Sport Photography

Sports photography refers to the genre of photography that covers all types of sports.

In the majority of cases, professional sports photography is a branch of photojournalism, while amateur sports photography, such as photos of children playing association football, is a branch of vernacular photography.

The main application of professional sports photography is for editorial purposes; dedicated sports photographers usually work for newspapers, major wire agencies or dedicated sports magazines. However, sports photography is also used for advertising purposes both to build a brand and as well as to promote a sport in a way that cannot be accomplished by editorial means.

Equipment

Equipment typically used for sports photography includes a digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) camera with high shutter speeds (frames per second), with interchangeable lenses ranging from 14mm to 400mm or longer in focal length, depending on the type of sport. The proper lenses are very important as they allow the photographer to reach closer or farther as quickly as possible to keep up with the game play. Essential accessories include amonopod or tripod for stability and extra batteries. Longer focal length lenses typically being used to photograph play on a field such as football, while wide angle lenses are can be used for sideline and close up athlete photos.

Camera bodies

Preferred camera bodies for the modern sports photographer are those with fast autofocus and a high burst rate (usually 8 frames per second or faster). The current flagship sports cameras produced by Canon and Nikon are the Canon EOS-1D X and the Nikon D4, these are popular in professional sports.

Lenses

Different sports favor different lenses, but sports photography usually requires fast (wide aperture) telephotolenses, with fast autofocus performance. Fast autofocus is needed to focus on movement, telephoto to get close to the action, and wide aperture for several reasons:

• The background is put drastically out of focus due to a shallow depth of field, resulting in better subject isolation.
• The lenses can focus more quickly due to the increase in light entering the lens – important with fast-moving action.
• Faster shutter speeds can be used to freeze the action.

Extremely wide apertures (such as f/1.2 or f/1.4) are more rarely used, because at these apertures the depth of field is very shallow, which makes focusing more difficult and slows down autofocus. The main distinction is between outdoor sports and indoor sports – in outdoor sports the distances are greater and the light brighter,^[1] while in indoor sports the distances are lesser and the light dimmer.^[2] Accordingly, outdoor sports tend to have longer focal length long focus lenses with slower apertures, while indoor sports tend to have shorter lenses with faster apertures.

Both zoom and prime lenses are used; zoom lenses (generally in the 70–200, 75–300, 100–400 or 200-400 range) allow a greater range of framing; primes are faster, cheaper, lighter, and optically superior, but are more restricted in framing. As an example the Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 400mm f/2.8G ED VR AF lens and the Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS II USM lens are both fixed telephoto lenses which cannot zoom.

Apertures of f/2.8 or faster are most often used, though f/4 is also found, particularly on brighter days. Particularly visible are the Canon super telephoto lenses, whose distinctive white casing (to dissipate the sun's heat) is recognizable at many sporting events. Of these, the Canon 400mm f/2.8 is particularly recommended for field sports such as football.

This varies with sport and preference; for example golf photographers may prefer to use a 500mm f/4 as opposed to a 400mm f/2.8 as it is a lighter lens to be carried around all day.

Remote cameras

Sports photographers may use remote cameras triggered by wireless shutter devices (i.e. Pocket Wizards) to photograph from places they could not otherwise stay, for example in an elevated position such as above a basketball basket, or to be in two places at once, i.e. at the start and the finish - such as at horse racing.