how to get a sharp image in sports

[robvasi]

The reason I like to shoot tight is so the resultant image file is large, and thus more conducive to printing. Like many of my ideas, this may be erroneous. If I shoot from further back, or take off the TC, then a crop is needed to produce the tight composition that I prefer. My understanding, and again, perhaps erroneous, is that cropping reduces image quality. In this situation the compromise is crop or depth of focus.

The shooters today are high school students. They are experienced, precise, and disciplined. So, I won't have much time to compose and make a picture. They will ignore me, some will know who I am, some might not. After the event they will all want photos. I expect some of them will wear cowboy boots and spurs.

 

[Solarflare]

With a huge, heavy lens like the 600mm f/4, stop using back button focus, and put the focusing where it BELONGS on continuous action subjects: on the shutter release button! Back button focusing is fine for STATIC situations, like baseball, where you want to PRE-focus, like on say, second base, and then LEAVE the focus SET to that exact,precise spot, and then wait for a play at second base.

Err, the back button simply is easier to use than the shutter half press. You can press the back button with any force, while with the half press you have to apply a very specific amount of pressure.

And there is absolutely nothing wrong with back button focus in sports. All you have to do is to of course keep pressing the button at all times, otherwise the camera would stop focusing and all following images would be out of focus.

 

[Overread]

The reason I like to shoot tight is so the resultant image file is large, and thus more conducive to printing. Like many of my ideas, this may be erroneous. If I shoot from further back, or take off the TC, then a crop is needed to produce the tight composition that I prefer. My understanding, and again, perhaps erroneous, is that cropping reduces image quality. In this situation the compromise is crop or depth of focus.

Cropping does reduce the image size which can affect image quality, however many sensors today in modern cameras are giving you very large photos to work with. So its actually far more viable to shoot a little wide and then crop. I'm not talking extremes here, but you do have some cropping room before it will impact image quality; esp if the prints are fairly standard sizes (ergo you're not making posters).
Sometimes shooting a little wide is better because it means you can have a little room to play with a photo. Plus sometimes its easier AF wise as you can keep using the same AF point (eg middle) and then recompose in editing to suit your situations. It's far more useful with fast moving situations and subjects where you might not have the time to shift the AF point around or recompose at the time (of course experience makes this quicker and easier and gives you more chance to predict a shot before it happens and be ready for it).


I would say losing some resolution from cropping would be preferable to losing depth of field which is giving you soft shots that you are having trouble with. Of course when shooting sports sometimes you're still going to have to use that longer lens because you are not allowed any closer. Still in those instances a slower shutter speed and wider aperture can be important.



Eg I know with horses that 2.8 is doable with a 200mm lens when doing showjumping, that f3.2 and f4 also generally work well.
Also play around. Try slower and slower shutter speeds and smaller apertures and see how they affect your photos. I found that 1/640sec as the ideal slowest shutterspeed for showjumping because the day got dark and my camera started hitting its aperture and ISO limits; so the speed had to slow down too. I could then compare those shots to 1/500sec and slower and see where the blur was; what was and wasn't blurring etc... From there I learned that 1/500sec was going to blur extremities of motion (hooves, hair) and 1/640sec was going to be "sharp enough"

That's how I learned where my lower limit was, by going there and beyond there and seeing the actual results for myself. Sometimes different styles and aims can result in you having a different standard. Eg you might feel that areas of really fine crisp sharpness are critical and that 1/1000sec is the slowest you are comfortable with for what you want. Or you might find you like blurring some areas of motion and that 1/420 is actually your sweetspot.

 

[Derrel]

"All you have to do is to of course keep pressing the button at all times"...

So, you need TWO button presses to shoot a photo and to focus.

Lol.

Only twice the mental and physical effort. Great idea.

You can either trigger off a shot and get focus automatically...OR decide to impose yet another requirement, that of pressing a second button, in addition to triggering off the shot. So, instead of using your thumb to help hold, maniupulate,and stabilize a camera/lens/monopod rig that wights up to 20 pounds (400mm f/2.8 at 15 pounds + big black camera+monopod), you decide to make your right hand a 3-finger hand instead to handle the weight of the body/lens/monopod: middle finger, ring finger, little finger, index on trigger...

