Stopping action

The world is a fast place, and photographers have to use some special techniques to capture the action.

Shutter speed

The first tool most photographers use to “freeze” action is shutter speed.

The speed that stops action depends entirely on the speed and direction of the thing you are attempting to photograph. Someone walking parallel to the camera can be frozen in time at 1/250th of a second. If they are coming at you on a diagonal, 1/125th of a second will freeze them, and if they are coming straight at you,1/60th will make them appear sharp. The faster the action moves, the faster you need to be shooting. Outdoor sports, with a lot of light, are usually shot at 1/1000th of a second or higher. It is enough to freeze a second baseman diving through the air for a line drive.

Indoors, things get trickier.

Sports like basketball and gymnastics take place in very dim arenas. Even in the Air Canada Centre, with its blazing television lights, you are lucky to get 1/250 at f 2.8 with 1600 ISO film. Hockey is a little better, because of the white ice and boards, which bounce light around, but you need to use very fast film and fast lenses (f 2.8), and shoot at 1/500th of a second, to truly freeze the play.

Available darkness

Some of the most difficult places to photograph are in theatres. The tungsten spot lights appear bright to your eye, but aren’t to your light meter. Worse for the photographer, the lights is contrasty with “pools” of bright areas that quickly fall off into darkness. You can’t use flash. (A: It annoys the folks on stage. B: Few flashes are powerful enough to reach the action.)

You will probably be lucky to get f2.8 at 1/60th of a second. If possible, use a spot meter to make sure you are metering the brighter actors, and not the dim background. Choose the fastest film available, be patient, and shoot a lot of film.

Peak action

Nature helps you freeze action.

When you photograph someone playing basketball, for instance, you need a fast shutter speed (say 1/500th of a second) to freeze them as fly up to the basket for a dunk.

You need the same speed as they drop back to the ground.

But the peak action happens when the player’s body stops at the apex of the jump. For a brief moment, as their hand rams the ball into the net, their body is between going up and going down. It is almost frozen in time.

Shoot at 1/250th and the player will appear sharp, but the ball may have some motion blur.

The same is true with a kid on a swing.

Hit the shutter button when the swing hits its furthest point in the arc and you can get a great action photo -- and the ability to shoot it at least one shutter speed slower than when they are flying past at the midpoint of the arc. The same thing with volleyball or jumping kids. At the top of the jump is a point where the motion stops and your shutter speed doesn’t have to be as fast.

Expose when the action hit it’s peak, and you will have sharp images and dramatic images.

Panning

Sometimes brute shutter speed isn’t enough. To truly freeze an Indy race car you need to shoot even faster that 1/1000th of a second. But use 1/4000th of a second and the car will be so frozen it will appear parked on the track.

What pro photographers do is “pan”. Take your camera aim down the track and follow the action through your viewfinder. Shoot when the car is directly in front of you. Shoot slower than 1/1000th of a second.

At 1/500th, the car and background will be stopped, but the wheels will appear to be spinning. At 1/250th, the wheels will be moving even faster. At 1/125, the background will begin to be blurred, making the car seem even faster.

Pan at 1/60th, and even someone on a bicycle will seem to be moving at breakneck speed.

Zone focusing

Even the best sports photographers, equipped with the fastest auto focus lenses aren’t able to get everything in tack sharp focus all the time. That’s why they rely on a technique called zone focusing. Figure out where the action will take place and focus on that spot. All you have to do is wait for the subject to enter the zone, when it does, all you have to concern yourself with is hitting the shutter button.

This technique works great on the race track, if you are sitting in the stands. Manually focus on the road directly in front of you. Swing the camera down the track and follow the cars through the viewfinder as they fly towards you (but don’t touch that focus ring). When the vehicle is directly in front of you, hit the shutter.

Use the same technique on finish lines in marathons, on anything that moves in one predetermined path.

This technique means you have to think only about action, and not about focusing. That is how pros shooting baseball capture those magical, ballet-like photos of flying ball players: they keep a camera with a long lens aimed and focused at second base, just waiting for the double play. Everything is preset. All they need to do is to hit the shutter at the right time.

Reaction

Keep your eye on the subject. Take the picture. Rewind and keep your eye on the subject. Sometimes the best photograph isn’t of the action, it is of the reaction.

Timing

Basketball players practice lay-ups constantly. Second basemen field grounders every day, for hours on end. It helps the reflexes.

A photographer who wishes to capture action has to practice too. Go down to the beach and practice following seagulls through your viewfinder, while focusing. Test your reflexes shooting things that move fast.

And shoot a lot of film.

As a newspaper photographer, I would shoots three or four rolls of 36-exposure film at a hockey game, just to get three or four good images. Photographers at Sports Illustrated shoot hundreds of images at a game, to increase their odds of getting a great shot.

And don’t be disappointed when it doesn’t always work. Action photography is a gamble, which makes taking great action photos even more satisfying.