I have been given my first commission this eve, being the photographer for a local Touch Rugby tournament a friend is organising in Feb next year!

Pics will be on the touch rugby websites and local press/media, and if I do a good job, I will get the gig for a national touch rugby tournament in Manchester in June!

Not done much sports photography before, so need all the help/advice I can get!! I have an 18-55mm kit lens (which is really slow, and I can't wait to trade in for a better one especially for low light photography!), and a Sigma 70-300mm lens (does good depth of field shots). Was thinking of using the Sigma one.

Ideas, tips??

Any sports photographers here I can shadow to learn my craft??!

If you are shooting at night, I think you will be in trouble with a slow lens. I can’t remember what model camera you have, but I think it is a Canon. I would therefore recommend you borrow or hire a 70-200mm f2.8 at the very least (a 300 or 400mm prime would be fantastic if you have a C sensor camera) and shoot at as high an iso as you can get away with on your model. Pros at footie matches often shoot with big prime lenses at around F2.8 and iso 1250, but I suspect neither of these things will be available to you. I have the Sigma 70-200mm lens and it is a good cheapo alternative to the proper Canon lenses. It isn’t as good obviously and lacks IS, but that won’t be a problem for shooting fast action sport. You will really need a high shutter speed. I would go to a practise session and try things out, but having once tried to shoot with a 300mm f 6.3 lens at a footie match, I was disappointed at the lack of shutter speed I could achieve without a maxed out the iso setting.

Hey, thanks for the advice! Not shooting at night thankfully! I have a Sony A350, and the Sigma lens which only goes down to F4, so might look into hiring a lens. Things get a bit grainy above ISO 800, but practice becomes perfect!

Have put an SOS out to a mate who is also a footy writer for the national papers and he said he will see if he can find a sports photographer he knows that I might be able to shadow.

If you're shooting action/sports, you might want to stay away from shooting RAW and stick with high quality JPEGS. Won't give you the same level of flexibility in post processing, but the write time to the memery card is quicker so you won't risk losing shots quite so much.

Some shots you can pre-empt e.g. conversion kicks. Focus on the ball and shoot as the kick comes in. If you use autofocus to follow the kicker, you might miss the shot.

Try and get some practice at sports events if you can. Every little bit of practice will help.

If you're shooting action/sports, you might want to stay away from shooting RAW and stick with high quality JPEGS. Won't give you the same level of flexibility in post processing, but the write time to the memery card is quicker so you won't risk losing shots quite so much.

Some shots you can pre-empt e.g. conversion kicks. Focus on the ball and shoot as the kick comes in. If you use autofocus to follow the kicker, you might miss the shot.

Try and get some practice at sports events if you can. Every little bit of practice will help.

If card writing speeds are too slow and your buffer is filling up faster than it can dump to card, I'd get a faster card rather than switch to jpeg. Storage cards are pretty cheap now, even for good ones (4GB sandisks Ultra 3 for less than £20). At that price, it's not worth the tradeoff in my opinion

edit: just checked on dpreview (http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydslra350/page12.asp). If you're continuously shooting at the full 2.4fps, you can still get well over 10 shots before it slows down. And one rarely shoots continuously for 25 seconds

[sorry for being late to the party.

I'm a sports snapper here in Ireland.

Ideally as advised earlier you'll need at least a 300mm f2.8 telephoto to fill the frame and better still if you can add a 1.7 teleconvertor.

For rugby you are best to shoot from behind the try line as the action will be coming towards you but you are still some distance from the play itself.

I shoot most of my sports in RAW as it allows some latitude in post processing.

If the game you are commissioned to shoot is under lights I'm afraid none of the kit you have will be sufficient to provide sharp action stopping images. Daytime may be ok provided there is even quality light.

The sigma @300mm is closed down to f5.6 IIRC and even an ISO of 1600 would not see a decent shot. As a Nikon user I.m not too sure of the ISO capabilties of you camera but would be surprised if it didn't become very noisy above 800.

As regards cards Sandisk Extreme III (Version2) have good write speed but Lexar 300x or Sandisk Extreme IV's are much better suited to burst shooting.

