A beginner’s guide to action photography

Many thanks to Canon…

If only everything stayed still, photography would be so much simpler. We can take our time photographing a building, or a landscape. Neither is going anywhere. But the moment you start shooting action, you introduce a whole new set of problems.

Action photography is not just about sports. An excited child or animal are just as difficult to photograph. Not only do you have to keep the subject centred in your camera, but you also have to avoid it appearing as an unrecognisable blur.

The problem is that the image of an active subject can move across the digital sensor of your camera during the exposure. In effect, a whole series of images of the subject is recorded, each merging into the next. The result is called blur. Even a relatively short exposure time can lead to significant blur if the subject is moving fast.

 

One way to overcome blur is to use a shorter exposure time. If the image has less time to move across the sensor, the blur will be reduced and you will eventually reach a point where the image appears sharp in the photograph.

 

Shutter speeds

The exposure time in a camera is controlled by a shutter. It opens and closes to control the duration of the light reaching the sensor. The time open is called the shutter speed. On digital cameras, the image is captured by turning the digital sensor on for a very brief period of time.

Typical shutter speeds on cameras are 1/60 second, 1/125 second and 1/250 second. These are very brief durations but not brief enough to eliminate blur from some moving subjects. So what shutter speed do you need?

It all depends on how fast the subject is moving, its distance from the camera, the direction the subject is moving relative to the camera, and the focal length setting of the lens.

A subject moving parallel to the image plane – that is, from one side of the frame to the other – needs a faster shutter speed than a subject moving at the same speed towards the camera, because the movement is more apparent. A subject moving diagonally towards or away from the camera falls between the two.

The further you are from a subject, the slower it will appear to be moving. Think of an airliner high in the sky. Although it is moving at hundreds of miles an hour, from the ground it appears almost stationary.

With digital cameras, you get instant feedback in the form of the preview image. Is a moving subject sharp in the image? No? Then set a faster shutter speed and shoot again.

It is possible to display a magnified view of part of the image you have just taken. This gives a much better idea of whether or not the subject appears sharp.

ISO speeds

The shutter speed is only one factor affecting the exposure of an image. Another is the lens aperture. This controls the brightness of the light reaching the sensor. If you alter the shutter speed, the aperture may need to change to maintain the same exposure. A slow shutter speed with a small lens aperture can give the same overall exposure as a fast shutter speed and a wide lens aperture.

Most of the time you do not need to worry about this. The exposure system of your camera will automatically alter the aperture if you change the shutter speed.

However, in low light, there will come a point where the aperture is at its widest setting. Continuing to set faster shutter speeds at this point will lead to underexposed images. One way to overcome this is to set a higher ISO speed. In effect, this increases the sensitivity of the digital sensor, allowing correct exposure in lower light.

The disadvantage of higher ISO settings is a lower image quality. However, Canon cameras are very good at holding quality at the higher ISO settings, so it is well worth shooting at ISO 800, or even 1600 (if available on your camera), if the light is too low for photography at ISO 200 or 400.

 

Panning your camera

There is another technique for obtaining sharp images of moving subjects – one which can be used with relatively slow shutter speeds. It is called ‘camera panning’. All you have to do is move the camera to follow the subject. The idea is to keep the subject stationary in the viewfinder. This will give a much sharper image of the subject than keeping the camera still. At the same time, moving the camera will blur the background, giving added emphasis to the sharp subject.

Panning the camera smoothly, and at the right speed for the subject, takes practice. This is easy with a digital camera, as there are no film or processing costs associated with the exposure, and you can see the results immediately. You can go along to a local sports meeting - athletics, cycling or motor racing - to practice your panning technique.

Sports mode
By their very nature, action photos often don’t allow you the time to prepare or select the best settings. To help you with this, many Canon cameras offer a ‘sports’ or ‘action’ shooting mode. This mode selects a fast shutter speed to ‘freeze’ the action of your moving subject. It may not be exactly right for that situation but it does mean that you can be sure you get a shot.

 

Photo Tips for the Mountain Photographer

  by Simon Kirwan

Travel photographer Simon Kirwan shares some tips for budding mountain snappers, from his travels to the Himalayas, the Alps, and even North Wales!

Mountains are by nature photogenic, but it is not always easy to capture their scenic grandeur in a photograph. The first requirement is to use decent equipment - simple point-and-shoot cameras, either using film or digital, can yield good results, but for most purposes, a good quality 35mm camera with a selection of lenses is necessary.I use a 24mm or 50mm lens on an Olympus OM1 (still going strong after 27 years!), or a 35mm-80mm zoom on a Canon EOS300, usually at its widest setting. Wide angle lenses are necessary to include the large physical area occupied by mountain scenes, and impart a sense of scale and space. It is a good idea to include some foreground detail like figures or buildings to emphasise the scale of the scene.

