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**The Kellyboy** · 08-12-2012, 11:14 PM - **5 Likes**

This is an article I wrote for Pentax User UK. Hope you enjoy it!

Sports Photography Using A Pentax

If I could give you only one tip it would have to be a quote from Robert Capa, the legendary American war photographer:

“If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re too far away.”

Sports photography is about getting in tight and seeing the emotion of the players and crowd. That’s why we love sport – the highs and lows.

You need to be as close to the action as possible and that means right on the touch-line, in front of the advertising boards. If you think you’ll need permission contact the club in the week before the game. My advice is to do this anyway out of courtesy. Most clubs are fine with this because you’re going to publicise their team / event, etc. There may be occasion when you need to be affiliated to a sports governing body to gain access to pitch-side. For example, to take pitch-side photos at any Welsh Premier Football matches you need to be affiliated to the FAW (it’s free and it means you can have access to any Welsh Premier match that season).

I’ve put together a few tips and tricks from my experiences of shooting sports with a Pentax DSLR…

Equipment

Camera Body
I’ve been taking sports photos, and supplying the local press too, for the last five years or so, all with a Pentax. The majority of the pics I have taken have been with a K7 and I’ve recently upgraded to a K5. Both bodies have coped with rugby and football, the latter especially. The autofocus is usually okay, but in dark situations the lack of contrast can hinder you a little. The frame rate is certainly quick enough and it means you’ll have fewer photos to edit through and delete later – imagine shooting 90 minutes at 11fps, most pics will go straight in the bin.
Remember – it aint the camera that takes the picture!

Fast Glass?
For most sports the minimum shutter speed needed to freeze the action is at least 1/500th, more likely 1/640th. If you’re shooting outside on a gloriously sunny afternoon and bathed in bright sunshine then f/5.6 or f/6.3 will be fast enough.
But we live in Britain. Those bright and sunny days, especially in the rugby or football seasons, are very few and far between.
Imagine it’s a Saturday in February at 4:30pm. It’s damp, grey and cold. What little sun there was has almost slipped away until tomorrow. The score is 1 -1. Just as the game is finishing the home side throw one last attack up the field…they score the winning goal and you nailed the photo! Everyone goes wild! Shouting and waving their arms in the air!
Including you.
You’ve just seen your blurry, dark, underexposed photo. f/5.6 will not give you the shutter speed you need (unless you crank up the ISO and then they’ll be noisy).

Don’t even try at a floodlit match unless you’ve got f/2.8.

Cricket, however, is only played in the summer on dry days. f/5.6 is going to do the job just fine! Set your camera on a tripod, aim it at the stumps and fire away! Plus the extra depth of field will let you get the wicket keeper and slips relatively sharp too!

There are plenty of other sports that don’t need f/2.8, too.

But, on choosing a lens, personally, I would go for a larger constant aperture over focal length. For example, f/2.8 200mm instead of f/5.6 300mm.

Memory Cards
I use class 10 Micro SD cards with an adapter. The class 10 makes the files write quicker and the camera’s buffer doesn’t fill up so fast. I use Micro SD cards for another reason which I’ll get to later.

Extra Equipment
Two things that make handling Pentax cameras an awful lot easier are:

1) Add a battery grip
2) Remove the neck strap

Pentax DSLRs are small – a huge selling point – but with a f/2.8 200mm lens on the front it makes them feel a little cumbersome. The grip gives the body that little extra size and seems to balance out the camera and lens. Also, most of my sports shots are taken in portrait orientation and the grip makes those much more comfortable.

How many times have you looked through the viewfinder and found the strap in the way? Never? Oh, if it’s just me then forget point two. But, if you’ve been wasting seconds moving the strap it means you’ve missed the shot - and there’s no replay in live sports! I use clips to attach my neck strap and remove it completely when I start shooting.

One last tip on equipment – wear “work” trousers with knee pads. The extra pockets in the trousers are really handy BUT to make your subjects appear larger, taller and more imposing you need to be on your knees. When you shoot from a lower angle the players look better and knee pads are a must!