My advice is to get out ro a few games beforehand and practice.

One final tip, make sure you have a stool to sit on (Field sport images should be shot from as low as possible) and a monopod to rest camera on, preferably mounted to a lens ring and not the camera itself

Hi, one other thing to remember if you end up resorting to using your sigma, due to the variable aperture of your lens, f4 is only going to apply to the wide end of the range of your lens...... once zooming in the aperture is going to decrease bit by bit limiting the amount of light even more..... if it is a fixed aperture of f4 throughout then that wil be handier.... but if you can borrow either a 70-200 f2.8 or a 300mm f2.8 (not sure whats available from sony/minolta) then i'd suggest you do...... and although your not shooting at night, with the dark gloomy miserable weather at this time of year, your easily going to need to shoot at iso800 and above to get near a desent shutter speed.

Best of luck, hope it goes well.

[sorry for being late to the party.

I'm a sports snapper here in Ireland.

Ideally as advised earlier you'll need at least a 300mm f2.8 telephoto to fill the frame and better still if you can add a 1.7 teleconvertor.

For rugby you are best to shoot from behind the try line as the action will be coming towards you but you are still some distance from the play itself.

I shoot most of my sports in RAW as it allows some latitude in post processing.

If the game you are commissioned to shoot is under lights I'm afraid none of the kit you have will be sufficient to provide sharp action stopping images. Daytime may be ok provided there is even quality light.

The sigma @300mm is closed down to f5.6 IIRC and even an ISO of 1600 would not see a decent shot. As a Nikon user I.m not too sure of the ISO capabilties of you camera but would be surprised if it didn't become very noisy above 800.

As regards cards Sandisk Extreme III (Version2) have good write speed but Lexar 300x or Sandisk Extreme IV's are much better suited to burst shooting.

My advice is to get out ro a few games beforehand and practice.

One final tip, make sure you have a stool to sit on (Field sport images should be shot from as low as possible) and a monopod to rest camera on, preferably mounted to a lens ring and not the camera itself

Hey Soccerc,

Thanks for the advice (and everyone else aswell who has contributed!). I'm wondering what kind of copyright/release you use when you supply your pics to the media? Even though I'm doing this for a mate, I'm goign to use a basic legal copyright agreement, just stuck on what it should inculde and how to word it.

The one downside of choosing my Sony A350 is I have yet to find anywhere to hire the lenses from that Steve75 mentions.

One advantage I do have is my mates are organising and playing the tournament, and I'm also a Touch Rugby player myself, so I have good access to the subjects, and I know the moves and what to expect!

One solution might be to go to Calumet and hire a lens from them. They even refund half the amount if you subsequently buy the lens (a brannie not the one you have hired). Don’t forget to make sure you have fully charged batteries too as well as some weather protection for you and your kit. The pros use weather sealed Canons and Nikons as well as their lenses being weather proof too. Most of the stuff we use is only capable of keeping out a little bit of water etc.

I have chatted to pros a few times at footie matches and they are pretty good for giving advice to the amateur, at least as long as they don’t think you are trying to take the bread from their mouths (totally understandable)

Looking forward to the seeing the results. Perhaps you could stick a few shots up if you do a practise shoot and our resident pro might be able to give you (and us) some pointers

Hey Soccerc,

Thanks for the advice (and everyone else aswell who has contributed!). I'm wondering what kind of copyright/release you use when you supply your pics to the media? Even though I'm doing this for a mate, I'm goign to use a basic legal copyright agreement, just stuck on what it should inculde and how to word it.

It all depends.

Sometimes I work for an agency whereby I'm paid a one time set fee ( can also include cost of flights and accomodation) and provide the images to their library

Othertimes if commissioned I agree a set fee for the job and an additional fee for once off reproduction. (I never supply full raw files only post processed high res jpgs).

For spec jobs I have set rates for prints, sometimes I'll email the picture desks of nationals here and know that if used what they will expect to be invoiced for a one off shot.

This is a good resource to give you an idea of how it all works http://www.copyright4clients.com/

Finally something I should have mentioned is insurance, Public Liability and Professional Indemnity. The former in case you or your kit cause an injury and the latter to cover you in the case the images somehow disappear. It may seem a trifle alarming but once you are commissioned and expect payment you are actually acting in a profressional manner.