I generally shoot film, and get Kodak Picture CD processing, which gives me the best of both digital and traditional worlds, in that I get a set of prints, negatives for archival, and a set of superb Kodak scans suitable for use on my web site with little adjustment. These can also be used to produce photo-quality prints from the PC.

 The primary consideration affecting the quality of any photograph is lighting, even more so when shooting landscapes. The lighting on a particular scene can change dramatically depending on several factors - the weather, time of day, season of the year, and location of the scene. Generally speaking, lighting for mountain photography is better early or late in the day, and from autumn through to spring, when the sun is low in the sky, producing side-lighting which emphasises the shape of the mountain. During the middle of the day, and particularly in summer, the sun tends to be very overhead, and produces lighting which flattens the contours of the landscape.  Sunlight on a crisp winters day, with snow on the peaks, often produces the most satisfying results - the air is cold and clear, intensifying the blue of the sky, and definition of the landscape is at its most pronounced. In summer, heat produces a dust and photochemical haze in the atmosphere, reducing definition, and causing the sky to appear grey and colourless, even in bright sunshine.It is also important to remember that the light moves around the points of the compass from dawn to dusk, rising in the east, passing through south in the middle of the day, and setting in the west. Light illuminates different facets of a mountain at differing times of day, so that an east-facing mountain will receive light in the morning, west-facing will be lit in the afternoon, and south-facing will receive light all day. Often a shot from a desired viewpoint must be timed to suit the timing when the light will be at its most advantageous - side-lighting generally yields better results than flat over-the-shoulder lighting.

Finally, don’t leave the camera behind because the weather is bad - often the best results occur when the light suddenly breaks through clouds after rain, glinting off wet rock. Cloud formations often provide interest and drama to otherwise mediocre views, so don’t just wait for a perfect summer’s day, get out there and start shooting!

Learn How to Take Creative Photographs (Part 10) - The Last

Use a Polarisation Filter

With a polarisation filter you can achieve different effects. Blue skies become more intense, you will get more contrast and you can avoid undesired reflections or dazzle. You can only use a polarisation filter in combination with a single-lens reflex camera. This is because you need to turn the filter to a particular position, after which you can evaluate the result in your viewfinder or on your LCD display. You need to be able to look through the lens for this.

Bluer skies:

 

There is a lot of polarised light in a blue sky. With the filter, you hold this back as it were, so that the blue becomes darker and more penetrating. Another advantage is that the clouds look ‘whiter’ due to the fact that they stand out better against the deep blue heavens. So the polarisation filter ensures more contrast, but it can’t change the colours. It doesn’t make a grey sky blue, it just amplifies the blue that’s already there.

Prevent dazzle:

 

Sometimes certain objects are difficult to photograph because they are damp, or made of shiny material that reflects the light. A wet road surface for example, the silvery underside of birch leaves, a futuristic building with lots of reflective glass or a surface of water. You can suppress these reflections with a polarisation filter. Similar to Polaroid sunglasses.

Learn How to Take Creative Photographs (Part 9):

City by Night

You’ve probably seen them; impressive photographs of cities at night.Attractively lit buildings or monuments, where traffic races by infascinating white and red streamers. You can do it too, by complyingwith two simple conditions. Use a slow shutter speed and make sure thatyour camera doesn’t move. Set your camera to the ‘Tv’ or ‘S’ mode andchoose a shutter speed of 1/8s or even 1/4s. Then put your camera on a tripod, or lay it on a sturdy base and use the self-timer. Moving lights willsuddenly change into mysterious stripes.

Learn How to Take Creative Photographs (Part 8):

Tips for Semi-Pros

Your camera has many more possibilities than have been discussed here for getting more out of yourself and for taking more attractive photographs. Many people are hesitant about delving deeper into the menu and trying out new functions that they don’t already know.  Understandable, but certainly unnecessary. Experiment and don‘t let yourself be put off. And if you get stuck, switch your camera off and start again! If you’ve been taking photographs for a while and the tips so far are obvious to you, you may benefit more from the following more advanced advice.

8: Use a Telephoto Lens

A wide-angle lens works well enough for landscape photography. In the case of a compact camera, the lens is in this position when you switch it on. For single-lens reflex users a telephoto lens is also very suitable for photographing landscapes, due to the fact that you extract the depth from the photograph. Through this, foreground and background form a whole, while in reality they are sometimes kilometres apart. Approaching landscapes as planes you unite with a telephoto lens produces interesting results. The effect is difficult to describe and is a lot clearer in the pictures themselves.

 

Try experimenting with this. First photograph a view with a wide-angle lens, and then with a telephoto lens. You’ll see the difference immediately.

