Sports photography tips [A85]

[gnarly]

Hi all,

I recently got myself a Powershot A85 - and thus far I'm enjoying messing with it.

I tend to do a fair bit of mountain biking, and want to be able to take decent pictures of my friends blatting past me at ludicrous speed.

I had a go at it today - you can see some of the results in my gallery (http://************/44783), in particular Leckhampton005.jpg (http://thinkdrastic.net/gallery/06%20Nov%202004%20-%20Leckhampton%20Hill%20%5BOlly,%20Brett,%20Nick,% 20Alex,%20Matt%5D/Leckhampton005.jpg) and Leckhampton012.jpg (http://thinkdrastic.net/gallery/06%20Nov%202004%20-%20Leckhampton%20Hill%20%5BOlly,%20Brett,%20Nick,% 20Alex,%20Matt%5D/Leckhampton012.jpg) (note that these've been through Photoshop's save for web so the quality might not be perfect).

The light was verging on non-existent, and this was my first attempt at this sort of thing.

I flipped the camera to 'sport mode', then fixed the focus on a tree about the right distance away (auto-focus, then press down on the 4-way pad). I then moved to the right place, half-pressed the shutter button and tracked the rider, taking the shot when they were in roughly the right place. I wasn't using the flash.

Only a couple of them came out at all well (is this normal?), and even then they were very blurry.

Can anybody give me some tips on improving this sort of shot?

[Ogrt48]

The blur is most likely from camera shake and a slow shutter speed. You'll need something like 1/200 atleast. This camera isn't good for sports anyways..

[Moppie]

Yeah the A series cameras are really bad for sports photography :roll: :roll: :roll:

I took these with my A80,

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v31/Moppie/IMG_3922retouched.jpg

this was published in a local paper,

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v31/Moppie/IMG_0930adjustedforweb.jpg



gnarly The key is practice.
Lots and lots of practice.

But note that anthing below about 1/200th shutter speed will result in a blown out sky in bright sunlight. Even at F8. The photo of the blokart above is 1/125th at F:8 at about 5pm in mid winter, so its early dusk and even then the high lights are blown out.
Im going to try a Neutral density filter on mine today to see how much I can stop it down with out blowing out the high lights.

To get good motion blur tracking a subject you need to use a shutter speed of about 1/40-1/100th of a second. Clearly the slower it is the more blur, but the higher the chance you will not get a sharp subject.
I find locking my legs and tracking the subject rotating from my hips up works best.
Also being further away means you track slower which minimises shake, but requires a longer shutter speed, while being closer is the opposite.
(Closer can also mean zoomed in further, although with only a 3x zoom its not that noticable).

To best control the shutter speed put the camera in Manual "M" on the mode dail. Use the lowest ISO setting the light will allow, preferably ISO 50 in daylight, and maybe 100 towards evening or early morning.
You will also have to set the apature, start by setting the Shutter speed to about 1/50th and the Apature to F:8. Then use the histogram to adjust accordingly. Bring down the apature number if the image is to dark, or increase the shutter speed if its to light. In bright sunny conditions you may have to settle for either a blown out sky, or no motion blur in the back ground.
However, I tried my ND4 Filter this afternoon, and I got down to 1/30th @ F:8 with only minimal over exposure. And it was in bright sunlight.
All I need now is some way to attach it with out useing tape :oops:

If you find M mode to tricky to deal with then get some more practice with it. In fact get lots of practice with it, try and spend a whole day shooting useing only Manual.
But, also use Shutter and Appature priority. These let you set one, and the camera will set the other. So you can set a shutter speed to get the effect you want, and the camera will choose a suitable apature.
Simply by taking mental note of what apature is used with what shutter speed in what light conditions you will soon learn the relationship between the two, and have no trouble setting both with out the cameras help.

Also make use of the manual focus lock.
Point the camera at something the same distance away, half press the shutter button then press the MF/macro button, its "down" on the mutli-directional button. This will lock the focus for all subsequent shots

And of course, again, practice your tracking. Its not easy to get a smooth motion with a complete follow though while pressing the shutter button.

[gnarly]

Thanks very much for your help Moppie :-)

I already knew about the manual focus lock (my housemate has the A80, so he's told me about a couple of things), and I started playing with the various manual settings today.

Do you have any tips specifically for really dull grey weather like we're having over here at the moment?

Cheers,


Olly.

[Moppie]

\

Do you have any tips specifically for really dull grey weather like we're having over here at the moment?

Cheers,


Olly.


Yip, stay inside and eat Chips :D


It depends on what you want to photograph?
It will be great weather for action shots of the mountian bikes as you will be able to use a slow shutter speed, and a wide apature to get some shallow depth of field (although the A80 is limited in its DOF).


Theres also a thread in the Critque section I think about dealing with grey overcast british weather.

[gnarly]

Mmmm, chips :o)

Thanks for your help!