Beginner needs help with Sport photography

[Fairfaxthunder]

Hello,

I am looking for assistance to make my sports photography better. I am a beginner trying to improve my shots of our children playing sports.

Equipment: NIKON D700, AF-S NIKKOR 18-200mm zoom lens. Sometimes I use the NIKON DX 18-55mm zoom lens.
Settings: I use the Sports SCENE and AF-A mode and single focus point. (is this best??)

Problem: I cannot seem to focus on what I want to. I often get pics where the subject I am clearly trying to capture is blurry but the background is focused. If you have this camera and have preferred settings and want to share your experiences that would be great. I added a couple pics where the subjects are or are not in focus. On each one I had time for the camera to focus, and I had my single point focused on the subject but it still picked up the background. This seems to be happening on most of my shots.

 

[Strodav]

You might try AF-C mode and small area instead of single point. This allows the camera to constantly refocus with moving subjects. Nikon cameras tend to focus on the thing closest to the lens within the focus area. When the action gets fast, it's hard to hold the single point focus, so small area seems to work better for me. You want to try and blur the background as much as possible, so try a wide open aperture.

I set my D500 to manual, aperture wide open, shutter speed around 1/500sec, auto ISO, AF-C, 9 focus points. I use a 70-200mm f/2.8 wide open.

 

[smoke665]

AF-C mode as mentioned above. Shutter Priority (TV) with 1/500 or above (light permitting). Use your EC button to adjust exposure as required. This let's you compose, shoot and adjust on the fly.

 

[Fairfaxthunder]

All very helpful advice. I will try it all next Saturday and post my results.

Thank you very much.

 

[Original katomi]

If you can use manual focus, with practice you can pick your focus point and be spot on each time.
I find my auto focus will try and pick the focal point and not where i want
hope this helps

 

[Don Fischer]

Thing I miss about my old Nikon FG film camera is the way it focused. Focus point was right in the middle of the frame and everything was focused there. Then holding the shutter at half cock move the camera to the shot you want and the focus didn't change. I don't have a clue how they work on my D7000! Never really know where they are going to come up in the view finder! Somehow it seems to work most the time though!

 

[ac12]

With SINGLE POINT focus. Close does NOT count. You have to put the AF point ON the subject.
With a dSLR, the problem is, the AF sensor may not be EXACTLY where the marker on the viewfinder is. You need to experiment to find out exactly where it is.

On my Nikon Sport Scene and SINGLE POINT AF is NOT available.
Sport scene uses area/zone AF, NOT single point AF.

 

[ACS64]

Without your EXIF data we're all just guessing. We really don't know what "Sports Mode" is doing to your settings. A smaller aperture does ease the job of the auto focus system. Even though you have a relatively old sensor it is full frame so you could use ISO 800-1600 if you need to get your shutter speeds into correct range.

 

[JoeW]

I assume you're talking soccer (given the examples). Soccer is tough to shoot until you get some specific techniques down. When you're on the end line (ie: by a goal) and players are moving either towards you or away from you, that's really tough to focus. Do NOT use the "Sport" mode--it's basically just setting your camera on "automatic" (except the camera tweaks the settings). And the problem with a very mobile sport (like soccer or hockey or lacrosse), is the sport setting will mostly fail.

Try going to a practice and shooting the practice so YOU can practice. Additionally, start by trying to key on plays/action where you can anticipate what is going to happen. For instance, a corner kick--you know someone is going to put it in play from the corner flag and they're going to try and cross it in front of goal. So you can pre-focus on the players in front of goal. Or on the player putting the ball in play. Same with restarts/dead-ball situations (like free kicks, goal kicks, throw-ins).

Totally agree with the single point focus. Additionally, once you get better at managing the composition and basic focusing issues (like shutter speed and staying in focus), you'll ultimately want to shoot with Aperture setting (so the foreground and background is blurred.

Here's are a couple of examples: 2 from a USWNT practice, 1 from a professional men's match, and 1 from a youth match. For the youth player, I was shooting in daylight at ISO 1600, 1/8000th of a second, and 200mm. I shot all of them on aperture priority, single point focus, Nikon body. I had to crop all of these and do screen captures to get them to fit on TPF so forgive the composition--it is off from the original in each case.

 

[The Reverend Floater]

A few things:

I keep my Sony SS around 500-800.

I like my aperture fairly open because there's almost always going to be background noise in field sports.



Zoom way out until you have your subject and have some idea if where they're going, then gradually zoom in.

Know that you can always crop later, so shoot wider than you'd think.

Try to pay attention to the game as much as you can. As an example, if you see a wing flying up the sideline, take a gamble and focus on them. That way you're not chasing the shot after they receive the ball.



If you can, sitting in the goal line makes for some good angles.