Learn How to Take Creative Photographs (Part 6 & 7)

6: Look at the world through a (different) pair of glasses

  Literally.  Because what applies to your eyes, also applies to a camera lens.  Using colour filters is a tried and tested method of adding colour and achieving a romantic effect. Through simply holding the lens of a pair of sunglasses in front of your camera you’ll get surprising results. An ordinary pair of sunglasses works fine, but for more colour contrast use a pair of glasses with a UV filter in the glasses.   

 

 7: Interplay of lines

 As a photographer, you should never just look at a landscape or building, but try to discover a diagonal line. The rising crest of a dune for example, a long road or the edge of a roof. This makes the photograph more dynamic.  You can also look for individual parts that together form a line. Consider a ridge of mountains, clumps of trees or window frames viewed from a certain angle. And another composition rule that is useful for landscapes is to position the horizon at 1/3rd of the picture. Tilt the camera slightly forward for more land, back slightly for more sky. This will immediately make your photograph less ‘standard’. 

 

Learn How to Take Creative Photographs (Part 5):

Low light, Lots of effect:

 Atmospheric images often owe their strengths to darkness. For example, a landscape in the dusk or a church interior. But how do you communicate this special atmosphere? After all, darkness and photography don’t go that well together. So you’ll have to make good use of the available light. You achieve the most beautiful effects at the boundaries of what is possible. As a result, far from all of the photographs will be successful, but this makes experimenting all the more exciting and a successful print all the more beautiful. 

 

Use the correct camera settings: 

 To begin with, switch your camera to ‘night’ mode. You’ll find this under ‘S’, ‘Scene’ or ‘Scenery’. Then ensure that your camera doesn’t move. A tripod is an excellent solution here. Or look for support, for example a wall or church bench. Putting down your camera and using the self-timer works well too. Finally, you can also raise the ISO rating in the menu. This makes your camera more sensitive to light.  The photograph will become slightly grainier, but this can also produce an artistic effect.

Learn How to Take Creative Photographs (Part 4):

Work with depth of field

  Actually, you can consider photography as an advanced form of realistic painting. Everyone understands that a painter first thinks about the composition that he’s going to make.  The different parts of a picture are not given a particular place in the composition by accident.  In the case of landscape photography, mother nature has already laid out all the elements for you. It’s up to you to make an interesting composition from it all. Creating depth is a handy trick for success here. 

Use the correct camera setting

Compact cameras are equipped with a special mode with which you can shoot more attractive landscape photography, most often just referred to as ‘landscape’.  You will find this mode under ‘S’, ‘Scene’ or ‘Scenery’. Check to ensure that your flash is off. 

Create layers

Is your camera switched to the correct mode? Ensure that your photograph gets more depth.  We’ll take a vast lake as an example, with wooded banks on the far side and, behind that, hills or mountains. So three layers. Don’t just snap a shot as if you were standing on the bank, but look for a twig or bush that is hanging over the water’s edge. Position this in the foreground, crouch down and you’ll see that this fourth layer amplifies the other three. You can use this method in almost every view; you can always find something that you can put in the foreground.

   

Learn How to Take Creative Photographs (Part 3):

The third installment in the series of hints and tips that aims to improve your photography. This time…  

Keep the ‘human dimension’ in mind.

 

Colossal buildings, monuments or trees can be so impressive that you immediately want to photograph them. Wait just a beat, and ask yourself if the size of the subject will be visible on the photograph. The term ‘big’ only really takes on meaning thanks to the opposite phenomenon: ‘small(er)’.

   

Prevent a great impression from becoming boring by introducing a comparative element in the composition. This can be a person next to a statue. But also an animal can lend the overwhelming impression of the landscape more value. What is  important is that you play with the proportions. This leaves the original impression intact more.

 

 

Learn How to Take Creative Photographs (Part 2):

Play with colour contrasts

Vast landscapes are often beautiful because they sometimes are a single colour. For example snowy mountain tops, a wooded slope or sandy dunes. If you shoot a photograph of this, the results are not always that impressive.
That is because just that one colour can be a bit too much of a good thing. Or in other words, too little. You miss a refreshing element. You can solve this by adding a strongly contrasting colour. Put, for example, a couple of brightly coloured skis straight up in the snow or a couple of bright yellow Wellingtons in a field. Be conscious of the place where you put the extra colour element. Red will certainly demand a lot of attention.

 

Give your day some colour

Do you regularly take your camera with you when you go out? Approach ‘colour’ as a theme for a change. For example, choose a single colour for a day that you then look for in the city (or outside it). You’ll see that you’ll photograph your surroundings in a completely different way. This way, you connect all sorts of subjects together thanks to the colour, in all its shades and nuances. Save the photographs at home in colour categories. This will give you exciting collections, which you can later enjoy comparing to each other.