SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY: THE LOWEST SHUTTER SPEED TO FREEZE ACTION PHOTOS
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- Опубликовано: 8 июл 2024
- My starting shutter speed I use when I walk into a venue, is 1/1600. But sometimes in some of the darkest arenas and venues, that simply isn't an attainable setting. So what is the absolute, lowest and slowest shutter speeds you can use for sports photography, and still see reasonable results? Let's explore this by checking out some sample photos at various shutter speeds in soccer, football, basketball, and baseball.
0:00 Introduction
0:36 Why Shutter Speed is Important
1:27 My Starting Shutter Speed
2:45 Soccer
4:44 Football
6:39 Basketball
8:50 Baseball
12:16 Recap
ABOUT ME:
I currently work as a director of photography and content at USA Today Sports. As part of our national and worldwide distribution, you've likely seen my work in many publications including but not limited to USA Today, The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, ESPN, and Sports Illustrated.
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Excellent info!! Thanks so much!
Thank you
Thx
Great vid Jerry, well explained.
Thanks for watching, Paul!
Great video thanks for making it!
Hi Max! Thanks for watching!
Just what i needed. Ive been a portraits photographer for 6 years and I want to expand to sports. Very good video to start.
You are on point, i shoot high school football and in most fields the lightning is poor, like you said ,you have to adjust to everything different pace. Awesome video .
Great video very informative
Glad it was helpful!
Great tutorial on getting the most out of low light conditions. Your keeper rate may go down, but still get many great pictures without the noise.
Man, your videos are awesome. High school football is ramping up really soon, and I'm getting ancy on getting the new D780 and Sigma 120-300mm out on the sidelines!! Thanks for this video!!! Really helped. :)
Glad to help! The Sigma 120-300 is a versatile and useful lens. Enjoy!
What a great, informative video! I love the way you set your rule and then give the exception! Thank you! Nice.
Glad you enjoyed this! Thanks for watching!
Great video, Jerry. So nice seeing you the other day. Good luck in Japan!
Thanks! Nice to see ya too!
Jerry, good video. Nice use of b-roll and examples.
Thanks for watching Jack!
Excellent stuff and very informative and down where us non pros shoot...dark places like a High School gym....keep up the good work!
Thank you for the kind note! Thanks for watching!
Supperrr useful video
Appreciate that, thanks for watching!
Jerry I'm new the channel, your tips and training are right on point. I'm a sub now ✓
Thank you, and welcome to the channel!
I do wrestling photography with a fujifilm xt2 and viltrox 23mm f1.4. Normally my settings are 1/500th, f1.4, ISO 3200-6400, continuous single point AF.
Works good!
Awesome video , i only wish you have shared the iso, lense and the gear for each picture. Thank you for the great information
True when you fill the frame however if you need to crop from higher res sport camera those shutter speeds are not always aplicable anymore.
Your channel is extremely underrated…
I really appreciate that, and glad I could help! Spread the word! :-)
This just popped up on my RUclips feed. Loved seeing the NNHS shots. Hope you're well, my friend.
From the Prep Sports Online days!!!
@@JerryTLai , I recall! Still the most lucrative gigs I ever had. Some weekends, I’d gross $1,000 between Friday night and Saturday. Not bad.
Thanks Jerry. First of all: Inspiring photos as always. I went back and slowed down the video to 0.50 just to soak in a little about the composition, positioning and what your set-up and thought process might have been. Great stuff.
It took me longer than I'd like to admit to really learn what motion blur looks like. It's not always a streak of blur across the screen. Often it's just a generalized blur that looks similar to focus or lens-quality issues. If you look closely at the slowest examples here you can start to see some of that. If you are just starting out, the best thing you can do for yourself is to go to a known venue and shoot a series across the full range of speeds your camera can produce usable photos in .... and learn from that. Maybe start out briefly at a 400th or even 1/250th and gradually increase from there over one or two games. You could throw away a game and a half to do that but you'll save yourself a lot of time in the "apprentice" box. And you will build some beginning insights into the true limits of your gear.
OK Jerry I gotta call you out on one thing there are free lunches in sports photography any media center on game day :) 😃 keep up the great work!
LOL had a good laugh at this comment!
Jerry just found your channel! Wish I would have found it sooner…Anyway you cover the major sports and obviously work to meet the needs of the photographer, I shoot a lot of volleyball, could you touch on that sport just a bit. Cheers and don’t stop with the info. Keep it coming
Thanks Gregg, welcome to the channel. Unfortunately I have not photographed a lot of volleyball in my career. But just follow good technique and look for good, clean backgrounds and you should do great!
Motion blur can be a good thing, sometimes....
Great video...appreciated it. I am an old fashion photographer now photographing my grandchildren, soccer, baseball, basketball. Your comments on "lowest" acceptable, optimal and not "freezing" beyond freezing action were helpful. I have some great pitches and batters at less than 1000 and in basketball it is challenging, but you provided a great...this is about where you need to be.
Great video, thanks! I do disagree a tiny bit about the faster shutter speeds in baseball. Even the faster shutter images you showed looked better to me. But maybe I’m the only one.
Great video Jerry, what is your highest accepted ISO for publications/media outlets? I usually shoot on A to preserve my aperture but will be moving to manual and setting some speed limits for my baseball games.
