Lesson 1c. Backgrounds

Another important aspect of sports photography is backgrounds. Though you can not always control where you get to shoot from, and as I stated in my last lesson the position of the sun has to be considered as well, you always want to try and shoot from the spot that gives you the cleanest backgrounds. Also, shooting sports is usually done at the lowest possible apertures to get the most background blur. Most sports photographers live at or around f/2.8 or lower whenever possible. The right combo of clean backgrounds and low apertures give sports shots that unique look.

What I mean by clean is a background that is relatively free of objects that can distract the viewer from the subject of a picture, or compete for the viewers eye. Here is a shot with one of the worst backgrounds you could get.

The row of porto-potties is distracting, and not a very pleasing aesthetic. Clever cropping can sometimes help, but generally you would want to re-position yourself so that the potties are out of the picture!

As I mentioned earlier, shooting around the lowest aperture possible helps with backgrounds as well. Lower apertures can really blur out a background making the subject of the picture really stand out. Shooting at higher apertures can cause the background to remain in focus and be distracting to the viewer.

Here is a shot taken at f/7.0 As you can see, the background has remained in fairly sharp focus, making the shot very busy and distracting.

Shooting with a low aperture is not always enough to guarantee a good background blur. The distance between you, your subject, and the background plays an important role as well.

In the above diagram, we see a photographer, and subjects at different distances from the photographer and the background. At a suitable low aperture, Object A is in a relatively good spot. Object A is relatively close to the photographer, and relatively far from the background. Here is the typical result of this scenario.

Though there is a lot going on in the background, because it is so far from the subject, the low aperture has blurred it out and it is not very distracting.

In the diagram, the photographer is a lot further away from Object B. Object B is also a lot closer to the background. When this happens, even a low aperture can not save you from a background in focus, and a distracting picture. Here is an example. This shot was taken at f/2.8, but the background is still in focus.

The receiver was across the field, so about 50 to 60 yards away from the photographer, but only about 10 yards in front of the players on the far sideline. There is nothing you can do in this scenario, other than possibly re-positioning yourself.

So, to re-cap; after taking the direction of the action, and the position of the sun into account, you now want to try and pick a spot that gives you the cleanest backgrounds possible. Shooting at a low aperture, and a clean background give the sports subject the isolation and full attention of the viewer.

Lesson 1b. Position of the Sun

As I mentioned briefly in my last post, the position of the sun can help determine the best place to shoot from when shooting outdoors.

Ideally, whenever you can, you want to put the sun at your back. This will typically put the most even light on your subject. See the below diagram.

As you see, position A has the sun behind, and is throwing the most light on a subject moving towards the position. Here is an example of a shot with the sun at your back and the subject moving towards you.

Now position B (Side lit) is not necessarily bad, but has a chance of putting a shadow over half your subject if the subject is moving towards you. Proper exposure can help, but if not exposed correctly you could end up with something like this.

Now, position C (back lit) can be one of the most challenging lighting situations to deal with outdoors. Shooting back lit can wreak havoc on exposure, and if not dealt with properly, the results can be less than desirable. Here is a typical example of what the camera likes to do when shooting back lit.

As you can see, the subject is very underexposed. When you shoot with the correct subject exposure, you tend to get something a little more like this.

Even with the proper manual exposure for the subject, I am not a fan of shooting back lit. The entire photo looks washed out and over bright. Sometimes you cant help where you have to shoot from, so learning to deal with proper exposure when shooting back lit is essential, but I recommend avoiding it whenever possible.

Next time I will cover backgrounds, and how to get the best and cleanest backgrounds.

lesson 1a. Where to stand

So, you have checked, and re-checked your camera settings. You have made sure your battery is charged, and you have plenty of compact flash (or SD, or whatever your camera takes) So now you want to know, where should I stand/sit?



Many venues have rules on where you are allowed to position yourself during play. The higher level the sport, the more rules and restrictions there are usually. But there are places to position yourself to get the most out of your shoot. If you are shooting for a specific team, this makes things a lot easier. Generally, you want to put yourself in a corner or in the end that your team is attacking.
As the team you are shooting is attacking to the right, positioning yourself in the corner or end will assure you the maximum amount of faces towards the camera and the most action. Shooting from the end, down the Field, also has the added benefit of reducing undesirable backgrounds.

Here is a shot from the corner of the soccer field shooting all the way across the field diagonally.

Because of the distance between the subjects and the background, shooting down the field has taken what would normally be a distracting background, and blurred it out quite nicely.

One other point I want to make. It seems obvious, but I want to stress positioning yourself in the direction your team is coming towards. Once the action is moving away from you, your shots become FAR less effective.

As you can see, the back shot is far less compelling.

Next time, I want to dig a little deeper into backgrounds, and how distance between you, the subject, and the background can dramatically change the effect of the picture. Also, how the position of the sun can help determine the best spot to shot from. Till next time...

Prologue: Pre shoot basics

Hello! Welcome to my blog, Sports Photography Basics.

I've wanted to do a blog for a long time, but I could never think of anything I considered worth my time writing, and your time reading. But while helping a friend who recently has gotten into sports photography, I decided to start this blog on sports photography basics.

Writing these tips down helps me to reinforce the concepts, and hopefully can help the new sports photographer pick up some tips as well. This blog will assume the reader has basic photography knowledge, and is familiar with basic photography terms.

Entry One I will call the prologue. The basic, basics of sports photography.

Before any shoot, whether indoor or outdoor, daylight or low light, I would always recommend you check, then double check all of your camera settings.

First, ISO. Many cameras do not display ISO information in the viewfinder, and if you shoot say a night football game on a Friday night, and then a Saturday matinee, it is easy to forget to change the to the appropriate ISO. A clue may be getting extremely high shutter speeds, even for daylight. 1/8000 shutter speeds can be a clue that you are at a high ISO and the ISO needs to be checked.

Another setting that could be a problem is White balance. I have set a custom white balance for basketball in a gym, then went to shoot football during the day without changing the white balance. I happened to pick that day to not shoot RAW (I will cover RAW in a later entry) so I spent a LOT of unnecessary Photoshop time tyring to make my images usable!

So the first thing I do before any shoot is check and double check my settings, ISO, white balance, battery life, compact flash... checking everything over gets you ready to have a great shoot!