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Sports photography - part 2 of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

by Mike McNamee Published 01/08/2011

The importance of sports photography is emphasised by the number of competitions that it supports. This serves to showcase the inspiring work of the best practitioners and provides plenty of double-page spreads for magazines. Competition photography is slightly different to day-to-day sports work.

The moment is crucial, rather than the 'name' in the frame (although it never hurts to capture a big name doing what they do best!). The actions and expressions need to be tense, the composition tight and dynamic. A big crowd piled up as out-of-focus dots behind the action always helps, it shouts 'this was a big event, look at all those people!' Conversely the quiet, contemplative moments as athletes prepare for what might turn out to be the highlight of their lives are rarely short on drama.

Being part of this is a privilege that the photographer has, moments that are not always seen by the spectators, outside in the great arenas where dreams are made and crushed in equal measure.


Equipment
Lenses

All of the lenses in a manufacturer's line-up are likely to have been used in sport at some stage. Despite this there are three lens types which stand out as being more common: the 70-200 f2.8 zoom, the 300mm f2.8 and the 400mm f2.8*. They are popular with professionals despite the savage costs. The zoom is generally used at close quarters, most often on a spare camera body.

The telephotos are most frequently used on a monopod or hand-held; few people can hand-hold a 400mm f2.8 for the duration of a soccer match. The 300mm and 400mm lenses are often matched with a 1.4x or a 2x teleconverter which gives a usable aperture although some auto-focus features may be compromised. In all instances the aperture of f2.8 is favoured for dropping the background out of focus and for keeping going in low light.

For indoor sports, the 200mm f2 lenses are much admired.

*The lens choice will need to be matched to the chip size. By way of example, for field hockey, 300mm onto a full frame is about right, 400mm is too long unless you are situated well back from the lines. Thus a small chip with a 300mm lens is too long, at perhaps as much as 450mm equivalent. For a small chip camera a 70-200mm f2.8 zoom suddenly looms as an ideal combination, saving a bunch of money at the same time!

Almost all of our comments on lens size are judged against a full-frame chip.


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1st Published 01/08/2011
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