3.2. Portraits

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3.1. Action Photography

Everybody's seen those incredible high-speed action photos of athletes frozen in mid-leap. Without these shots (and the swimsuit photos), Sports Illustrated would be no thicker than a pamphlet.

Through a combination of careful positioning, focusing, lighting, and shutter-speed adjustments, this kind of photo is within your reach. As a handy bonus, mastering the frozen-action sports picture also means you've mastered frozen-action water splashes, frozen-action bird-in-flight shots, and frozen-action kid moments.


Tip: Don't get frustrated if, despite learning all of the following techniques, many of your pictures don't come out well. Sports photography produces lots of waste. Pros shoot dozens, sometimes hundreds, of frames just to get one good picture.In short, a very low good-to-bad ratio is par for the course in this kind of shooting. But what the heck? It isn't costing you anything, and one great shot can make the entire effort worthwhile.

3.1.1. Getting Close to the Action

If your digital camera has a zoom lens, it's probably a 3X zoom, meaning that it can magnify the scene three times. Unfortunately, if you're in the stands at the football game, hoping for action shots of an individual player, 3X is not powerful enough. What you really need is one of those enormous , bazooka-like telephoto lenses that protrude three feet in front of the camera (see Figure 3-1).

Figure 3-1. If action photography is going to be a regular part of your shooting, consider a digital camera with an 8X zoom or greater. Better yet, look into digital SLR (single-lens reflex) cameras (DSLRs), which can accommodate a telephoto lens. This shot, for example, was captured with a 200mm lens on a DSLR.


But that doesn't mean you can't still capture good shots. Find a position on the sidelines that puts you as close to the action as possible. Zoom in with your camera and then use the trick shown in Figure 3-2.

If it's a bright, sunny day, the standard "automatic everything" setting of the camera might work just fine. Take a few sample shots, trying to get the action as it's coming at you.


Tip: If you still can't fill the frame with the action you want, consider turning on the camera's digital zoom. As noted in Chapter 1, you should avoid using the digital zoom most of the time, because it compromises image quality.Still, at low levels (2X or 3X, for example), the deterioration in image quality might be tolerable. Experimenting with this feature might be worthwhile when covering a spectator sport, for instance.

Figure 3-2. You might not be able to afford a digital SLR with a $10,000 super-telephoto lens attachment. But if you have a 4-megapixel camera or an even better one, here's a way to "zoom in" on the action.
Shoot at your camera's highest resolution ”zoomed in as much as you can (top). Once the picture is in iPhoto, you can "zoom in" even further by cropping the portion of the picture you want to keep. Thanks to the high resolution of the original photo, you'll still have enough pixels to make a nice print or slideshow, and the photo is much more effective this way (bottom).


3.1.2. Fast Shutter Speeds

If the results are blurry because the motion is too fast, you'll have to instruct the camera to use a faster shutter speed.

Unfortunately, the cheapest, point-and-shoot-only cameras don't offer any such setting ”you get what you pay for. But even cameras a slight cut above those basic ones offer a solution to this problem.

3.1.2.1 Shutter-priority mode

As noted in Chapter 1, certain cameras offer manual controls that pay off in just such special occasions as this.

In this case, what you want is the feature called shutter priority. In this mode ”a time-honored feature of traditional film cameras ”you tell the camera that the speed of the shot is what matters. You want the "film" exposed for only 1/500th of a second, for example.

Understanding what this mode does is slightly technical, but extremely important.

Whenever you take a picture, the amount of light that enters the camera is determined by two things: the speed of the shutter opening and closing, and the size of the opening of the diaphragm in the lens (the aperture ).

If you want to freeze the action, you'll want the shutter to open and close very quickly. As a result, you're admitting less light into the camera. To prevent the picture from being too dark, the camera will have to compensate by opening its "eye" wider for that fraction of a second ”that is, you want it to use a larger aperture.

