Need help photographing tennis and baseball

[Jayson]

I have the opportunity this spring to do a little action photography. I have never taken these types of shots and am looking for some techniques. I will be shooting with an XSi and a 70-200 f4 IS. I was planning on using the centerpoint for the focus, but other than that, no clue. In addition to any tips you might have, would you use any type of filter with the lens to keep the sun at bay? I believe most of the time I will be shooting at 4:00pm and after. Thanks for any tips you may have.


Jayson

[Colin]

Make sure you have a lens hood.


I'd suggest going wide open f/4 in Av mode, and probably ISO in the 400-800 range, though take some test shots, and see what the camera comes up with shutter speed. I'd think you'd want in the range of at least 1/250 second, but would feel more comfortable 1/500 and faster.


Focus with AI servo mode, and you can just use center point if your aim is pretty good, though if you stray off a bit it may focus on the background, in which case you can use all focus points to take a shotgun approach. Just remember, in AI servo, it doesn't wait to focus to take the shot, so track the subject with a half squeeze for awhile, or just shoot in bursts,but either waytry to lead the moment with your finger at least partially squeezed down.

[David Selby]

Check out this little lesson I wrote on this topic





http://www.learnslr.com/canon-xsi-guide-faq/introduction-beginner/shooting-sports-with-xsi-450d/high-school-amateur-sports

[Colin]

Cool. Nice to know about the *, and I never thought about turning off the noise reduction.... does that make the camera go to the next frame faster, or just save processing power and keep the buffer from filling up sooner?

[David Selby]

camera reduces its FPS as the buffer is full, you will typically get 1 - 2 photos before the slow down occurs. You must disable the noise reduction in order to capture your shots quickly. Shooting JPG will allow the most shots to be taken without slow down, shooting raw allows flexibility to refine your photo after your shoot is over.

[Dallasphotog]

Great advice from the guys above, I'll add two items for baseball.


1) Consider bringing a small2-step ladder with your gear. I use one to get over outfield fences and shoot back into the action.


2) Don't be afraid to shoot through fencing. If the fence is close and the action is 60' away, the fence is so out of focus is disappears. For newspaper size enlargements, (4x6or smaller) it won't be visible at all.


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XTi, EF70-200MM F/2.8 @ 165MM, Av,F/2.8, ISO-400, 1/4000

[thunder]

It's hopeless to give what exact settings you should put your camera on.
I would suggest, you run at F/4 if the image quality is good enough. Then you do trail and error with shutterpriority (TV). I would guess, you have a shutter of 1/800 to 1/1000 to completely frezze every movement of the tennis player. I prefer tennis pictures, where the tennis player is frozen completly but movements from the tennis ball are visable. To get movements of the tennis ball, that's all about trail and error.

1) Use Shutterpriority (TV)
2) Adjust with ISO, until you get the "correct" shuttertime

Regarding what foucspoint to use, I would guess center or top. Depends how you would like to frame the picture. Keep focus on the head/eye, but remember to use autofocus on AI servo. I'm using 400D, but I get better image quality by using One Shot, but when the subject is moving AI servo would be the better choice. Try with different settings.
I don't have any strong opinion regarding to you filters. Under/over compensate if that's a problem

[Samwise]

While I only have two years of experience shooting sports, I should have some fairly useful advice because all of that experience has been behind and XTi for a year, and now an XSi for a year.


I've shot a fair amount of tennis with an XSi, and what I've found is that the 3.5 fps is simply too slow to be useful in getting the shot you want with the action as fast as in tennis. One solution is to sit there and just shoot a ton of sequences (hard to get many more than 3 off of a swing), the other is to shot in single shot mode and take single shots that you want the most. In the end, it's hard to capture action this fast without a faster camera, like a 40D. It takes practice an patience.

Here's a sequence of three off of my XSi and 75-300 (will be getting a 70-200 of some flavor asap)


Each image in this burst of 3 was shot at f/8, 1/500th, 135mm, ISO 400, Auto white balance, Evaluative metering, Av mode (you'll want f/4.0 on your 70-200, i just used f/8 because the IQ is so bad on the 75-300) and center AF point, AI-Servo, I also use C. FnIV setting 3 for thumb focusing, I find it much better for action photography, all of the pro sports photographers I've talked to use an AF on button on the back, and after using it for a while you'll see why. The battery grip is also a great asset for extended portrait orientation usage; consider buying one if you don't already have one.


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(Looking back, I should have puhsed to iso800 or went to f/5.6 to get
1/1000th of a second, as 1/1000 is almost necessary to fully stop
action. You wont have any issues getting 1/000th at f/4, unless it's
very cloudy. Frames 2 and 3 have some blur on the racket that I would have liked to have frozen.)


This was one of the better sequences I got that afternoon. As you can see, only one of the frames contains the ball; many of my bursts of three don't contain the ball at all. So I will often shoot tennis in single shot mode (which also allows me to shoot RAW since the RAW buffer is too small in the XSi to shoot RAW continuously effectively). With single shot I'll get the ball in every picture, where as I get the ball where I want it, if it's in the frame at all, in only about 1 in 5 images in burst mode Again, this sequence is not typical of one you should expect to get out of a 3.5 fps sequence.


About autofocus, I've had all sorts of backfocusing issues with the 75-300 on auto-select AF point, but I think that is mostly the lens's fault, so, if I were you, I would try both center and auto AF points. The 70-200 should be perfect for tennis and for baseball action coser than second base; I found myself wanting 400mm trying to get any action in the outfeild, so 70-200 is fine for the infeild. If at all possible, see if you can get in front of or around the fence, because it is definately a detriment to IQ, even though you can't actually see the fence in the pictures.


One important thing to keep in mind in the afternoon and morning is to make sure that your subject is not between you and the sun, seems obvious, but isn't usually the first thing on one's mind while shooting sports.


Best of luck to you shooting with the XSi, it's a challenge with sports (I can't wait until I can upgrade to the 40D, or maybe a used 1DII), but it's still fun.

[Colin]

I'm confused.


Aren't you supposed to hit the ball back to keep it from hitting the green area?

[Samwise]

I'm confused.


Aren't you supposed to hit the ball back to keep it from hitting the green area?
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This was at a practice, not an actual game, so hitting the ball was more important than scoring points.