Capturing Football Players In Motion?

[BBrondsky]

I just recently got a job taking pictures of a football team near me for the school. I used a Canon Digital Rebel XTi and it worked very well when the players weren't moving, but when they were most of the photos kept coming out blurry. I had it set on auto so then i switched it to fast moving and it was even worse. I was afraid to ask my boss. Does anyone know what I was doing wrong?

[Hikariphoto]

I just recently got a job taking pictures of a football team near me for the school. I used a Canon Digital Rebel XTi and it worked very well when the players weren't moving, but when they were most of the photos kept coming out blurry. I had it set on auto so then i switched it to fast moving and it was even worse. I was afraid to ask my boss. Does anyone know what I was doing wrong?

Motion photography is one of the most challenging things in photography. I have done quite a bit of that, a lot of rodeo, and a lot of school sports.

Your first mistake is using the automatic functions on your camera. The single most important aspect of photography is to learn your gear. Learn what it does, why it does it, and what you can do do force it to do what you want it to do. You don't need to shoot in manual mode all the time, but you do need to be able to make the camera do what you want for the results you want. NEVER shoot on auto mode, or even P (some say it's P for Professional. I say it's P for Pathetic). Shoot in AV mode with your aperture as wide as you possibly can get it, and control your shutter speed with the ISO. You want it at LEAST 1/200 of a second, higher if you can get it. I don't know what lens you have, but cheaper lenses will not do as well as the better lenses for this. They aren't as accurate or as fast focusing. And the Rebel body is a slow body, too -- slow focusing, major shutter lag. But you can get around all this.

(off the soap box )

I don't have a Rebel, but this applies to all Canons that I know of.

Your camera has three primary controls that help with sports photography. Those are:

1. Center focus point
2. AI Servo Mode
3. Custom Function 4

1. Your center focus point is the most accurate on your camera. Figure out how to set that one as the only one the camera uses to focus. By default, Canon cameras have this annoying feature that sets the focus point active on the most convenient subject, regardless of what you want it to do. Once you have your focus point set to the middle one, move to
Step 2.

2. AI Servo mode allows the camera to track motion. As long as you keep your focus button pressed, the camera will focus on whatever is in that focus point you have active (in this case, the middle one). It's not good for portraiture, as the second you move the focus point to something besides the eyes, the camera will refocus on something else. So as you move your camera to keep your focus point on the guy with the ball, the camera will continually focus on that guy until such time as you trip the shutter.

3. The problem with this is that there's a split second between the time you press the shutter button and the time the shutter actually fires. Especially on the slower bodies like the Rebel. In that split second, you camera is not focusing. Your subject can travel quite a distance in this time, putting him out of the plane of focus and resulting in shots that are out of focus.

Enter Custom Function 4. In the Menu, setting CF4 to 1 reassigns the * button on the back of the camera to be the focus actuator and not the shutter button. This means that since the only function of the shutter button is to trip the shutter, the camera never stops focusing as long as you have that * button pressed, even during the shutter lag time. This takes some getting used to, remembering that your thumb is your focus, but once you figure it out your photos will be a million times better.

Oh yeah... and if you're shooting night games, a good monopod is your friend.

I hope that makes sense. Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions about it.

[BBrondsky]

Wow, thanks a lot. I understood most of it. The problem is though that the Canon Rebel was one of my Boss' cameras. So I can't mess around with it while I'm at home per say. I use a Canon SD600 which isn't even similiar. But the center focus point made a lot of sense because I was noticing when I was focusing it would focus on the nearest thing or as you put it "most convenient thing". Hmm...I think I will ask him about the stuff you said because you seem like you know a lot more then me. I'm still only 14 so I've got a lot to learn, but thank you.

[Hikariphoto]

Well, if he's just throwing you a camera and not teaching you how to use it, he deserves bad pictures, if that makes any sense. He should give you the camera and let you play with it for a while before he expects you to shoot an actual event.

If you're "only 14" but know enough to ask the question, you have a great future in photography.

[BBrondsky]

Well I don't think he knew I'd taken all of my photos with a small hand held, but I agree. I guess in a way he's giving me more credit by thinking that I automatically can do all of these things.

Haha thank you.

[savona]

WOW, Dont need my help here... Looks like Hikari covered it pretty good! Good luck and post some of those pictures, we wanna see!