Sports photography offers plenty of chances to get great action photos, but the chance to lose them is also big. When the action moves quickly in the kinds of sports like horse racing, hockey, rally, slalom, etc. A sports photographer should be fast and ready to click a button to shoot at any moment.

It goes without saying that a sports photographer should be familiar with the material of the coverage. To make the best shots, you should know the rules of the sport, players, and teams. This will help to understand who to follow and predict dramatic moments.

Sports News reading, watching live games, and following teams and athletes on social media, is what professionals recommend to become a successful sports photographer. Especially if you want to learn everything you can to be an expert in the sport you shoot.

But the best way to become a guru in any sphere is to practice a lot and gain new ideas of marvelous pics. Let's look at 4 steps that will be helpful during your practice.

Easy Steps to Use in Sports Photography

Freeze the Action

One of the most important factors to consider at first is your shutter speed. To shoot a great action, you'll need to use a fast shutter speed to make your subject freeze.

The originally recommended shutter speed is 1/500 and above. This speed depends on the kind of action you shoot: how fast a subject is moving, how much light is there.

Prefocusing

When you shoot sports events it's very important to have your camera set up beforehand. As it was mentioned above, you should be ready to react fast, so it's better to prepare all the settings of your camera and prefocus in order not to miss action.

Autofocus

To shoot sports events, you should choose the autofocus mode. Mainly, there are 2 modes: Single One shot/One shot autofocus, or continuous autofocus.

Single autofocus works best in action shots for which you're prefocusing, for example, you can focus on the bandy in hockey.

However, many action photos can happen without prefocusing. In this case, you can use continuous autofocus mode. This mode will adjust the focus on the moving subject. It's also known as predictable mode, as it puts the focus on where it believes the subject will appear after a split-second delay and the shutter opens the camera.

Panning

Panning stands for moving your camera with the movement of the subject. The result will be a very sharp subject and a blurred background. This will help you to show the real motion.

To achieve such a result, you should use a slower shutter speed between 1/60 and 1/80.

Interestingly, if the subject is moving towards you, you will have a shot with an illusion of an “exploding” action.

Conclusion

Sports photography is more about experiments. Good shots depend on the amount of light, settings in your camera, and just your love of what you're doing. Following these steps will help you start making action photos with more joy and quality.