Picking the Point and Moment
Photographers have to be ready and in position to get good action pictures, even with the most advanced DSLRs. Some subjects let you wait for them to enter the picture, like the jumpers in the head-on and 45-degree angle position. This situation, as with the rider coming toward the jump, allows you to set the focus and composition before the subject appears.
Other situations require that you track the subject’s movement, adjusting focus and composition as needed until the picture “comes together” and you release the shutter. The three soccer players seen in the image below were moving at almost a 45-degree angle, and were about 50 feet away.
I was using my camera’s continuous-focus capability, and keeping the active point on the player with the ball. As they moved I adjusted my body to keep the players properly composed and in focus in the viewfinder. The 80-200mm zoom let me adjust the focal length to expand the angle of view as they moved closer. The exposure was 1/1250th of a second at f/5. 1/1500th of second would have let me freeze the players, but they were not the fastest object in the picture. When the ball is kicked hard, it can be traveling many times faster than a runner. Also, the action was moving back and forth. So I selected a speed that ensured that all the elements would be motionless. Another advantage to a fast speed is a small f/stop, which reduces the depth of field. A blurred background is less distracting if the main subject is in sharp focus. Notice how there is open space to the left of the frame? While we want to focus the composition on the action, we also leave room for the implied movement. The players are all moving in that direction. If the frame were cropped right next to them, it would have visually constrained the action. The same basic principle is applied in this image:
Here the soccer players have all come together as the ball moves from a head shot. The principal point of focus, both of the players and the composition, is the ball. The photographer has no control over the action in sports photography. That means we have to allow enough room in the frame to crop for good composition. That’s easier with a zoom, especially if you are able to position the camera so that the majority of the action takes place in the middle portion of the zoom’s range. Another trick is to adjust the exposure (if possible) to have the lens closed down about two stops. This is generally the sharpest aperture in most lens designs. It offers the best contrast and resolution with a minimum of optical distortion. Using a lens shade to reduce glare is also a good habit.
The ball and players in the image you saw didn’t require a faster shutter speed than the 1/1250th of a second I used; that’s because the players had almost stopped forward movement, and the ball was nearing the top of its arc and slowing before dropping back down. The TriCoast image shown here:
makes use of the same principle to produce an interesting composition of a bridegroom and his friends.
Panning for Pictures
When a fast-moving subject is traveling perpendicular to the camera, it’s often impossible to capture its picture if we wait for it to enter the frame. That’s when we have to track the subject by panning the camera. Panning is when we move the camera to keep the image of a moving subject in one position in the viewfinder. I usually try to allow some extra room on either side of the composition and keep the object centered in the viewfinder. This technique requires a high shutter speed if you want to keep the background from blurring. Sometimes a photographer deliberately uses a shutter speed slow enough to blur the background to indicate motion. If available, a tripod really helps. If not, I turn my whole torso and both arms, rather than just head, neck and arms. This picture shows the Blue Angels in tight formation. Gary Todoroff used a shutter speed of 1/4000th of a second. The clouds were added later in Photoshop.
Panning was the same technique Johan Aucamp used to capture the beating wings of the bird in flight in the picture below. The shutter speed was 1/2500th of a second at f/5.6 with a lens equal to an 850mm on a full-frame camera. It takes practice and a good understanding of your camera’s focusing system to obtain high-quality results. Birds are a great way to practice these skills. Isolate one bird and track it by panning. As a self-assignment, vary the shutter speed, focus methods, and work on developing a smooth panning motion and a gentle release of the button.
Panning can be used with slower subjects, and it isn’t limited to perpendicular movement. I used it in the soccer pictures. Geoff Cronje’s image of the rower combines panning with timing to create a composition that combines the lines of the boat, the oar, and the water, and adds the splash as the oar breaks the surface.
