Sunday, August 02, 2009

Shooting Speed

8sep09 — Correction to step 2.

Here are some tips about shooting fast moving subjects, like car racing, air shows, and sports, with a digital camera.

  1. Make sure your batteries are charged, lens(es) and sensor are
    clean, and you have the lenses you plan to use.
  2. Use the fastest memory card you have.
  3. Set your camera to shoot JPEG only.
  4. Turn single-shot mode off.
  5. If the action is all happening in the distance, pre-focus your camera and turn auto-focus off.
  6. Set the lens aperture to a medium opening like f/8.
  7. Position your body, facing towards the direction you’re likely to finish. And twist your body in the direction that the action is likely to start.

2. Single Format

Since the write speed to your storage card is slow, choose the smallest format you would be satisfied with; this allows as many images as possible to be cached as the camera is saving the images to the storage card. That means shooting JPEG only. If you want to shoot RAW, be sure not to record both RAW+JPEG (if you even have that option), because that will slow down the RAW recordings. Set the camera to record only one format and use JPEG only (if you can stand it).

4 & 5. Pre-focus and Preset Aperture

If the background is non-descript (as when shooting airplanes against the blue sky) or if you will be panning the camera across objects that are nearer than the subject (e.g., telephone poles and feces), pre-focusing the lens and turning off its autofocus mode will ensure that the lens isn’t seeking focus away from the subject while tracking the moving subject.

This only works if you are able to capture the subject within the focus zone formed by the depth of field of the lens.

In order to broaden the focus zone, set the camera to aperture priority and choose a medium aperture (e.g., f/8 or smaller) so that precise focus is not necessary. The choice of aperture depends on the balance of

  1. Your ability to capture the subject at the pre-focused distance,
  2. The required shutter speed,
  3. The amount of depth-of-field desired.

6. Body Position

Successfully capturing the image of a moving subject results in a sharp subject image while its surroundings may be blurred. To do this, the camera needs to track with the movement of the subject during the time that the shutter is open. Like many sports, golf, tennis, baseball, this requires good body positioning, early anticipation, and smooth follow through.

Anticipate the path of the subject, especially where you first expect to see it and where it will leave your view. Plan to track and follow the subject with your camera movement through that entire path. Knowing the extent of the path, position your body so that it does not “bind” your movement as you move through the path. Consider positioning you body so that it is square just past the middle of your movement through the path of tracking the subject movement.

Finally, anticipating where and when the subject will appear in view, start the tracking movement of the camera slowly before the appearance of the subject to coincide with the appearance and movement of the subject as it comes into view. Continue tracking smoothly and press and hold the shutter release for the requirement number of shots as you track the movement of the subject. Even after releasing the shutter release, continue to track the subject’s movement smoothly–this smooth follow through will ensure smooth tracking of the subject in your final shots.

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