Small Cameras and Sports

[KrazyPete]

Some photo enthusiast parents are trying to set up a little camera club around our kid's sporting events. It's competition cheerleading so it's almost always indoors and moves pretty fast (3-4 minute routine with elements of dance and gymnastics).

At our first meeting we're supposed to be talking about setting up our cameras to get the best possible shots. I think I can be some help to the parents with SLRs. I get decent shots with mine. The problem is that I expect there may be more parents there with point and shoot type cameras. What kind of advice would you give them?

 

[LPZ_Stitch!]

The problem is that I expect there may be more parents there with point and shoot type cameras. What kind of advice would you give them?

If they've got a manual mode on their cameras (like any of the super/ultra-zooms and many higher-end compacts), the advice is the same as with a DSLR; widest aperture, highest (usable) ISO and possibly spot metering all aimed at getting the fastest possible shutter speed.

If they've got truly point & shoot cameras; the kinds with only Scene modes and no manual controls, try to help them find the one that's geared towards higher shutter speeds (it's usually called Sports or something like that).

And, point them all to Noiseware (or Neat Image or Noise Ninja, etc) ... all of the small sensor cameras need it to make the best use of their high ISOs.

 

[KrazyPete]

I could probably demo some noise software for them. I probably better ask them to bring their manuals too. Some of those exposure settings aren't easy to find on some point and shoots (at least not on mine).

 

[KrazyPete]

With your help and Flickr here's what I came up with (sorry, it's a bit "cheer" oriented):

Indoor Sports Photography Tips for “Point and Shoot” cameras

Get in close and use the flash: A compact camera has its strengths but getting good shots in low light usually is not one of them. Most competitions will specify that no flash photography is allowed. But for the events that allow it, use it. The flash will freeze the action when you can’t get it stopped otherwise. A limitation to consider is the power output of your flash. For the regular seats the flash will only light up the heads of the people in front of you. The flash is maybe effective up to about 100 feet so get down front and try to get shots of your child when she is near the front of the stage.

Press the shutter halfway to set the focus: Compact cameras sometimes take longer to focus so there is a pause between the time you press the shutter button and when the camera actually takes the picture. Dance sequences move pretty fast so you can miss some great shots during that short pause. Center your subject in the frame then press the shutter button halfway. This allows the camera’s auto-focus feature to lock in on the subject. Then just wait for the right moment and press the shutter the rest of the way down.

Anticipate “posed” moments in the routine: There are usually many places in the cheer routine where the girls stand still, even if it’s just for a moment. This happens when a stunt team goes up. You’ll usually find that they hit several poses during dance sequences too. Learn where those are and grab your shot then.

Try shooting in a “continuous” or “burst” mode: Some cameras while keep taking rapid fire pictures for as long as you hold the shutter down. As long as you have the room on your memory card, try shooting in bursts. 4 out of the 5 shots may be worthless but the one good shot makes it worthwhile. Unless you’re shooting film those extra four shots aren’t costing you anything.

Choose the correct program mode: Program modes are usually identified with little icons for specialized shooting like “Landscapes,” “Close-ups,” “Portraits” and “Sports.” The modes are optimized by the manufacturer for those specific shooting situations. Sports mode will probably try to grab a faster shutter speed than the other program modes so choose it if you have it.

No “digital” zoom: A lot of cameras advertise a 3x “optical” zoom and the 12x “digital” zoom or something like that. Stay in the optical range. This is usually shown by a graph on your LCD and the difference between the optical and digital zoom ranges are in different colors on the line chart. Digital zoom is “interpolating” the pixels to make it look like you’ve zoomed in closer. The camera can’t get anymore information that it does at the end of the optical range so it’s just cropping the optical view then artificially blowing it up to full size. You could do that better on your computer later and the side effect is that camera shake is going to be more exaggerated the further you zoom in.

Dig into the manual settings: Many compact cameras have the same shutter, aperture and ISO settings that SLR cameras have. The problem is these may be buried in the submenus of your camera settings screens. If you can set the aperture then set it wide open. That’s the smaller number available so f/2.8 is much better than f/11. Set your ISO to 800 or even 1600. This will usually increase the “grain” in the photo so experiment with it and see how high you can set the ISO before graininess becomes a problem. Set the shutter speed as fast as you can and still get good looking shots. I think 1/60 of a second would be the slowest you would want to go. Learning to shoot manually takes some practice and experimentation and you may not be able to improve on the camera’s built-in “sports” mode but it’s worth trying if nothing else is working for you.

Learn to love motion blur: Believe it or not, some pro photographers intentionally set their camera so that moving subjects become blurs. You’re going to lose detail but in a way it might depict the motion and energy of the moment more accurately.

Concentrate on candids: Compact cameras have some real limitations when it comes to shooting indoor sports but they are great for catching candid moments. Some people get nervous when you come around with a paparazzi looking camera rig but the compact point and shoot goes anywhere. Grab shots of the girls and their parents getting ready before the competition or teams hanging out between routines. You can use your flash all you want then and get really great photos that help tell the story of the day.

I have a separate sheet for links to things like EXIF viewers and noise software

 

[Master Mason]

I would put in something about understanding the limitations of the equipment, a lot of the disapointment I see is folks expecting their shots to turn out like the pro's when the pro's have gear that will sometimes enable a shot that the average P&Ser will just never be able to get... If expectations are set ahead of time, then people tend to be much happier at the end.

 

[KrazyPete]

The last two points were my subtle way of saying to appreciate the limits of the equipment. I probably should be more direct about those limitations.

 

[MICKEY88]

The flash is maybe effective up to about 100 feet so get down front and try to get shots of your child when she is near the front of the stage.

I'd like to see a point and shoot with a flash that powerful...

 

[Anewman]

I'd like to see a point and shoot with a flash that powerful...

AGREED 100%... Most are lucky to be effective at 10'.

 

[MICKEY88]

AGREED 100%... Most are lucky to be effective at 10'.

exactly, a top of the line strobe will get you 100 feet, but not a P&S flash..

 

[KrazyPete]

Point taken. I'm pulling stuff from a lot of different sources and I didn't really question the math. 10 feet seems a little short to me though.

 

[Anewman]

Point taken. I'm pulling stuff from a lot of different sources and I didn't really question the math. 10 feet seems a little short to me though.

Well that depends on how you define "effective".

 

[seashoreCM]

The typical point-and-shoot is advertised as having a flash range of ten to fifteen feet at its widest angle and about half that range at maximum optical zoom, typically 3x.

I assume this means a "correct" exposure in the middle of the picture without too much graininess. The corners may be darker.

Double the ISO and you get almost 1-1/2 times the flash distance for the same exposure. (But the higher the ISO, the more grainy i.e. noisy the picture is.)

Given the shooting distance for a correct exposure, if you increase the distance by 40% without changing anything else, the picture is now one stop underexposed and looks noticeably dark. Twice the distance with no other changes means two stops underexposed and the picture probably looks unreasonably dark.

If you do a flash shot at twice the distance the instructions recommend, after forcing the camera to maximum ISO (probably being twice what the camera would use normally), you will probably get a barely usable picture, that is, one stop underexposed and grainier than usual.

The lens aperture is probably maxed out. At higher optical zoom, the aperture maxes out at a smaller aperture thus a more powerful flash or higher ISO is needed for the same actual distance. The shutter speed is probably 1/100 second or longer but the flash itself is about 1/500 second or shorter, so increasing the shutter speed won't help.

Digital camera hints: http://members.aol.com/ajaynejr/digicam.htm