Camera Settings & Technique

I either shoot in shutter priority or manual.

If the light is likely to change I choose shutter priority (usually 1/640th or 1/1000th). This is when there are clouds in the sky that are likely to blot out the sun every now and again.
If the light is constant (floodlights, all clouds or all blue sky) I’ll shoot manual, keeping my shutter speed as above.

I wont go over ISO 1600 on my K7 or about 5000 on my K5, but I’ll keep it as low as I can get away with, usually about ISO 800.

I generally use centre point for the autofocus and set the frame rate to Hi.

Finally, I’ve disabled the shutter-release for focussing and use my thumb on the AF button on the rear of the camera. This means I can concentrate on timing and leave the AF to take care of itself. My “hit-rate” of focussed images improved dramatically by switching to this method.

As I mentioned earlier, I’m always on my knees when shooting sports as this makes the players look taller and more imposing (knee pads!).

Finally, get in as tight as possible, either in-camera or by cropping your pics later. Only have in the frame enough to tell the story.

RAW or JPEG
I know that this may, and probably will, divide the audience totally. There are some photographers who swear by RAW and sneer with malicious intent at others who shoot exclusively in JPEG. Well…I shoot a mix of both, but never RAW+.

I use RAW if the occasion is really important, if it’s floodlit (noise reduction) or I want to email a shot quickly from pitch-side (I’ll get to that later).

I shoot JPEG if it’s a “normal” match, usually at the highest resolution.

BUT…when I shoot a sports event and will be printing the images on site, I’ll shoot JPEG at 2 megapixels. This speeds up the transfer rate from card to computer and from computer to printer – time is money! 2 megapixels is plenty enough data to make a quality 9x6 print.

Flash?
Never. Unless it’s before or after the game (team pics, etc).

Pitch-side Editing
I always edit on the fly. If a pic looks no good on a tiny 3 inch screen it’s certainly going to be no good on a computer monitor. I know some people never delete in the field “just in case”, but I do. It saves time later.

I’ll usually take about 300 images at a rugby or football match. This is edited down to 150ish pitch-side and further edited down to about 60 on a computer. Why delete so many? Only keep the best. Also, how many appear in the paper? Just that 1 killer pic. That’s all you need.

Facebook

As fast as humanly possible I get my best (watermarked) pics onto Facebook and tag everybody that I can. It boosts advertising and awareness of your camera skills.

Finally…

Why do I shoot RAW (the biggest file size) to ease emailing images at pitch-side? Why do I use Micro SD cards?

Simple, to get the jump on the other photographers.

At half time I scroll through my RAW images and edit the best one(s) using the in-camera RAW converter. Then I save them as a new JPEG at 2 megapixels. I insert the Micro SD card into my BlackBerry and locate the images. The BlackBerry doesn’t read RAW files so I can scroll through them really quickly to find the newly saved JPEG versions. Send them as an email to the press, etc. That way even if there’s another photographer at your event your pics will get there faster and it’s your shots that appear in the paper. Unless, of course, they’ve just read this tip, too!

(If you try this with JPEGs, the phone reads the image and takes forever to scroll through the large JPEG files and the second half begins before you know it.)

I hope this helps you to nail those sports shots!

Frogfish · 08-12-2012, 11:57 PM

Nice write up and that is a great tip at the end re. RAW and getting your shots out fast.

Some things I have different views on :
1. I was told by a full time pro never to shoot sports wide open, f8 is preferred otherwise not only do you miss shots but often only have parts of a player, or maybe only one player, in focus when it would be a much better shot having two in focus. Personally I have never found the need to go below f4 (though I have never shot sports with the K7 - poor high ISO handling, or in the UK)

I generally use DA300/4 and Sigma 50-150/2.8 for pitch action.

2. I usually shoot 10mp jpgs - as there are often media 'runners' to collect the SD cards for the media centre every 30 mins or so. Why use 10 mp ? Because most shots will need cropping and some a lot more than others.