In shutter-priority mode, that's exactly what happens. You say, "I don't care about the aperture ”you worry about that, little camera buddy. I just want this picture fast. " The camera nods in its little digital way and agrees to open up its aperture wide enough to compensate for your fast shutter speed.

Exactly how you turn on shutter-priority mode differs radically by camera. On some cameras, you have to fiddle around with the menu system; on others, you simply turn the little control knob on the top to a position marked S or Tv (old-time photography lingo for time value ), as shown in Figure 3-3.

Figure 3-3. To freeze the action, use a fast shutter speed, like 1/1000th of a second. Find your camera's Shutter Priority mode, which is usually designated by an S on the mode dial. But some cameras, like Canons, use the more traditional abbreviation Tv, which stands for timed value. Either way, you can set the shutter speed; the camera adjusts the aperture automatically to admit the right amount of light.


In any case, once you're in this mode, you must use some kind of dial or slider to indicate how fast you want the shutter to snap. You might start with 1/500th or 1/1000th of a second and take another series of shots. (The screen may show only "500" or "1000," but you'll know what it means.) If the result is too dark, slow down the shutter speed to the next notch ; the camera is opening the aperture as wide as it can.

3.1.3. Focusing and Shutter Lag

Whenever you try to photograph something fast, you may run headfirst into a chronic problem of digital cameras called shutter lag. That's the time the camera takes to calculate the focus and exposure from the instant you squeeze the shutter button to the instant the shutter actually snaps . It's usually at least one second long. Unfortunately, a delay that long means death to perfect sports photography. You'll miss the critical instant every time.

The circuitry in cameras, like the $1,000 digital SLR models from Canon and Nikon, is fast enough to make shutter lag a non-issue. In other cameras, you should adopt one of these solutions:

  • Prefocus. Suppose you're trying to get a shot of the goalie in a soccer game. Take advantage of the time when he's just standing there doing nothing. Frame the shot on your camera screen.

    Then, as the opposing team comes barreling down the field toward him, press the shutter button just halfway. Half-pressing the shutter makes the camera calculate the exposure and focus in advance. (Making those calculations is what constitutes most of the camera's shutter lag.) Keep the button half-pressed until the moment of truth, when the goalie dives for the ball. Now squeeze the shutter the rest of the way. This technique nearly eliminates shutter lag, freezing the action closer to the critical moment.

    This is only one example of how anticipating the critical moment pays big dividends in sports photography. With a little practice, you can learn to press the shutter button right before the big moment, rewarding you with the perfect shot.

  • Use burst mode. Most recent digicams offer something called burst mode, in which the camera snaps a series of shots in rapid succession, for as long as you hold down the shutter button. It's something like the motor drive on a traditional film camera, so often featured in movies in which the main character is a photographer.

    Most cameras can capture only about two frames per second, but that's still enough to improve the odds that one of your shots will be good. With a little practice, using the burst mode can help you compensate for shutter lag ” especially if you anticipate the action.

3.1.4. Light Metering

Ordinarily, a digital camera calculates the amount of light in a scene by averaging all light from all areas of the frame. And ordinarily, that system works perfectly well.

In sports photography, however, the surrounding scene is usually substantially brighter or darker than the athletes, leading to improper exposure of the one thing you really want: the action.

Fortunately, many cameras offer spot metering. In this mode, you see little bracket markers (or a square or circle) in the center of your viewing frame (Figure 3-4). You can use these brackets to tell the camera which portion of the scene to pay attention to in calculating the exposure. By turning on this feature for sports shooting, you'll make sure that the athlete is correctly lit, background notwithstanding.

Figure 3-4. In this picture, the athletes are brighter than the baseball field. If you were to use your camera's normal "averaging" or "evaluative" mode, there's a good chance that the players would be too bright, or overexposed . By using spot metering, you can tell your camera to set the exposure for the smaller area in the center of the frame. Now the subjects of the photo will be correctly exposed.


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iPhoto 5. The Missing Manual
iPhoto 5. The Missing Manual
ISBN: 596100345
EAN: N/A
Year: 2005
Pages: 179

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