Digital Photography Course: How to take good sport pictures!

This is one of those things I had a really hard time with, actually I didn't manage to do it myself. The way I learned to take those beautiful sport pictures was through a special digital photography course with the main focus on sports photagraphy. The course even teaches you how to make some money from it!

I guess you all have seen those wonderful sport pictures in a sports magazine or on the internet, how they capture every detail of the moment. Usually you can see the sweat drip and every single drop in water splashes is as clear as crystal. I just love those pictures, showing long jumpers in the middle of the air, divers run through the water surface and javelin throwers letting go of the spear.

The only thing is, these kinds of pictures are the single most difficult to take. Except all technical difficulties you often stand on a greater distance witch make the photo shoot enormously hard. I'm not telling you it's impossible, you just need the proper knowledge.

The first thing we have to deal with is the distance. It's very hard to take sport pictures with high quality if you have to zoom in, so get as close to the action as you possibly can. Unless you have a good telephoto lens, which of course is the ultimate sport photography equipment.

The more you know about the sport you're currently shooting the easier it gets. Just keep your eyes open, read about the sport, watch it on television and when you do so try to localize the best spots to take your pictures from. You should find those places with the most "action" nearby. The good spots are probably quite easy to find since this is where all the other photographers will be.

Timing, timing and timing, this is what sports photography is really about. You need to be in the right spot at the right time. You need to push the shutter milliseconds before the action, otherwise you will miss it. It's really hard in the beginning to know how long before the action you need to press the trigger.

Try pressing the shutter half way down, I will make your camera focus and set exposure, and when the action comes take the picture. This will make your camera ready for the shoot and you don't have to wait anything.

This part can be quite tricky, capturing the motive crisp clear in the middle of an action but still be able to see the speed and the movement. If you for example are shooting runners or racecars you don't want them to appear to be standing still. What you are looking for is the perfect picture where the runner is in focus and as clear as water and the background is a bit blurry. The blurry background will help getting the impression of a fast moving runner or racecar.

To create this effect you need to slow down your shutter speed a bit (not too much) and follow the motive with your camera, also called panning. The hard thing is to move your camera in a even speed to keep the target in the same position in frame.

Panning the camera with the motive will make the background a bit blurry and help the impression of movement.

As I said in the beginning of the text, it's really hard to take good sport pictures. The best way to ensure that you end up with some good pictures is to take a LOT! If you, at the end of the day, have taken around 200 pictures and find that 5-6 of these are what you are looking for you should be happy.

If you have a camera with the function of taking a number of photos in a row, use it. You'll greatly increase your chances of getting good pictures.

• Try to get as close to the action as possible.
• If necessary have a good telephoto lens with you.
• Know the sport, you should know where the action takes place.
• Hold the shutter halfway down to be ready.
• Press the shutter milliseconds before the action.
• When shooting moving motives use "panning" to get the feeling of movement in your pictures.
• Take a lot of pictures!