Hello everyone. Yesterday it was the first time for me shooting sports. It was Volleyball. How the *** do professionals get solid photos with all the faces, people running around, athletes getting in your shot while you are focused on a subject, limited space etc? I took around 1300 photos. Only like 300 of them are usable. It was extremely tough anticipating the ball and trying to capture the action. And when I did… the faces… Oh my god. And not only that… it was women playing…you can imagine how many of the photos they will like. Some are pretty good athletic photos not gonna lie. And to my defense I had only one lens a 24-105 f/4. I am waiting for the new Sigma for Sony mount. I think it will help a lot. Anyway I would love some advice. Thank you.
Edit: By saying it was women I wasnt trying to be sexist at all. But my girlfriend was playing and when see saw the photos she would look at every minute detail of her body.
I shoot a lot of basketball and my hit rate is 10% on a good night.
Knowing the sport well really helps so you can anticipate the action. Knowing the players and their tendencies is also a huge help.
Start by trying to copy other people’s shots from volleyball then start finding your own style.
Have worked in sports photography for 10 years or so now! It takes a lot of practice, there’s a real art form in learning to follow the action and predict where the good photos are going to be. I would also argue it’s easier at a higher level. Pro athletes performing in well lit environment’s that are set up in a way for pro sports photographers to work produces better pictures much easier. Pro level gear makes the difference too, there’s a reason people spend tens of thousands on equipment. I think it’s a real issue with the industry that makes it hard to break through when starting out but that’s a whole other conversation!
Last biggest tip, don’t be afraid to crop in tight, its almost impossible to get clean action images in some sports but you can pick out clean pictures with a good crop!
I would agree with this. Well lit professional environments are a huge plus. High School Volleyball is almost definitely the worst lol. And you start to get to know where and when things happen.
Thank you very much for the tips!!! I guess yes gear here matters no matter what people say.
I shoot a lot of sports events and I use maybe 1-5% of shots taken
You largely start getting used to how things go and where the action is going to be. I was a wrestler in high school and my journalist friend was amazed that when I sat with him covering an event I could tell him a few seconds ahead of time what was going to happen in each match.
It’s the same when I shot basketball in college (awful). You know where the ball is going to be because it’s a lot of rote practiced activities for the athletes. When things go well, it’s predictable.
It’s the same when I shot basketball in college (awful). You know where the ball is going to be because it’s a lot of rote-practiced activities for the athletes. When things go well, it’s predictable.
Volleyball is really predictable, it’s the only team sport I will promise photos of each player ahead of time. Set up for the front row and you have a 1/3 chance of getting a hit each play, then move to set up for the back row and same 1/3 chance, and that’s if you’re just picking a player to focus on at random rather than trying to react.
I shoot with wide aperture prime lenses (40, 105, 200, 300) to get maximum light and background separation, which helps.
Professional sports photographers typically have sideline access or a dedicated press area where they only have a few people who might be walking in front of them.
You might find Jeff Cable’s blog here interesting. He does a lot of sports photography and shot the US olympics water polo team in Japan. It was a very interesting read to get his thoughts on how he managed to get some of his shots and the thought process that went into them.
Thank you very much. I will definetly check this out!!
Always think quality over quantity.
300 usable photos is a solid amount. When I started shooting sports, I felt like I HAD to have as many photos as possible of as many people as I could, that was until I got some advice from a seasoned sports photographer I knew and he told me that you’re the only person who a) sees/knows how many photos you took in total and b) gets to edit the good photos and delete the bad ones. This means that even if you only have one good shot of each player on the volleyball court, you’re the only one who’s going to know, and nobody is going to care if there’s a good shot of everyone.
The beauty of sports is that it’s highly repetitive more often than not, so you have hundreds of attempts to get the good shots. You’ll pick up bad shots at every event you shoot, even the best photographers do (you just don’t have the privilege of seeing them!).
I did sports photography for two summers. Mostly high school age kids. 300 decent shots out of 1300? That was probably my percentage too…
Depends on the gear. Having a lens with a better fstop means you can bum up the shutterspeed. Moving to on with more around f2 cpuld help. The max shutter speend of the camera alnd malx ISO work in to that to. I just watched a video on youtube sort of about this by simon d’Entremont. He breaks it down to almost an elementary level but is still useful.
Happy shooting
How does anyone do anything? Practice.
Not bad for your first time. It should get more comfortable as you build up your experience through repetition. By watching how the players move should help you anticipate what they’ll do in certain situations and know where to be and when to shoot.
Low-light action photography isn’t easy but it can be pretty rewarding when you get some good shots.
If you’re going to be shooting an entire game, don’t stress over someone getting in the way (unless they’re a ref) because another chance will come along soon enough.
late to the party and it looks like you got good advice, super fast lenses (f/2.8 or better), and IMO know the sport, It really helps, but also know your gear, what you can and cannot do. When I was active I’d be sitting with 30 other photographers and every. single. one. did a spray and pray. Well, almost. I didn’t, and the AP photographer didn’t either, but he’d show up, take 1-3 shots, edit them, upload, and leave. I mostly shot ice hockey and play/knew the game well enough that I didn’t have to spray and pray. I could take a few hundred photos and I’d keep more than 50% and my photos told the story of the game. Whether that’s 51% or 70% I can’t recall, it was 15 years ago and it varied from game to game some better than others, some worse. It was a lot of fun, met a lot of the hockey players I got to photo but it burned me out and I set the camera down for many, many years.
100% agree that the better you know the sport the better you can anticipate and the better you can shoot. I used to do university sports and shoot everything - I knew soccer extremely well and could be there and done in 5 minutes confidently, but every time I would have to shoot lacrosse or boxing or something it would be a nightmare the first time.
300 out of 1300 is huge, I shoot local events and have a 5% keep rate
For volleyball I learned to shoot with both eyes open, one in the viewfinder to focus and frame the shot and the other eye to watch the game and know when the ball was coming into the frame. It’s a weird experience, but it’s a skill you can learn. My hit rate increased dramatically once I learned how to do this. How said that, in college, back in the film days, my first two rolls of volleyball shots had no ball in any frame because by the time I saw the ball enter and press the trigger, the ball was gone.🤣🤣🤣
not only that… it was women playing
Curious as to why you edited your post to say you weren’t trying to be sexist instead of just deleting the sexist bit.