points means the camera has more points to decide where IT wants to focus. Maybe I'm simplistic but I like center dot AI Servo one shot.

[Gatorboy]

An example of when FPS is not "needed" but helps...

5D on single shot mode

http://img251.imageshack.us/img251/3033/img0138ev5.jpg

Why in single shot mode? Why not just leave the camera in multi-shot and take one picture -- and know that if you need to, you can rattle of 2, 3 or more?

[VladDracule]

I'm constantly thanked by coaches for highlighting players "ideocincracies", when kicking or tackling, and it gives them the chance to work on stuff to improve their game. Usually the guys have no idea they're doing little oddball things, until someone points them out.

Hah you have no idea how much ive caught on the 2 teams i coach since i started photographing them with my 40d.

Found alot of bad form with shooting (soccer) and used it to coach off of...helped out alot with finishing. Im deffinately a proud coach at this point...i coach the only 2 undefeated teams in their age group...that is untill the showdown when wepaly each other in 2 weeks :) (maybe ill just convince them to tie each other so both remain undefeated lol)

[Lord_Malone]

Why in single shot mode? Why not just leave the camera in multi-shot and take one picture -- and know that if you need to, you can rattle of 2, 3 or more?

To prove a point. Timing was everything in the days before spray and pray high fps shooting. ;)

For the record, I've got tons of high fps sequence shots from my old 1D2N, 20D and 40D.

[amfoto1]

Hi,

There's certainly a time and place for it, but I've never been a big fan of "spray and pray" shooting. That certainly goes back to my film days.

Last Sunday I took 775 images at a horse show, including many of jumping and other fairly fast action. The show was fairly small, so the total number of images was about half what I've done in a day at larger events.

Both my cameras were set on single shot the entire day. It took me two days to properly edit and post-process all the images from the event and, in the end, I found had 461 "keepers". That's a little better than my usual 30 to 40% keeper rate.

A friend who came along for fun had her D200 set on whatever the highest "spray" speed is for that camera. Whenever I was close enough to hear, I noticed her camera's shutter rattling off as fast as it could every time a horse and rider approached a jump. I would really, really hate to still be sitting at a computer working through the several thousand images she must have shot!

That's one way of doing it and her prerogative, if she doesn't mind having all those images to plow through and wearing out her D-SLR's shutter in an amazingly short time! Whatever works for you, I say. Over the years I've shot alongside numerous others who've done the exact same thing.

Not for me, though! Id rather work to time my shots for the peak, whenever I can.

Sure, I miss plenty of shots. And I get my share of closed eyes. Or, I time some slightly too early, others just a little too late.

But, hey, even at 10 fps with shutter speed is set to 1/250 any "sprayer" is missing 240 "moments" every second! Higher shutter speeds equal even more "missed moments". The next step might be to just go get an HD digital movie camera and be done with it!

In fact, I work with several event organizers who've told me about photogs they won't hire again, who "sprayed and prayed" all day long and then posted 5000 images online for customers to edit themselves! I watched one of those particular photogs at work at a gymkhana last Spring. He had a Nikon D2HS or XS or whatever, tripod, a stool to sit on, and spent most of the day sitting in the same place and pressing the shutter for 8 or 10 frames every few seconds.

By the way, at a 5000/day shooting rate, a 40D's shutter is rated for - what? - about 20 event days? Heck, even a 1D Mk III's is rated for 60 events, at that rate per day! So, even though film would have been very pricey to shoot at high FPS, it's not like there isn't a real cost to constantly shooting high FPS with D-SLRs, too. Either plan on more frequent shutter replacements, or entire camera replacement.

Fill flash is another reason I tend not to use "spray and pray" techniques. No way a flash can keep up with those constant, high frame rates. I do use fill flash a lot... Probably in 80-90% of those 775 shots last Sunday.

Where I would (and do) use high FPS is when trying to catch a sequence, like the excellent example with the heron. Or, in really fast moving situations like motor sports, air shows or birds-in-flight.

[primoz]

Perfect example would be a baseball swing, tennis swing, or a receiver leaping and getting hit while catching a football....its kinda tough to perfectly time the shot because if the speed. By having 10fps you can capture the exact moment you want.
Wrong :) 10fps is way too little to have such shot for sure. Even with 10fps you still need to rely on your timing and not on camera. For this shot some 50 or 60fps would be ok (try to find baseball sample on RED (http://www.red.com)), but 10fps is definitely too little. Even on that sample at 60fps, they had only 1 or 2 shoots with ball on bat. Baseball or tennis are extremely fast when it comes to this, but even something like skiing (and speed is only between 80 and 100km/h) is too fast for 10fps (ok 8.5fps in this case):

http://www.photo.si/stuff/s_skiing_8fps.jpg

Perfect shoot is somewhere between frame #2 and frame #3. So even with something this "slow", you still can't rely just on camera.

But back to original question. Why? Because in some sports, you have just one chance to get photo. With skiing, you have only one chance and with single shot you end up with one photo. With 8 or 10fps, you end up with 3 or 4 shoots, so you have much more space on the end. But on the end, it's same even with some basketball. You have more shoots to choose from, and more chances your boss or client will be happy. It's not necessary for shooting sport, but it makes life a bit easier. And that's all what it is... have life with bit less stress :)

[Jon, The Elder]

It doesn't matter how good you are. one shot wont get you the ball in the right place and a players eyes open. the difference between eyes open and shut is mega and I say boo hoo to anyone who says they can capture the exact right moment with practice in the middle of a football/soccer match Luck yes.. but not every time.

The same goes for my venues of horse events. I've never had a customer buy a print and ask if it was one of a sequence.

For my kind of shooting, the "film Days" and all that it involved is ancient history. Hobby shooters will continue to extoll the advantages but I have yet to hear a sport shooter bemoan the features of digital.

[Zilly]

Why in single shot mode? Why not just leave the camera in multi-shot and take one picture -- and know that if you need to, you can rattle of 2, 3 or more?

this is how i shoot set up at 8.5fps just a gentle sqeeze gets you one shot but when it all gets interesting you have instant 8.5fps gives you the best of both worlds

[Gatorboy]

I think many people feel high FPS is just spray and pray -- for me, most of my shots are just single shots -- the first shot is the one I intend on capturing. However, I continue looking through the play, and may decide to press and hold to get the unexpected.

For example, a receiver is about to make the catch, I see the ball thrown by the quarterback, zero in on the intended receiver and snap the shot as the ball gets to him. Now, he may bobble, so, I start holding the shutter release to get either the amazing catch of the bobble, or the safety coming in to cream the guy. But generally, I'm just taking one-shot.

I never try and start shooting early, hoping that through the series I get a good one.

[Bosscat]

But, hey, even at 10 fps with shutter speed is set to 1/250 any "sprayer" is missing 240 "moments" every second! Higher shutter speeds equal even more "missed moments".

That doesn't make sense.