Advice needed on Sports photography

[casil403]

Hi All,
I am looking for some advice on shooting in a situation I have never done before.
In a couple of weeks, I am going to meet my friend in Penticton as he is doing the Ironman Canada. I am taking my photo equipment and hope to get some neat shots of athletes in action, particularly my friend while he is doing the race.
I have never done action photos to this magnitude before (the largest single swim start in all of North America(4000 competitors starting all at once)so I am hoping if anybody has any advice on how to go about this I would appreciate it.
I have a 70-300mm lens, the kit 18-55 lens, a wide angle and fish eye.
Should I look into renting perhaps a faster or longer lens?
I am hoping to try for some closeups of my pal if possible. I am not sure what are good shutter speeds I should be shooting at? What other settings should I be using? What kind of metering should I have on? Auto focus or Manual?
Should I be using fill in flash in here?
Any other tips anyone has on this and anything else you can think of please do share. I am hoping if I can get some good shots I can frame them and give them to him.

Much appreciated and many thanks,
Lisa

[Matt K.]

Casil, it all depends ..as with everything else. If you want to capture the action in a wide setting or in a detail, if you want to emphazise the "motion" and so on. I think that with the equipment you have you should be well stocked. Penticton should have enough sunlight to not have to rely on a faster lens entierly, unless you need to up your shutterspeed a lot to freeze the action. Then again, you can boost the ISO to some degree, and you know where your lenses are starting to get grainy.

You are a very experienced photographer, so I feel like: "here is the blind trying to teach the seeing." I find that with bird photography, for example, I have to rely on autofocus a lot, and the shutterspeed needs to be right up there if you want a sharp image. Most likely you will do some panning, and then high shutterspeed becomes a must.

Knowing you you will come up with images nobody else has thought off, meaning you will use the speed of the action to your advantage, one way or another. Can't wait to see the results.

[Greg_Nuspel]

I have shot my wife at a few marathons, and it isn't easy targeting one competitor since they can blend in so easy.

During the running section of the race it is great if you can place yourself at a point where the course doubles back on it's self, be it a loop or direct return. This way you can try to get the person the first time by, but you get a second chance as they return. I'd position myself on the outside corner of Winnipeg Street and Lakeshore Drive for the finish, you can catch him coming down Winnipeg Street and then go to the finish to capture that.

Cycling MA may have advice, I think he's done that before. Here I think you will most likely stay near the start finish of the route.

Swimming; nice helicopter shot of the start would work, oh oh student budget You are lucky the start and finish or the swim is close together, see map. The finish gives much better opportunity to get individual shots as people come out of the water and change for the next leg.

The finish line is great but what happens after the finish is even better from my experience. You see many great things and some sad when people finish, they have just given it their all and some will have the joy of the completion while other the heart break of not meeting a qualifying time, after all everyone wants to be qualified for Hawaii.

I have every confidence in your ability, go practise shooting people on the river pathway, you'll get cyclists and runners. The more to the side you are the faster your shutter has to be. Practise panning with the cyclist you can get real cool shots with background motion blur. Fast big lenses do get you to the front sometimes because people confuse you for a pro.

A little pre-planning will help have the maps on hand so you can adapt as the situation demands.

[Mad Aussie]

Yep, I've been official photographer for cycling and this sort of event (multi-sport events) before many times.

The first thing you need Casil is your confidence. Go find that ... shouldn't be hard to find if you look through your other work

I think you have an external flash from memory? If so, use that a lot. It makes a huge difference. Nothing worse than big shadows on peoples faces and that's commonplace because the athletes tend to run, ride with their heads down or while wearing helmets and hats. I use the high speed settings because I often shoot at shutter speeds of 400 or more ... even as high as 1500 at times.
A good controlled flash will show you the eyes even behind those coloured sunglasses too.

The tough part can be finding the right shutter speed and apertures when you are swinging around and shooting different scenes, clouds and sun keep coming over and changing, that sort of thing.
To beat this I usually use Shutter Priority. After all ... you want to control the shutter speed with sport depending on whether you want that water flicking off the swimmer frozen in time or you want to pan with the runner or bike rider to get that blurred background.