Thanks for the video-I think though, that we shoot in totally different worlds: my company focusing on onsite sales at youth sports to the parents. Mostly, this is at girls volleyball and dance competition. The high school venues are VERY dark for the volleyball games. I might be shooting at ISO 12800 1/800sec f/2.8 The payoff is that the kids don't move as quickly as pro sports and I can almost always freeze them. The ball might be SLIGHTLY motion blurred, but ironically, I find that that sells faster than totally freezing the ball as this looks "fake" to the kids and their parents
Interesting… I could see how they like a little bit of ball blur.
What's the ideal shutter speeds for race cars and go karts inside the race track?
i never knew david wells pitched for boston haha
Hi Jerry, thanks for the great channel and information on sports photography. I'm enjoying your style of teaching.
Are you able to make a video showing you on location shooting a sports game that highlights how you set up and adjust as the situation requires. For example shooting one direction but then shooting another direction with totally different light or sun issues etc.
Also can I ask. Say I'm shooting soccer. I set 1/1600s, f/2.8 and say 100 ISO. What setting do you adjust to compensate for adjusting light conditions? Is it ISO? Thanks Bryan
Good questions:
1) I have a couple of videos that briefly touch on positions that I like shooting from, but they don't really touch on shooting in different light or sun. You might still find them helpful though. It has been a while since I made a video due to things with work in my personal life, but I look forward to getting back to it soon.
2) For adjusting settings, usually ISO is the first setting that I adjust
@@JerryTLai Thanks Jerry for your great reply. Appreciate it. I will try adjusting ISO at my next event to see how that works. Look forward to any more videos you can share with us. Thanks
Great videos as always dear jerry. I have a question, what hard case are you using? (The one shows in 00:02)
Thanks for watching! It is a Pelican 1535! Great for air travel. I will do a review on it soon to show what I can fit inside.
@@JerryTLai great 😍, looking forward to the review!
Thanks for this video, as the many videos i have seen no one has ever mention the time of day of event, this is some very important because the light we working with, i am currently taking soccer fotos for a local hi school, this events take place at 1pm plain day light, i have manage to take good shoots but i think i can do better if it wouldn’t be so bright, can u please help with a recommendation or advise, my equipment is a nikon D 850 with a nikon 70-200,
If ISO is as low as possible, and your aperture is wide open, you can shoot at much higher shutter speeds than indicated in this video to compensate for the extra light. These are minimum shutter speeds that I think is required for certain sports, but it is ok to go over these numbers.
1600
Forgot to take into account focal lengrh/monopod/image stabilization. Shooting 400mm is going to be tough at lower speeds.
Yes I was thinking about this. The longer the focal length the higher you’d need your minimum shutter speed to be?
@@ukejemyes if there is no other image stabilization.
@@dozerthecat Ah okay, got it
What about Video Jerry, can you do a video on Videoing the football or basketball, they sports you mention are sorta similar in settings, i do mostly Video, is it relatively the same concept.
Hi Marky Mark, I unfortunately don't have any experience doing video on live action. It hasn't been what I've been assigned to do at the events that I've covered. Additionally, due to restrictions with television and video rights, I wouldn't be allowed to do it with my existing Canon or Sony cameras if I wanted to.
For a ROLLING SHUTTER which is most DSLRs use, going above a threshold does not make a difference at all. That said 1/1000s (or lower) vs 1/8000s does the exact same job of freezing motion.
Have you ever photographed gymnastics? What settings would you recommend for the sport to help capture gymnasts doing leaps and other skills, keeping in mind the not-so-great gym lighting and no flash allowed?
question...in basketball should you shoot wide open as well or do you need a little more DOF ?
In general I shoot wide open. The only time I’m not is if it’s daylight and really bright outside or if I’m elevated and having a good bokeh or separation from background isn’t possible anyways.
I’m assuming hockey is similar to baseball when considering the puck (ball) but the human motion is faster for players skating versus running.
Hi Darrell - thanks for watching. Yes you will generally want to have shutter speeds on the higher end for hockey otherwise you will end up with a lot of stick or puck blur. I usually try to be at 1/1600 - 1/2000 for hockey, but I understand at lower levels of sport or in smaller arenas that can be a challenge.
What about for horse races on a bright sunny day?
Have a great time in Japan from a still non travel Ireland 🇮🇪
It's going to be an interesting one, that's for sure...
@@JerryTLai stay safe and looking out for you work during the Olympics
Can't wait till I'm able to upgrade my camera so I can crank the ISO higher up, shooting basketball at 1/400s really isn't ideal 😅
Lol well until then, like I said, you gotta do what you gotta do 🤷♂️ :-)
At least you know you will still mostly come away with some images.
I'm sad 😥 sir jerry lai
I use canon kiss x2
My lens is ef-s 55-250mm 😥😥😥
What would you shoot in Ice hockey settings
Good question. Fortunately the ice is a great light reflector so you it's interesting because in the very same building I have at least one extra stop of light to work with when shooting hockey vs basketball. This is sort of like baseball where it comes down to how much motion blur you can tolerate in the stick when players wind up for a shot. You CAN drop to 1/400 or 1/500, but you'll get blur pretty much anybody does anything with their stick.
You missed hockey
Uh, what is wrong with showing action? Blur is just showing action and as long as the entire picture isn't a mess who cares?
Some motion in Baseball when a batter is swinging is ok in my book, same with soccer as a player is kicking the ball. If you want complete frozen images just shoot mannequins or have the players pose for you. Sports is all about the action so just show it in my opinion.