3. With the K5 I almost always shoot in TAv with a 1600 - 3200 ISO max.

4. I always shoot the 300 on a monopod.

ihasa · 08-13-2012, 01:20 AM

Originally posted by The Kellyboy

At half time I scroll through my RAW images and edit the best one(s) using the in-camera RAW converter. Then I save them as a new JPEG at 2 megapixels. I insert the Micro SD card into my BlackBerry and locate the images. The BlackBerry doesn’t read RAW files so I can scroll through them really quickly to find the newly saved JPEG versions. Send them as an email to the press, etc. That way even if there’s another photographer at your event your pics will get there faster and it’s your shots that appear in the paper. Unless, of course, they’ve just read this tip, too!

(If you try this with JPEGs, the phone reads the image and takes forever to scroll through the large JPEG files and the second half begins before you know it.)

I hope this helps you to nail those sports shots!

Genius!!!

JohnX · 08-13-2012, 01:25 AM

Nice read!

One thing you don't say (or I've missed) is whether you use/prefer AF-C?

**The Kellyboy** · 08-13-2012, 02:05 AM

Originally posted by JohnX

Nice read!

One thing you don't say (or I've missed) is whether you use/prefer AF-C?

Sorry about missing that!

I use AF-C. It's miles better on the K5 than the K7.

Here's some from the olympics that I've taken, too!

RawPhotography | Facebook

**The Kellyboy** · 08-13-2012, 02:26 AM

Originally posted by Frogfish

Nice write up and that is a great tip at the end re. RAW and getting your shots out fast.

Some things I have different views on :
1. I was told by a full time pro never to shoot sports wide open, f8 is preferred otherwise not only do you miss shots but often only have parts of a player, or maybe only one player, in focus when it would be a much better shot having two in focus. Personally I have never found the need to go below f4 (though I have never shot sports with the K7 - poor high ISO handling, or in the UK)

I generally use DA300/4 and Sigma 50-150/2.8 for pitch action.

2. I usually shoot 10mp jpgs - as there are often media 'runners' to collect the SD cards for the media centre every 30 mins or so. Why use 10 mp ? Because most shots will need cropping and some a lot more than others.

3. With the K5 I almost always shoot in TAv with a 1600 - 3200 ISO max.

4. I always shoot the 300 on a monopod.

I think I'll try shooting 10mp next time. It'll speed up transfer and make editing at home much quicker.

On a side note, this whole forum is completely different to almost any other I've seen because people are always so polite to each other in their replies and responses, etc. A similar reply in a different forum would have been full of criticism and possibly humiliation and "superiority". LinkedIn is a classic example - the "UK Wedding Photographers" group is rife with bitter resentment and sarcasm. I'm sure that they wouldn't dream of talking to someone like that in person. At least here, people respond to each other as though they were face to face.

**TER-OR** · 08-14-2012, 01:58 PM - **1 Like**

Originally posted by The Kellyboy

I think I'll try shooting 10mp next time. It'll speed up transfer and make editing at home much quicker.

On a side note, this whole forum is completely different to almost any other I've seen because people are always so polite to each other in their replies and responses, etc. A similar reply in a different forum would have been full of criticism and possibly humiliation and "superiority". LinkedIn is a classic example - the "UK Wedding Photographers" group is rife with bitter resentment and sarcasm. I'm sure that they wouldn't dream of talking to someone like that in person. At least here, people respond to each other as though they were face to face.

The simple reason is we come here to help make ourselves better photographers, not make others seem worse. Posts like yours are just the thing we need to learn from.

liukaitc · 08-17-2012, 08:47 PM

"I would go for a larger constant aperture over focal length. For example, f/2.8 200mm instead of f/5.6 300mm."

I like this sentence.

liukaitc · 08-17-2012, 08:51 PM

but you did not talk about focus speed of lens. what is your field experience with this.
Is a slow focus speed lens like 50-135 capable for sport?