The lens you have will do fine. And the wide angle can certainly produce some cool shots as well. Flash with that lens will need to be set fairly light though as you'll be close to your subject.

I often use the drive settings also. By this I mean the AI Focus and AI Servo settings on the Canon. Can't remember your brand of camera but in case it's not Canon, these settings keep re-focusing if the subject is moving. I also only use a single AF point and try to get that point on my subjects eyes/face.

Some examples ...

Here's a shot at 320mm focal length using the external flash ... exif data here Exif | Aussie | Flickr - Photo Sharing! which shows I used Shutter Priority.



Wide Angle lens and flash ... looking at the shadows you can see his face would have been very shadowed without the flash


Another wide angle to show how the lens distortion can be cool and the flash gets in behind those glasses

[Iguanasan]

MA has some wonderful advice on gear and settings to which I can't really add. However, I will add something I've found when I've done some shooting at karate events. Know the sport. I know this is an Ironman which most people know what's going on, however, if you've never participated in one you may not have the understanding of where interesting things will happen. For me, knowing karate, I know when the subject is going to move into a particular position and so I set up the shot to capture that moment - I can anticipate the movement and pick the best times for a capture.

MA has a great shot of someone coming out of the water. I would suspect that as fast as they want to go, that's a great point to catch them since the water slows them down. The dive in might be a cool spot as well but how can you get from one spot to the other? Unless they are swimming in a circle? So, you need to get to know the route. Where do they start and where do they finish. Regardless of whatever else you capture, make sure you catch him coming across the finish line. Be there before him and set it up. You know generally where he'll be so you can manually focus and wait for him to cross the line.

[Iguanasan]

...snip...

I think you have an external flash from memory? If so, use that a lot. It makes a huge difference. Nothing worse than big shadows on peoples faces and that's commonplace because the athletes tend to run, ride with their heads down or while wearing helmets and hats. I use the high speed settings because I often shoot at shutter speeds of 400 or more ... even as high as 1500 at times.
A good controlled flash will show you the eyes even behind those coloured sunglasses too.

...snip...

Aren't you worried about blinding a competitor and making them trip or miss a turn or something?

[Richard]

This might be of interest,,,

8 Tips On How to Photograph Sports

[Mad Aussie]

Know the sport. I know this is an Ironman which most people know what's going on, however, if you've never participated in one you may not have the understanding of where interesting things will happen.

you need to get to know the route. Where do they start and where do they finish. Regardless of whatever else you capture, make sure you catch him coming across the finish line. Be there before him and set it up. You know generally where he'll be so you can manually focus and wait for him to cross the line.

Good points I didn't think of. But I do exactly that. I make sure I've got a course map and even go out a reccy the course if that's possible. Unless you can get close to the swimmers it's very hard to get a good shot. Even harder picking your mate out in the froth and crowd.

Aren't you worried about blinding a competitor and making them trip or miss a turn or something?

Nope ... they expect camera flashes. Some will joke about it ... "ahhh you blinded me" but not really ... and in the end ... whatever it takes to get the best shot when you want to sell them I don't use flash when animals are involved in sport though.

[Mad Aussie]

Just looking through Richards link and there's more I do but had forgotten.

I often use burst mode, but only if there's good reason to do so. Someone sliding around a corner on a bike for instance.

Shooting in JPG ... yep ... when using the flash it helps the camera and flash to keep up and the card to buffer better. And with so many photos taken, you pack more on a card. With sport, you're not usually after the advantages in processing that RAW brings anyhow.

I don't agree with the f2.8 tip though unless you really need it. I shoot almost all my sport on ISO 400 so rarely need f2.8 during the daylight hours.

[casil403]

Thanks so much guys for the advice and tips and kudos. Thanks too for the link Richard. I remember the swimmer shot MA and I loved it then as much I love it now.