Photography Settings For Sports Action
A question I get all the time is what type of settings should be used to capture sports action.
It is a pretty broad topic because different sports and different playing levels have different speeds you will want to utilize.
First off, I generally use f/2.8 lenses and I usually use these wide open. That means, I set my aperture first at f/2.8 and leave it there. I will sometimes stop it down to 3.2 or 3.5 during a day guy just because there is a slight bit more in focus and images will tend to be a little sharper without giving up the nice blur in the background.
The next important thing is to think about is the shutter speed, which is what most people want to know. With youth sports, you can often get away with freezing the hands and feet at 1/500th of a second. For NCAA and Pro sports, I generally try to use at least 1/800th, but will more often be at 1/1000th or 1/1250th if the light allows me to be. On a sunny day, I will often be above 1/2000th.
Now at 1/800th and f/2.8, I have two sides of my exposure. I need to dial in the ISO to balance the exposure. I have my cameras set up to only change ISO in full stops. So 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200 and 6400. If you are in the area above 3200, you might want to dial in the 1/3 stops because each 1/3rd will probably noticeably increase your noise or grain in your image.
So a night game will usually have me at 3200 or 6400ISO to go with 1/800 and f/2.8, but that will vary a great deal based on where you are shooting. In the daylight, I might be at 1/4000th at 2.8 and ISO 200.
Since I am setting up all my individual settings, I do shoot in manual mode. I like to have complete control. The main place this is annoying is when it is partly cloudy or the set up of the stadium makes for strange shadows across the field.
What you can see from the Myles Garrett photo is that the area behind him is completely shadow. That will be significantly darker than him — standing in the sun. If you shoot in aperture priority or shutter priority or any automatic mode, that dark area behind your subject can easily fool the camera into overexposing your subject, ruining the photo. That’s why I stay in manual mode.
What can happen is that your subject will go from sun to shadow and you will overexpose. I will do test metering in both areas and know about how many clicks I need to make. Then if they are in the sun and might go to shadow, I will up my ISO a little (maybe to 800) and bring my shutter speed all the way up to 1/8000th. Then if they are going into the shadow, I know to bring my shutter speed down to about 1/2000 or 1/2500. After practicing, you get a feel of how many clicks with your thumb that is and you can quickly and easily make that change during the play.
The other thing to worry with is white balance. I always set a manual white balance, and I always shoot in RAW format, so I can adjust it easily in post. I tend to like my football photos a little warmer for that fall look so in daylight, I often shoot them at 6200 Kelvin.
Shadows are much bluer and that can run up to 10,0000 Kelvin. I don’t often change my Kelvin temp. I mainly focus on exposure during the game. For a sunset game, I might change it once per quarter and I just know that I will have to keep adjusting it throughout the game in post because it will be constantly changing throughout the night.
For indoor sports, there is literally no reason to shoot in any mode other than manual. I would also take a grey card or color checker to get your white balance right and dial it in. That will save you a ton of time in the long run to not have to change it. Also, the court is going to be brighter than the seats behind them, often by 2 or 3 times as much light. That is going to confuse your camera. Also, shooting it in manual will keep all the output images very consistent throughout.
My main gear for field sports (such as football, baseball, soccer:)
Cameras:
2x Nikon D4(link to the D5, as it has replaced my model, but I love my D4!)
Lenses:
Nikon 400mm 2.8 I usually have this on my D4, but switch some with the D500
Nikon 70–200mm 2.8 I usually have this on my D500.
Nikon 50mm 1.8 (I will use this on a third camera as a “Oh NO! The play is right on top of me!”) camera.
Nikon 24–120mm f4 (General lens for pre/post game. Not used much during game)
Nikon 14–24mm f2.8 Stadium wide shots and sometimes a unique view. Not used often.
Gitzo GM5541 Monopod This never leaves my 400mm
Black Rapid Dual Camera Harness This holds my 2 cameras that aren’t on my 400 2.8
3x Lexar 128GB XQD Cards Both D4s and the D500 take this great card.
Lexar 64GB SD Card Backup card that never leaves my D500
Lexar 64GB CF Card Backup card that never leaves my D4s
Think Tank Airport Security — Yes, all this fits inside!
Sony XQD Card Reader — I really like this thin reader for travel and at games.
Lexar XQD Card Reader — My backup reader. A little thicker, but both are great. It also goes with my card reader hub on my backup station.
I also recommend:
Nikon 200–500mm 5.6 — if you are mainly shooting daytime games, this is a great budget choice. It is on my wish list to buy someday. I would pair it with a D500 or a used D4. Both the new D500 and used D4 cost about the same.