08-12-2012, 11:14 PM - 5 Likes	#1
The Kellyboy Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Pembrokeshire Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 86	Sports Photography Using A Pentax This is an article I wrote for Pentax User UK. Hope you enjoy it! Sports Photography Using A Pentax If I could give you only one tip it would have to be a quote from Robert Capa, the legendary American war photographer: “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re too far away.” Sports photography is about getting in tight and seeing the emotion of the players and crowd. That’s why we love sport – the highs and lows. You need to be as close to the action as possible and that means right on the touch-line, in front of the advertising boards. If you think you’ll need permission contact the club in the week before the game. My advice is to do this anyway out of courtesy. Most clubs are fine with this because you’re going to publicise their team / event, etc. There may be occasion when you need to be affiliated to a sports governing body to gain access to pitch-side. For example, to take pitch-side photos at any Welsh Premier Football matches you need to be affiliated to the FAW (it’s free and it means you can have access to any Welsh Premier match that season). I’ve put together a few tips and tricks from my experiences of shooting sports with a Pentax DSLR… Equipment Camera Body I’ve been taking sports photos, and supplying the local press too, for the last five years or so, all with a Pentax. The majority of the pics I have taken have been with a K7 and I’ve recently upgraded to a K5. Both bodies have coped with rugby and football, the latter especially. The autofocus is usually okay, but in dark situations the lack of contrast can hinder you a little. The frame rate is certainly quick enough and it means you’ll have fewer photos to edit through and delete later – imagine shooting 90 minutes at 11fps, most pics will go straight in the bin. Remember – it aint the camera that takes the picture! Fast Glass? For most sports the minimum shutter speed needed to freeze the action is at least 1/500th, more likely 1/640th. If you’re shooting outside on a gloriously sunny afternoon and bathed in bright sunshine then f/5.6 or f/6.3 will be fast enough. But we live in Britain. Those bright and sunny days, especially in the rugby or football seasons, are very few and far between. Imagine it’s a Saturday in February at 4:30pm. It’s damp, grey and cold. What little sun there was has almost slipped away until tomorrow. The score is 1 -1. Just as the game is finishing the home side throw one last attack up the field…they score the winning goal and you nailed the photo! Everyone goes wild! Shouting and waving their arms in the air! Including you. You’ve just seen your blurry, dark, underexposed photo. f/5.6 will not give you the shutter speed you need (unless you crank up the ISO and then they’ll be noisy). Don’t even try at a floodlit match unless you’ve got f/2.8. Cricket, however, is only played in the summer on dry days. f/5.6 is going to do the job just fine! Set your camera on a tripod, aim it at the stumps and fire away! Plus the extra depth of field will let you get the wicket keeper and slips relatively sharp too! There are plenty of other sports that don’t need f/2.8, too. But, on choosing a lens, personally, I would go for a larger constant aperture over focal length. For example, f/2.8 200mm instead of f/5.6 300mm. Memory Cards I use class 10 Micro SD cards with an adapter. The class 10 makes the files write quicker and the camera’s buffer doesn’t fill up so fast. I use Micro SD cards for another reason which I’ll get to later. Extra Equipment Two things that make handling Pentax cameras an awful lot easier are: 1) Add a battery grip 2) Remove the neck strap Pentax DSLRs are small – a huge selling point – but with a f/2.8 200mm lens on the front it makes them feel a little cumbersome. The grip gives the body that little extra size and seems to balance out the camera and lens. Also, most of my sports shots are taken in portrait orientation and the grip makes those much more comfortable. How many times have you looked through the