Sports photography isn’t everyone’s forte. You need an eye of the minutest, game-turning details and must have a lot of passion and understanding of the game you’re about to freeze in your photos. As a matter of fact, people can undoubtedly click some good clicks in a sport’s stadium, focusing the grass on the ground or a player’s expression.
However, no matter how good a picture like that is, it can hardly ever come up to the level of a sport’s related photo taken by a professional sports photographer. If you really want to surpass this difference and enter a world where pictures taken by you in stadiums and courts make it to sports websites and magazines, you’ll have to learn.
No one can ever become an ace sports photographer in a day. Other than a decent camera and supporting equipment (and, of course, some frantic passion for sports), you need to know some of those not-so-secret tips and tricks to make your pictures look great. Also, you have to practice a lot so that you can take the most fantastic click exactly when they’re needed to be taken.
Many people like to begin with the lightest Nikon D750 digital camera to make their space in the fast world of sports. This camera is easy to handle with a very easy-to-use user interface. Other than this, it has features like fast shutter speed, 6.5 fps, burst mode shooting, 24MP lens, and multiple sensors that are sure to add to your sports photography experience.
Here are some tips for using this camera when aiming for some cool sports shots:
Don’t Use The Automatic Mode
The automatic mode might sound like a great deal. You simply set the mode to sports, night, or any other such relevant option and set your camera at a suitable point, expecting it to work wonders. The truth is, it isn’t usually true. Especially when you’re clicking pro-level sports pictures, using a full auto mode can be a sin you’d never want to commit.
Well, the reason behind such intense disapproval of using a full auto mode for sports photography is simple. When on auto mode, your camera will adjust exposure and focus only on how it is programmed to be.
This would result in all the shots coming out almost similar, with no such creative or aesthetic sense visible. However, when you turn off the full auto mode and take control in your hands, your shots’ chances of looking different and creative increase.
When a sports photographer uses a balanced combo of auto and manual modes during the sports shoot, the camera tends to perform a little smarter than usual. It lets you capture what you exactly wanted to, in a manner that you like. Thus, refraining from using a full Auto mode means you automatically increase your portfolio’s variety.
Easy setup and usage is probably Nikon D750’s best feature for a sports photographer. You can simply switch between auto and manual modes in no time, customize exposure and focus as per your desires. You can quickly learn which manual and auto settings suit your characteristic photography style the most. Using this camera’s smooth features can gradually turn into one of those expert sports photographers who you currently follow.
Use Aperture Priority Or Shutter Priority
Many sports photographers are unaware of the best possible usage of these modes even when they’ve spent quite some time learning sports photography and practicing its tricks. If you own an SLR camera (which is rare for someone reading this guide, though), we urge you to practice more and more with aperture priority mode.
This mode enables the users to dictate their camera on how much light they can let in for a particular shot. This results in some of the most incredible photos ever taken, with the picture’s white balance and light being perfect in all aspects.
As a Nikon d750 user, you may not have aperture priority mode. However, you still can have some control over the above-stated factors. This control can be established if you learn to use the shutter priority mode so that you can determine the shutter’s speed on your own. Using your camera’s point and shoot feature, you can easily define a shutter speed that you want it to use for a specific sports related shot.
Mastering these two modes and using them wherever possible can make you an ace sports photographer in a few months, only if you are willing to put in efforts. Nikon D750’s easy to use features and simple setup comes in handy here again. It lets you easily understand and set the shutter speed to your benefit, enabling you to take some fantastic pictures.
Shoot From The Correct Position
Many novice sports photographers don’t understand that there is a massive difference between this specific photography’s niche and others. This leads them to use the same old tricks and conventions when taking a stadium’s, player’s, or a piece of equipment’s shot too.
You need to understand that your position from where you take a picture matters a lot as a sports photographer. The angle you set and where you place your camera determines how great you do as a sports photographer.
There is no rule of thumb to help you decide the correct position for a sport related shot. However, expert opinions say that the more your aim for something from a lower angle in a sport’s stadium, the better it comes out as a shot. Positioning your camera somewhere near the ground or your knees can help you capture exactly what you wanted to while blurring out the background mess in your picture.
Despite most sports photographers shooting from a lower angle, you sometimes might want to capture a stadium from the very top to cover it all. In such a state, you’ve to try our various positions with your camera to find out which one would suit such a shot’s purpose the best.
This is something you can only ace with experience, and a lightweight camera like D750 can help ease your camera and angle positioning practice. This camera has an easy to grip body with a very light body that you can literally place at any position you want.
ISO Is Important
ISO adjustment is something many photographers fail at learning quickly, and sports photographers are no exception. Despite ISO settings being a little tricky, learning these is something you can never avoid. A perfect ISO usage is what usually differentiates a great, pro-level shot from an average one. As a beginner who struggles with it, you really don’t need to worry much because you can ace ISOs adjustments over time.
However, sports photographers need to pay a lot of attention and time to ISOs compared to others. This is because most other photography niches usually require the photographer to either set a low or a high ISO and work with just one kind throughout.
However, in sports stadiums and grounds, sometimes it is all full of natural light, and other times it’s just one of those darkest hours of the night. This means you’ve to work with a low ISO and shutter speed in the daylight matches and with a higher one at night. In any case, you have to learn to work with both and use whatever feels the best at a given time.
For Nikon D750 users, not only are the ISO settings easy to use, they’re relatively quick to understand as well. This means that beginning to learn sports photography with this camera can help you understand how ISO works pretty quick. Hence, it ensures that making your way to professional sports photography circles becomes easier.
Use Burst Mode
If there is something demanded the most from you as a sports photographer, it has to be speed and alertness to take the shots at the perfect moment. Players and the tools being used by them are relatively fast in the majority of sports. This means you need to keep your camera ready to shoot all the time so that you don’t miss out even on a second of the action. This can’t be possible unless you start using continuous shooting or burst mode.
This mode allows you to take multiple photos very quickly just by keeping the shutter pressed. This means using a burst mode doesn’t require much work from a photographer even when granting him with pictures of all the action in return. With such a benefit associated with it, it would entirely be a mistake on sports photographer’s part if they don’t try using burst mode during matches.
A camera like Nikon D750 can make burst mode’s usage easier and greater. It comes with quick shutter speed and a great continuous shooting speed as well. When combined with a good color processing and focus sensors, both these features make this Nikon camera an excellent option for a photographer who wants to ace burst mode usage.