Great idea! Twice the needed steps to accomplish making a focused shot. Sure. Makes sense (in a YouTube fanboy video sense).

Require that TWO digits be needed to make every shot, all day long! Welcome to back Button Focus! Where once one finger could do it all, you now need two digits to accomplish what is basically automatic and instinctive.

Again...BBF is more of an internet-famous thing than it is a serious shooter's thing. BBF is one of those YouTube solutions in search of a real problem.

BBF was designed for _specific_ types of shooting situations, in which focusing the camera should be limited, reduced, made more-rare, when the focus needs to be _locked down_ to one, specific location, like when you "camp on" a spot with a long lens, and want to be SURE that the focus will STAY PUT, and that the focusing will NOT be instantly,effortlessly,naturally, and rapidly UPDATED with every single press of the trigger. The entire problem is that an entire generation of inexperienced shooters has been spoon fed a series of videos that treat BBF as some God-given gift that magically improves every shooting scenario... which is utter BS. Let me send you to the link for driving everywhere in 3rd gear, at all times. Driving everywhere, at all times, in 3rd gear is awesome! It's a great solution. More power! Higher torque! Faster acceleration!

 

[ronlane]

@Derrel are you against BBF? For sports I find it to be a must. Actually it's the way my cameras are set up now. Did I have to train my thumb to work in connection with the index finger? Yes, but after a while it becomes second nature.

Most sports photographers that you will find use BBF for shooting.

 

[Derrel]

@Derrel are you against BBF? For sports I find it to be a must. Actually it's the way my cameras are set up now. Did I have to train my thumb to work in connection with the index finger? Yes, but after a while it becomes second nature.

Most sports photographers that you will find use BBF for shooting.

I am against BBF for MOST continuous-action sports. For some scenarios, it makes sense.

The pro Nikons I am familiar with have a focus HOLD button right next to the Focus ON button.

Smoking cigarettes right after a meal has become second nature to millions of people.

Driving everywhere in 3rd gear is a great idea too. More power, Faster acceleration. Better torque.

MILLIONS of newbies love to shoot "at f/1.8", because with the lens wide-open, you get that awesome bokeh. The internet is filled with stupid ideas that have become popularized by people on forums and YouTube. I think of the habit of automatic, habitual, constant, all-situation use of BBF as being just as dumb as advocating "shooting wide-open all the time". Shooting "wide-open" is yet another internet-era practice followed by millions of people. Just because many people advocate something, does not make it the best course of action.

McDonald's would be America's best restaurant to eat at, and drinking soda pop at every meal, why both of those things would be the healthiest course of action if sheer numbers and popularity are what determine "the best course of action". I do not let internet-era and YouTube opinion determine what is actually the best operating procedure in a blanket way. At _some times_ BBF makes sense. As a matter of constant, standard operating procedure, it is a highly-flawed concept to people using high-level Nikon bodies, like the OP's D5.

Do you remember the somewhat famous Canadian sports shooter that used to post here a few years back. You know, the guy who had been sent to photograph two decades' worth of Olympic Games? His father was perhaps the most-famous Canadian sports shooter ever. He thought BBF was a dumb idea, for the same reasons I outline above. he wants the focusing to be initiated by the trigger. Every shot, every time, the trigger does the focusing. If you want to override, and lock, or hold, or retard acquisition of an new target, use the thumb button as an AF HOLD button.

I liken BBF to adding a second button to a rifle or pistol: you have the trigger, the sights, and then around 2003, you add a third button, the FIRE button...requiring yet another step. Aim (frame up the shot), hold the FIRE button (BBF), and then, pull the trigger.

I'm done arguing with people who do not understand the nuance of autofocusing on high-level, Nikon bodies. To anybody who wishes to ADD yet another step to getting a focused picture, go right ahead... add that addition un-needed step to every shot you want to shoot.