viewfinder and found the strap in the way? Never? Oh, if it’s just me then forget point two. But, if you’ve been wasting seconds moving the strap it means you’ve missed the shot - and there’s no replay in live sports! I use clips to attach my neck strap and remove it completely when I start shooting. One last tip on equipment – wear “work” trousers with knee pads. The extra pockets in the trousers are really handy BUT to make your subjects appear larger, taller and more imposing you need to be on your knees. When you shoot from a lower angle the players look better and knee pads are a must! Camera Settings & Technique I either shoot in shutter priority or manual. If the light is likely to change I choose shutter priority (usually 1/640th or 1/1000th). This is when there are clouds in the sky that are likely to blot out the sun every now and again. If the light is constant (floodlights, all clouds or all blue sky) I’ll shoot manual, keeping my shutter speed as above. I wont go over ISO 1600 on my K7 or about 5000 on my K5, but I’ll keep it as low as I can get away with, usually about ISO 800. I generally use centre point for the autofocus and set the frame rate to Hi. Finally, I’ve disabled the shutter-release for focussing and use my thumb on the AF button on the rear of the camera. This means I can concentrate on timing and leave the AF to take care of itself. My “hit-rate” of focussed images improved dramatically by switching to this method. As I mentioned earlier, I’m always on my knees when shooting sports as this makes the players look taller and more imposing (knee pads!). Finally, get in as tight as possible, either in-camera or by cropping your pics later. Only have in the frame enough to tell the story. RAW or JPEG I know that this may, and probably will, divide the audience totally. There are some photographers who swear by RAW and sneer with malicious intent at others who shoot exclusively in JPEG. Well…I shoot a mix of both, but never RAW+. I use RAW if the occasion is really important, if it’s floodlit (noise reduction) or I want to email a shot quickly from pitch-side (I’ll get to that later). I shoot JPEG if it’s a “normal” match, usually at the highest resolution. BUT…when I shoot a sports event and will be printing the images on site, I’ll shoot JPEG at 2 megapixels. This speeds up the transfer rate from card to computer and from computer to printer – time is money! 2 megapixels is plenty enough data to make a quality 9x6 print. Flash? Never. Unless it’s before or after the game (team pics, etc). Pitch-side Editing I always edit on the fly. If a pic looks no good on a tiny 3 inch screen it’s certainly going to be no good on a computer monitor. I know some people never delete in the field “just in case”, but I do. It saves time later. I’ll usually take about 300 images at a rugby or football match. This is edited down to 150ish pitch-side and further edited down to about 60 on a computer. Why delete so many? Only keep the best. Also, how many appear in the paper? Just that 1 killer pic. That’s all you need. Facebook As fast as humanly possible I get my best (watermarked) pics onto Facebook and tag everybody that I can. It boosts advertising and awareness of your camera skills. Finally… Why do I shoot RAW (the biggest file size) to ease emailing images at pitch-side? Why do I use Micro SD cards? Simple, to get the jump on the other photographers. At half time I scroll through my RAW images and edit the best one(s) using the in-camera RAW converter. Then I save them as a new JPEG at 2 megapixels. I insert the Micro SD card into my BlackBerry and locate the images. The BlackBerry doesn’t read RAW files so I can scroll through them really quickly to find the newly saved JPEG versions. Send them as an email to the press, etc. That way even if there’s another photographer at your event your pics will get there faster and it’s your shots that appear in the paper. Unless, of course, they’ve just read this tip, too! (If you try this with JPEGs, the phone reads the image and takes forever to scroll through the large JPEG files and the second half begins before you know it.) I hope this helps you to nail those sports shots!