Please feel free to PM me with any questions or links to images.

JB

Would the Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 be enough to ‘get away with it’, if the sports pitch isn’t too big, JB?

The reason I ask is, it is probably the cheapest reasonable lens to hire, as well as being commonplace and in many fittings. On a crop body camera (not sure of the Sony x factor) I would assume it would work as a minimum of 105-300mm and has a lens ring as standard. Plus if losing a stop isn’t too much of an issue, I think Sigma do a 1.4 TC which would give him a useful 420, @ f4 (I think?) which might cover all his needs? I'm pretty sure the Sony will shoot at iso800 and be OK with a bit of PS tweaking, although again I am not sure if the next step would be iso1,600 on that camera.

Would the Sigma 70-200mm f2.8 be enough to ‘get away with it’, if the sports pitch isn’t too big, JB?

The reason I ask is, it is probably the cheapest reasonable lens to hire, as well as being commonplace and in many fittings. On a crop body camera (not sure of the Sony x factor) I would assume it would work as a minimum of 105-300mm and has a lens ring as standard. Plus if losing a stop isn’t too much of an issue, I think Sigma do a 1.4 TC which would give him a useful 420, @ f4 (I think?) which might cover all his needs? I'm pretty sure the Sony will shoot at iso800 and be OK with a bit of PS tweaking, although again I am not sure if the next step would be iso1,600 on that camera.

Amanda

It would be ok, not sure of the IQ of the Sigma. Just on the crop sensor and the belief that it gives you extra reach, it doesn't. This is a great explanation of the Field of View

Using a TC would be of benefit in daytime with good light bringing it to f4 on that body and with that lens though I wopuld suggest OP would struggle to achive good sharp images unde rlights or on a dark ovecast day.

To get stop action images ideally the shutter should be above 1/500 @ ISO 200 and f2.8.

I've regularly used a 1.7 tc on a 300mm 2.8 and have achieved usable images under lights but the ISO was 1600 on a D3. (Example below - reduced resolution for web use)

Again. I'd urge the OP to get out and shoot all manner of sports before the big day and review the results using the EXIF data.

I have looked into hiring a lens, but even places like Calumet don't do Sony fit lenses. Snow permitting, I will be playing Touch Rugby with some of the tournament players next weekend, so I will take the camera too, watch this space!

Amanda

It would be ok, not sure of the IQ of the Sigma. Just on the crop sensor and the belief that it gives you extra reach, it doesn't. This is a great explanation of the Field of View

I have the Sigma myself and have found it reasonably sharp fully open, obviously nothing like as sharp as a decent prime of a Canon L lens. I often see snappers using the lens at Boxing or Tennis tournaments, but these are sports where the snappers are pretty much on top of the action.

We had a pro called Scuff who used to post on here and the punch of his 1D was amazing. I don’t think I have ever seen a crop sensor picture compete with the might full frame jobbies (Canon and Nikon).

I am confused that you say you don’t get any extra reach, but the link you put up says you do?

‘….So on an APS-C crop camera, the lens has more "reach", i.e. you can fill the frame with a smaller or more distant subject’

Are you referring to the fact that the reach is apparently bigger because the crop sensor is acting like a post prod crop of a taken image and so it isn’t really a true increase in reach?

Edited 3 January, 201016 yr by Lady Elanore

Are you referring to the fact that the reach is apparently bigger because the crop sensor is acting like a post prod crop of a taken image and so it isn’t really a true increase in reach?

That's exactly where I am coming from. The article is a little confusing in it's choiceof words but if you use it, and reference the diagram I think it becomes more evident.

That's exactly where I am coming from. The article is a little confusing in it's choiceof words but if you use it, and reference the diagram I think it becomes more evident.

I think it makes sense, but for us hobbyists with crop sensor cameras, we think of it as the same thing. Although the number of megapixels being crammed into even C sensor cameras mean digital zooming in PP is possible with a decent lens. I have just bought my first Prime (50mm) and it has opened up a new (if slightly soft at f1.4 ) world to me. Now if only I can get a free 400mm prime from somewhere, I could go birding/spying etc

My first practice....

