Composition for action shots?

I've been taking mostly dance photos lately, and it has brought the idea of composition to mind. It's a little hard to set up a shot prior to taking it as "Hold her in the air at arm's length for a couple seconds while I move to get a better shot, oh, and you other people dancing move out of the way too" doesn't really go over all that well. I assume there are similar challenges in sports photography too.

If anyone has any tips about what to focus on or shoot for (I'm punny...) with framing, I'd really appreciate it. I'm okay on timing things (I'm a dancer too, so it's easy to feel the music and get ready), but I'm not really feeling much for framing yet, and I have noticed in a clinch I tend to just frame my subject in the center and shoot.

One tip regarding how we "see" movement in still photos:

- Don't frame a moving subject dead center. Moving subjects should be framed (either by shooting or cropping) with a little extra room for them to move into. This is also known as "Lead Space" or "Look Space" and is also applicable to portrait photography as well.

Not saying you have to have them hard up against the right edge if they're moving from right to left but shoot/crop the subject just a bit off center.

Agree with what FlyingPhotog said. Action shots most often do not look right if they are framed dead center. They look even worse if say a football player is runing from the left to the right of the frame and you have him all the way to the right of the frame.

This DOES work in some situations. Take the same football player who is all the way at the right mostly, and put another player diving towards him trying to tackle coming from the left side - that works. It's all situational and takes practice.

Until you get good at it, I suggest leaving some extra space so that you can crop to posisiton as needed.

Also it is very very difficult to get a tightly-cropped, in-camera shot of someone who is doing something very quickly in sports. You have to get a lot of practice in for that so be sure to leave enough room around the subject for error. And crop later.

Another especially in a performance where they repeat the dance from practice to show, (unlike sports action shots) watch the rehearsal be aware of what the big moves are and plan accordingly. If you take notes and refer back you will know what end of the stage to be on or the best angle for an upcoming move. This should greatly enhance your chances of getting that WOW shot. In sports its best to watch the team work out identify the players with flair and concentrate on them.

No reason to get fancy or involved. Just point the lens in the right direction and push the shutter button.

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Awesome, thanks guys =)

I shoot non-professional swing stuff (Lindy, Balboa, Blues mainly), so it's highly improv and on occasion highly...er...fast. The other challenging bit is lighting is usually intentionally sub-optimal; still trying to figure out that part, though NOT having my tamron 28-75 this last weekend made me realize how wonderful f/2.8 is compared to a 3.5-5.6 zoom.

FatCat0 wrote in post #9153327
Awesome, thanks guys =)

I shoot non-professional swing stuff (Lindy, Balboa, Blues mainly), so it's highly improv and on occasion highly...er...fast. The other challenging bit is lighting is usually intentionally sub-optimal; still trying to figure out that part, though NOT having my tamron 28-75 this last weekend made me realize how wonderful f/2.8 is compared to a 3.5-5.6 zoom.

Don't be afraid to experiment by allowing the dancers to blur.

Put the camera on a tripod so the surroundings are clear and sharp and let them dance their brains out at 1/4 second, 1/2 second, full second or even longer!

I bet you get something really cool...

I agree it's much harder to get proper composition when shooting someone coming at you at 100km/h, as when shooting still landscapes. But nevertheless even this is possible, and personally I think sport photos without proper composition are crap. Ok maybe I look on this a bit too much from my perspective (sport shooting is my job afterall), but even for hobby shooters, I think they need to think about composition too, not just catching right moment.
But then again, right moment and composition are quite related in sport photography. Normally right moment gives you lot of help with proper composition already. But main thing is knowing sport, how they move, what they do, and most importantly, what you can expect next second or next 1/1000th of a second. This way you can predict what will be at time you will actually press shutter. And this way, you can set your camera so, you don't really need to think about composition anymore when it comes to that short moment, when you will actually press shutter.
Main point with this is choosing proper af point. This is main thing, where most of people make mistakes. Sticking to center af point is perfect way to make horrible composition. If you can expect what athletes will do, you can set af point so, that you will have wanted composition, and this way, you really just press shutter at right moment, and composition is there already.
So my main tip is, to predict what will happen, to picture your wanted photo in your mind, set af point so, that you will have wanted photo, and when time comes, just press shutter. And lots and lots of training helps

Are you shooting practice, or during an event? If practice, look for the background first & on the 2nd run through, move your feet to get the shot against that background. Since you know the "art", maybe suggest that they start at another point so that the peak action occurs where you want it to be.
If an event, go to the dress rehearsal & make a shot list. The guys who shoot for TV all have one so that they know what's coming next. You should too, & again, move your feet to get where you need to be. This stuff ain't rocket science?

It's neither really, again it's not anything professional it's social dancing, and I'm not shooting it as an official photographer or anything like that, just for fun and memories.