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08-12-2012, 11:57 PM	#2
Frogfish Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2009 Location: Shanghai Posts: 4,490	Nice write up and that is a great tip at the end re. RAW and getting your shots out fast. Some things I have different views on : 1. I was told by a full time pro never to shoot sports wide open, f8 is preferred otherwise not only do you miss shots but often only have parts of a player, or maybe only one player, in focus when it would be a much better shot having two in focus. Personally I have never found the need to go below f4 (though I have never shot sports with the K7 - poor high ISO handling, or in the UK) I generally use DA300/4 and Sigma 50-150/2.8 for pitch action. 2. I usually shoot 10mp jpgs - as there are often media 'runners' to collect the SD cards for the media centre every 30 mins or so. Why use 10 mp ? Because most shots will need cropping and some a lot more than others. 3. With the K5 I almost always shoot in TAv with a 1600 - 3200 ISO max. 4. I always shoot the 300 on a monopod.

08-13-2012, 01:20 AM	#3
ihasa Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: West Midlands Photos: Gallery Posts: 2,066	Originally posted by The Kellyboy At half time I scroll through my RAW images and edit the best one(s) using the in-camera RAW converter. Then I save them as a new JPEG at 2 megapixels. I insert the Micro SD card into my BlackBerry and locate the images. The BlackBerry doesn’t read RAW files so I can scroll through them really quickly to find the newly saved JPEG versions. Send them as an email to the press, etc. That way even if there’s another photographer at your event your pics will get there faster and it’s your shots that appear in the paper. Unless, of course, they’ve just read this tip, too! (If you try this with JPEGs, the phone reads the image and takes forever to scroll through the large JPEG files and the second half begins before you know it.) I hope this helps you to nail those sports shots! Genius!!!

08-13-2012, 01:25 AM	#4
JohnX Pentaxian Join Date: Jul 2009 Location: London Posts: 1,116	Nice read! One thing you don't say (or I've missed) is whether you use/prefer AF-C?

08-13-2012, 02:05 AM	#5
The Kellyboy Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Pembrokeshire Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 86 Original Poster	Originally posted by JohnX Nice read! One thing you don't say (or I've missed) is whether you use/prefer AF-C? Sorry about missing that! I use AF-C. It's miles better on the K5 than the K7. Here's some from the olympics that I've taken, too! RawPhotography \| Facebook

08-13-2012, 02:26 AM	#6
The Kellyboy Loyal Site Supporter Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Pembrokeshire Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 86 Original Poster	Originally posted by Frogfish Nice write up and that is a great tip at the end re. RAW and getting your shots out fast. Some things I have different views on : 1. I was told by a full time pro never to shoot sports wide open, f8 is preferred otherwise not only do you miss shots but often only have parts of a player, or maybe only one player, in focus when it would be a much better shot having two in focus. Personally I have never found the need to go below f4 (though I have never shot sports with the K7 - poor high ISO handling, or in the UK) I generally use DA300/4 and Sigma 50-150/2.8 for pitch action. 2. I usually shoot 10mp jpgs - as there are often media 'runners' to collect the SD cards for the media centre every 30 mins or so. Why use 10 mp ? Because most shots will need cropping and some a lot more than others. 3. With the K5 I almost always shoot in TAv with a 1600 - 3200 ISO max. 4. I always shoot the 300 on a monopod. I think I'll try shooting 10mp next time. It'll speed up transfer and make editing at home much quicker. On a side note, this whole forum is completely different to almost any other I've seen because people are always so polite to each other in their replies and responses, etc. A similar reply in a different forum would have been full of criticism and possibly humiliation and "superiority". LinkedIn is a classic example - the "UK Wedding Photographers" group is rife with bitter resentment and sarcasm. I'm sure that they wouldn't dream of talking to someone like that in person. At least here, people respond to each other as though they were face to face.

08-14-2012, 01:58 PM - 1 Like	#7
TER-OR Site Supporter Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Dundee, IL Photos: Gallery \| Albums Posts: 6,699	Originally posted by The Kellyboy I think I'll try shooting 10mp next time. It'll speed up transfer and make editing at home much quicker. On a side note, this whole forum is completely different to almost any other I've seen because people are always so polite to each other in their replies and responses, etc. A similar reply in a different forum would have been full of criticism and possibly humiliation and "superiority". LinkedIn is a classic example - the "UK Wedding Photographers" group is rife with bitter resentment and sarcasm. I'm sure that they wouldn't dream of talking to someone like that in person. At least here, people respond to each other as though they were face to face. The simple reason is we come here to help make ourselves better photographers, not make others seem worse. Posts like yours are just the thing we need to learn from.

08-17-2012, 08:47 PM	#8
liukaitc Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: New York Photos: Albums Posts: 1,008	"I would go for a larger constant aperture over focal length. For example, f/2.8 200mm instead of f/5.6 300mm." I like this sentence.

08-17-2012, 08:51 PM	#9
liukaitc Veteran Member Join Date: Jul 2010 Location: New York Photos: Albums Posts: 1,008	but you did not talk about focus speed of lens. what is your field experience with this. Is a slow focus speed lens like 50-135 capable for sport?