Ladies rugby match...

My first practice....

Ladies rugby match...

I like your pictures Buster , but you seem to be suffering from quite a bit of noise. Guess it was a very dull day :( .

I like your pictures Buster , but you seem to be suffering from quite a bit of noise. Guess it was a very dull day :( .

Agreed.

Shutter speed of 1/1000 @f4 and ISO 400 in most and still a lot of noise. Reduce shutter speed to 1/400 and it should improve

There also seems to be a huge problem with white/colour balance and the final pic in the series shows this best when compare dto almost all the others.

Cheers guys! Yeah, you hit the nail on the head with the WB! I didn't realise until I got home that I had forgotten to reset the WB from fluorescent which I had used in class a couple of days previous. Next time, I will also look more at the focussing, change it to continous AF for example. Yep, it was very dull outside, and the game wasn't great either, proper up the jumper stuff in the rain and I reckon at least 20-30 scrums!

Agreed.

Shutter speed of 1/1000 @f4 and ISO 400 in most and still a lot of noise. Reduce shutter speed to 1/400 and it should improve

There also seems to be a huge problem with white/colour balance and the final pic in the series shows this best when compare dto almost all the others.

Thats the big advantage of shooting in RAW, all is not lost if you forget to change the WB settings.

I'm guessing (hoping) a few of the really noisy shots were under exposed shots you rescued in post processing? Just looking at the conditions for the day, i'd say, 1/1000sec - f4 - iso400 was never going to be the right choice. I think you would of found using a higher iso to begin with would of produced less noise than trying to rescue the under exposed shots. A properly exposed high iso shot will show less noise than an under exposed shot with exposure pushed in post processing..... I'm also guessing, that some of them may have been cropped heavily to bring the action closer in the frame? This will also make the noise more apparent. Wait for the action to come to you so you can fill the frame better and avoid having to crop and reduce the quality of your shots........ On the pluses, i think you caught some good action. It's good your getting out there putting in the practice.

Have a look at some of these for ideas........

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=720381&highlight=mud

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=768923&highlight=rugby

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=782070&highlight=rugby

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=698732&highlight=rugby

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=785315&highlight=rugby

and this guy is a fantastic sports shooter, well worth a look through his work...... http://www.tgsphoto.co.uk/other.html

Edited 25 January, 201016 yr by steve75

More practice today, thankfully glorious sunshine, and made sure I set the WB and ISO up properly, used continous shooting mode, mixture of spot and wide AF and continous AF mode (prefer using Single Shot AF mode, quality of pic is better than quantiity!). What settings do you guys use for sports photos?

Only downside today was having to shoot into the sun, as shooting the other way would have been having a kids footy match in the background, and no matter how blurred, could have been a world of hassle!

Some photos have been briefly edited for levels, contrast and composition.

Honest feedback as ever greatly appreciated!

Touch Rugby pics

More practice today, thankfully glorious sunshine, and made sure I set the WB and ISO up properly, used continous shooting mode, mixture of spot and wide AF and continous AF mode (prefer using Single Shot AF mode, quality of pic is better than quantiity!). What settings do you guys use for sports photos?

Only downside today was having to shoot into the sun, as shooting the other way would have been having a kids footy match in the background, and no matter how blurred, could have been a world of hassle!

Some photos have been briefly edited for levels, contrast and composition.

Honest feedback as ever greatly appreciated!

Touch Rugby pics

Better WB* but poor ISO choice. In light of the quality obvious in from your shots an ISO of 400 was too high, 100 would have been sufficient.

*99% of times auto WB will suffice.

Secondly, IMHO, your shutter speed was too slow @ 1/400.

You also need to work on your aperture settings.

Can I recommend a book, Understanding Exposure by Bryan Patterson? It's very basic though will exlain the relationship between ISO, Shutter Speed and Aperture size in exposing images.

Metering should be spot only with Single AF Point and set to continuous shot..

Finally you appear to be taking the shots whilst standing and I'd suggest you get lower either sitting on the ground or get a cheap portable fishermans stool.