Sports Shooters: What's wrong with this article?

[emtp563]

Have a look at this article: http://www.pcphotomag.com/how-to/digital-photography-techniques/the-need-for-speed.html

Can you find any advice in this that you WOULD NOT give? I found a couple of things that I would not do when shooting sports. I'll post my list after a few of you read the article.

[Vetteography]

Funny, I was just reading that last night. The one big thing that stuck in my head is their suggestion to shoot in Jpeg.

[chauncey]

From reading your link and others from the same series of articles, I get the impression that they are written
for folks that are starting out in photography and are trying to learn what to do in a given situation.
Much like a lot of us within these pages.

To disect every treatise written is kinda an exercise in futility.

[In2Photos]

As chauncey mentions there is nothing really wrong with that article. It is a great starting point. Different sports can require different settings. For motorsports you might actually want slow shutter speeds for panning so shooting at 1/2000 won't work.

Often times it is said to use the largest aperture possible to isolate your subject. On a professional field you might be able to stop down to f/8 and still have a decent background. But if I shoot f/8 with a 70-200 on the fields where my games are held, you will see Porta-Potties, fences, people, cars, etc. So I typically have to shoot wide open. But if I were using a 500mm f/8 might not be a problem.

[Mike]

The main thing that I didn't agree with was the exposure bracketing. The rest seemed ok - as mentioned, the advice is for the newbs more than anything else.

It doesn't really clarify whether he's advocating using jpeg or raw but I'll always shoot jpegs for sport as it doesn't clog up the buffer/processor/memory card as much as raw does.

[bwolford]

I see nothing wrong with it because no article can be the ultimate reference or it would be too unwieldy and long to address every possibility.

For example, he doesn't write to use JPEG exclusively, merely mentions that some action shooters prefer it. Have you ever read the Sports Illustrated guidelines for a shoot? They want JPEG and have some counterintuitive setting requirements.

[DC Fan]

Different people have different styles and habits, but the recommendations in the story are good. More insight into those recommendations can be found by taking a careful look at the images on the web site of Barry Zeek, (http://www.barryzeek.com/) the photographer mentioned in the story.

The ISO suggestion is a good example of something that's needed in the real world. Several times in recent weeks, at a late model stock car race, a hydroplane event, an evening sprint car race and at a rain-swept road race, outdoor lighting has been less than brilliant and ISO 800 has been needed.

Angles also are very important. There was one spectacular location at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course last weekend where the cars were coming all but straight at the location, and it was nicely lit by the mid-afternoon sun and not backlit. At the hydroplane race, it look some driving to reach a turn where you got a good angle of the boats' roostertails in the corner.

[Ade H]

I am surprised that he suggests using shutter priority. I use manual with spot metering, checking it periodically from my chosen midpoint and only adjusting the values when conditions require it. I find that it avoids inconsistent readings from predominantly dark or light paint schemes filling the frame without having to apply EC, which isn't practical when subjects are passing by at speed. His recommendation of the 100-400mm is sensible: that's the lens that I regularly hire for motorsport.

[PhotosGuy]

I am surprised that he suggests using shutter priority I use manual... With exposure bracketing to CYA? I agree with you. Then there's Action photography requires setting the frame rate on your camera to rapid continuous capture. Requires?
Sounds to me like it's advice to a clueless newbie to try to insure that they get something, anything, from a race weekend.

[DC Fan]

With exposure bracketing to CYA? I agree with you. Then there's Action photography requires setting the frame rate on your camera to rapid continuous capture. Requires?
Sounds to me like it's advice to a clueless newbie to try to insure that they get something, anything, from a race weekend.

If your goal is to get a single art image of a racing vehicle, a single-shot approach will work. But if you're covering a race for a publication or a wire service, then you'll need to fire fast sequences of shots - because you can never know which of those images or groups of images will be important.

Greg Suvino, who was "stringing" as a photographer for the Associated Press at the Daytona 500 in 2001, has told the story of how he was placed in the fourth turn, saw a wreck developing on the last lap, shot a sequence of the crash and didn't think much of it until he saw the attention paid to a black No. 3. One of his sequence images of the Dale Earnhardt crash made the front page of USA Today. Another photographer, from the Orlando Sentinel, shot a sequence of the crash. Eight of the images from that sequence were reproduced in the paper and around the world.

The "something, anything" approach is part of the world of deadline work. It's not a weakness, it's what happens when delivering the key image is part of your job.

A couple of years ago, the AP ran a shot of Sam Hornish Jr's upside down and backwards slide after a practice crash at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. It was an imperfect image, clearly taken from well behind one of the track's massive fences, which was in the foreground of the image. A couple of days later, I met the guy who took that image and asked him about the framing, and he answered that the picture was the best he could do because of the fence. It wasn't a work of art, but it was the best available image, and AP ran with it.

Even when a working photographer isn't handling a sports or action assignment, it's not unusual for them to fire a burst of several shots, to make sure one works or to improve the chance of getting the best image. Dealing with the unexpected leads to that approach. And even then it's not guaranteed to get what a publication wants.

There have been stories on the way Sports Illustrated handles major events in the digital era, such as the Super Bowl or the NCAA Final Four. The magazine will have several editors who use a portable computer network to examine each of tens of thousands of shots from a dozen photographers. And still they won't get every image they want. A story on SI's coverage of a Final Four told how an editor badly wanted a picture of a triumphal player jumping on a courtside table - but none of SI's photographers got the shot. Another SI story told how the magazine had to buy a clear image of a key play late in a Super Bowl from a newspaper because SI's photographers didn't get a good angle of the play.

[Jannie]

I was one of about a hundred photographers at a Boeing event where a new and exciting plane was taking it's first takeoff. We had three cameras there in our group to grab one last shot for a commercial we'd been working on for Boeing, the spot was all edited and done but if we could get a good shot it would be on the air the next day.

The plane was to rotate at a point 3,500 feet down the runway and lift off. I was positioned perfectly as was one of our other photographers. The third guy just on a whim knew we had it kind of over covered and went way down to the end of the runway.

Airplanes are much more exciting to look at if they lift off coming toward you rather than going away from you. That last guy was the only one who got a decent shot, I swear the plane barely made it off the runway it went so long. Sometimes you've just got to go with your instincts and worry about the logic later.

[stathunter]

I do not see anything wrong with the article the info is pretty basic and applicable for the most part to what they are describing.