 

[Overread]

But I like 3rd gear for 30mph! It's also, I find, sometimes more practical on country lanes where there's so many tighter corners or sudden slowdowns needed for passing things; where 4th just feels far too fast a gear without the grip on the road (plus its a pain having to shift in and out all the time).
Also I thought you US folks all drove automatics anyway?!


As for Backbutton I think one aspect your argument is missing is the NATURE of how one shoots. Many of the pros you are referring to also hate image stabilization systems as well as backbutton; because their method of shooting is quite literally "point and shoot". Ergo they are seeing a moment coming; aiming the camera and firing the shot VERY fast. They are thus wanting AF there instantly; they don't want IS or VR or any other anti shake because the anti shake has to spend time speeding up before it actually counters shake (and in that speeding up phase it causes more blur than it resolves).
It has honestly far less to do with modern AF systems and far more to do with the style of shooting in those events.

Meanwhile many others who use IS/VR and backbutton are often, like myself, more likely to be following the action with the camera, so the buttons are already pressed/half pressed - the AF and IS are already running in advance of the shot being taken.

Neither method is superior and there are pros and cons for each and experience also plays a huge part in this (both of using a single method and also in general of shooting the sport and event). Often as not most photographers evolve to a method that works for them and once they have a method that works they more rarely branch out of it, which in time can come to mean that they only have one line of thinking when it comes ot those subjects (and more often most jsut pose one angle because its easier for a new person asking to get one set of directions rather than two or three which can leave them confused early on)

 

[greybeard]

BBF? This thing is becoming rather tribal. I switched over to BBF last year after reading an article about it somewhere. It felt rather natural to me from the start and now when I pickup a camera with shutter release button focus, it feels odd to me. I do think that a beginner might be ahead to leave everything on the shutter release until they master all the other controls on the camera and then play around with BBF to see if they like it. I also think that the OP's having AF activation on both the shutter release and AF-ON button and pushing the AF-ON while also pushing the shutter release (of course) might be confusing the AF system on his camera. But it's a D5 and it may be designed to work well that way?

 

[robvasi]

Here are my photos from Friday's Trap Shoot. I did not use BBF

They shot fast and with precision. Their bodies functioned as if it was a machine: same routine every time with no hesitation.

They were accurate. One got 25 out of 25, twice.

There were polite and respectful to each other.

 

[robvasi]

What happened to our brisk and informative discussion? With suggestions from participants in this thread I leaned some important details and methods. I applied this new knowledge and photographed the Trap Shoot. I posted some photos from the event.

And now silence.

I hope I did not wear out my welcome.

I appreciate the replies and interest in this topic. Thank you!

Of note: I want to thank the person who suggested that the angle I was shooting from caused some issues with depth of focus. I was able to secure a position that allowed for less of an angle.

I also reduced the shutter speed, based on a suggestion. I have been so accustomed to a fast shutter speed that I neglected to consider that a fast shutter speed was not needed. This seems so obvious now. I don't know why I was not thinking.

I removed the TC and shot with a 300mm without a TC.

 

[vintagesnaps]

Well, it is Thanksgiving weekend... I was going to offer suggestions because I've done sports and events (hockey in particular) but didn't get back to it. I'll try to get on tomorrow and post a link to a sports photographer I took a workshop with some years ago (he's done the Olympics etc.) that might be worth a look. These are an improvement and yes, the better vantage point helped. And you were getting close-ups of one participant at a time, different than needing to get a number of people all in focus. Maybe check back, people might still be affected by that ingredient in turkey that makes you sleepy or in a pumpkin pie stuffed daze.

