Amateur Sports with 50D

Outdoor Amateur and school athletics are a unique chance to sharpen your sports photography skills. They usually are unregulated, and its easy to take shots week after week in order to better your best practices.

Because of the lighter restrictions of shooting a school athletic game, we will recommend some equipment and then discuss how to shoot below.

What you need to get great amateur sports photos:
A mono pod is KEY, Bogen Manfrotto sells a very affordable, light weight, and well made one.  Bogen 676B Digi Mono Pod holds up to 12 lbs.

You will also need a telephoto lens, at minimum a 70-200 2.8 (if you want the nice blur background), and if you can buy or rent a EF 300 2.8 or EF 400 2.8 you will be even better off. (With the EF 300 or 400 you can not use the mono pod I have recommended).

I recomend the 70-200 2.8 over the 70-200 F 4 series partially because they come with a great tripod ring which will set you back a substantial part of the price difference anyway. These rings are very important because, due to the weight of the lens you will actually mount the lens to the tripod or mono pod and then in turn mount the camera body to the lens. While this may seem strange, its far more sturdy and will prevent the front of your camera from breaking off if the lens is too heavy for the body.

A tripod ring is great because it allows you to quickly rotate the body of the camera from a horizontal landscape position to a vertical portrait position. This is the preferred position for shooting sports, it focuses in on the subject and allows you to be zoomed in further while still capturing head and feet.

Benefits of a 2.8 Lens: additionally, the center focus point becomes more sensitive and accurate when using a 2.8F lens. When shooting with a 2.8 lens, you have a wider aperture and more light is available to your camera. As a result of having extra light, you can now have faster shutter speeds which enable better capture of action.

Technique fundamentals:
Here is an example of the landscape vs portrait position; while I do not have EF 300 or EF 400, the photo draws more attention on the subject matter, less distraction due to background, and more of the subject is caught in the action:

Now that you have your mono pod and lens….

Place your camera in Av mode (aperture priority) and dial the aperture size to the widest size your lens is capable of, preferably F 2.8 if you are using the 70-200 2.8, 300 2.8 or 400 2.8.

You will then want to put your camera in Continuous High shooting mode
Place your camera in AI Servo focus mode
Make sure the center point of your focus screen is the only one selected.

**Advanced feature:
enable Custom Function IV-1 option 3 AE Lock/Metering + AF Start: which switches AF to the AF On button on the rear of your 50D.

I also recommend using Custom Function IV-2 option 1 which reassigns the autofocus from the AF On button to the * button on the rear of your camera. I advise this for comfort and button size.

Take some practice shots, hold down the */AF On Button key while keeping the center focal point on your subject while they are moving. You will notice the camera is constantly focusing and you can take a photo at any point in time. The red focus light will not light up, just take shots. While holding the */AF On key you will be able to press the shutter key to take photos when desired. This allows you to focus constantly but also capture the shot separately and prevents accidental misfiring – something that can cause your card to fill up faster then desired.

Take a few shots, and pay attention to the shutter speed your camera is choosing. Is the shutter speed 1/500 or greater? if so, perfect, continue as you have been and capture as many great photos as you can. Use raw mode so you can perfect the photos and white balance later on. If the camera has selected 1/4000 of a second and that 1/4000 is flashing – this means your environment is too bright and the photo will over expose. To correct this, confirm your ISO speed is not set too high. If its 800, bump it down to 400, if 400 bump down to 200 etc.. If ISO is at 100, and the shutter speed is flashing 1/8000 you will need to reduce the width of your aperture 1/3 of a stop or 1/2 of a stop at a time until the shutter speed stops flashing.

What if you’re taking photos and the shutter speed seems to slow, your photos are blurry and you’re already at F 2.8 the fastest of your lens? Well you will need to bump the 3rd component of your camera imaging system the ISO speed. Start by bumping the ISO from 100, 120, 160 or to 200, see if you can get the shutter speed over 1/500 and up to 1/1000 if possible. Once the speeds are up, review your photos on the camera and see how they look – zoom in on a face, is it blurry? how’s the detail? If its still not fast enough, bump the ISO to 400, 800, or 1600. You can shoot in ISO 3200 but this probably should indicate there isn’t great lighting and your photos wont look amazing. ISO H1 (6,400) and H2 (12,800) will likely exhibit extreme image noise; these are more of a “must get the shot” then a lets get great shots feature.

Finally, remember to have fun don’t stress, you can always go back and shoot again. Shooting sports will take some time to master, you need to really know what to look for. Try to focus on one target, and shoot them, don’t try and jump around from person to person during a play, it will be too difficult. Have an organized plan of who you want to capture and your results will be better off.
Try and get on the field if you can, move around and get different view points. Capture expressions on faces if possible.

Find a good position on the field where you will not interfere with play, but you will also not be blocked by fans or players. Some teams will appreciate a photographer and give permission for you to walk along the sidelines and shoot photos.

Bring your mono pod and set yourself up so you can begin to take photos of the game. Move around a bit and find a location you like shooting from. Set your camera into a vertical orientation by rotating the lens in the tripod collar.

Take a couple of test shots to get an idea of your settings, and dial in the fast shutter speeds, wide aperture and lowest ISO you can get away with. Set your camera to evaluative metering.

Again make sure your custom function II-2 for ISO noise reduction is not on Strong (option 2). This will reduce your FPS.

Make sure the center focus point is the only selected focus point, and begin to focus using AI Servo on your target. Take some test shots, how do they look?

I am certain that with these few changes, you can go from leaving the camera in “sports mode” or auto mode to obtaining more professional, high action shots that are both exciting to look at and also reassuring that your skills are indeed improving.