 

[jcdeboever]

I've never BBF'd. I could never get the feel for it. I pump the shutter. If I track in C, I will use AF lock button. I manual focus mostly anyway. This year's soccer, I even shot a game in manual zone focus. I just picked about 10 areas to stand at, pre focused, and waited for subject to enter in that area. Strangely, that was my best soccer images and best hit rate this year. I missed a lot when I tried BBF, its not my thing. Pumping the shutter is what my late mentor taught me and current one as well. I seen immediate improvement in keeper rate, once I reasonably understood what was going on with the AF system and DOF ranges of glass. He introduced me to zone focusing as well because in his prime, there were no AF cameras. He never got into BBF with me, he mentioned it but wanted me to focus on the others first. He did say BBF was very specific to a type of shot but I can't recall the scenario.

For me, the camera is a tool. You can use a crescent wrench to take a nut off, or a 6pt box end wrench, or a 12pt socket...they all are capable of taking the nut off. In the end, the goal is to get the nut off. If you use the crecent wrench all the time, you will get good with it, maybe damage a couple nuts along the way, in the beginning. This is how my late mentor described it. He literally put out a bolt and nut scenario, with all 3 tools. It was a 3/4" nut. The crecent was the easiest to use because it had the longest handle and provided more leverage than the other two. He used the analogy to see what tool I would choose for the job, I crabbed the 12pt socket thinking it was a no brainer. I was wrong.

 

[SquarePeg]

I realize you weren't using a zoom so didn't have a lot of wiggle room with the composition but these last photos seem too close to me. You've cut off the end of the gun in several and the shooters seem to be way too crowded in. Backing off a bit would give you greater dof which still seems a bit too shallow to me. In some, the shoulder seems sharpest and not the face and/or gun. So... what was your aperture on these and what where was your focus point? My opinion - when there are people in the photo, especially just the one person, focus on the face and let the rest of the shot be part of the fall off if absolutely unavoidable - unless you're doing something creative where you are purposefully focusing on the ball or stick or puck and are ok with the person being slightly oof.

Sorry if this has come up already - I read most of the thread but confess to skimming some of the responses but what are you doing in post with these? Are you shooting in raw and doing some sharpening? If not, you're cheating yourself out of sharper photos. Also, I'm curious if you were using a tripod or monopod? You may need to work on your shooting technique. At shallow DOF with a long zoom even the slightest lean back or forward will mess up your focus on the subject.

As to the BBF vs shutter button debate - I had focus issues when I tried BBF. It was not really for me. It may have been lack of familiarity but I kept forgetting to press the button! I much prefer using the shutter button. I don't pump the shutter like jc though, I use AF-C and choose the appropriate focus mode based on the action and shoot in burst mode. I do switch back between single point and tracking depending on the sport. If I'm shooting softball, which has a lot of stops in action, I use single point and focus on my main subject. For field hockey which is near constant action, I've found that multi point zone focus, even though it allows the camera to choose what to focus on, is still the most successful for tracking moving subjects.

 

[robvasi]

I wish I had more reach. This is how I want to photograph the shooters. Or even tighter. This is a cropped image, thus, the lettering on hearing protection headset is not as sharp as it needs to be.

I have many images with the entire gun visible.I see your point about showing the entire gun. I will sort for those.
There firing line to my back was active so there was not much option to move back. I got the wider perspective at the beginning when the firing range to my back was not active.
I used f/9 or f/10
Estimated distance from my position to the shooter closest to me = 20 feet
Calculated DOF = .78 ft.
The focus point in most cases was the script on the gun.
If there is script or a design pattern on the gun, to have that out of focus would be troublesome to me.
I shoot RAW.
I do minimal sharpening in Lightroom. Images that are over-sharpened in post seem contrived. U will try to sharpen a bit more, however, they seem sharp to me.
I used a tripod with a gimbal head. Both are leveled.
What suggestions do you have to improve my shooting technique?

These images seem sharp to me, do they not appear sharp to you?

I don't want to get involved in the BBF debate.

 

[ronlane]

For that image above, I would have focused on his eye. I like the composition that you have here. In sports images, I would venture to say that 99% of the images are cropped, so I wouldn't worry about that, it's the nature of the "business".

Unless you are shooting for the company of the hearing protection, I wouldn't worry about it being a little soft, that is not the subject of the photo.