P#14 Q4A: What Is the Best Way to Approach Kids Sports Photography

The Right Equipment

Vik Orenstein: The right equipment is important. It's easy if you're shooting a DSLR because you have instant autofocus and you can use a longer lens.

If you're shooting a point-and-shoot, it can be a little bit more problematic because you've got that issue where you press the button, you go away, have coffee, come back, and then the picture snaps.

If you're shooting with a point-and-shoot, you want to use your sports mode for sure. Don't leave it on auto. You want to try doing a little focus lock.

When you're doing kids sports photography, try to anticipate the action, push down the button halfway, track the subject, and then push the button down the rest of the way when you're ready. You'll have a better job of capturing the decisive moment and not just a little bit after.

Audri Lanford: Coming back to the DSLR, the digital SLR cameras, what would you do there?

Vik Orenstein: The first thing I would do is I would use shutter priority mode and I would set my shutter speed at a fast enough speed to freeze the action.

If the light was really low and I couldn't use a flash because I was too far away from the subject or what have you, then I would set it at at least a 1/25th of a second. But if the light allowed me to, I would set it at a 1/50th of a second so that I could really freeze that action.

Then I would use a long zoom (again, a focal length of about 200mm or even 300mm) for a couple of reasons. One is that I obviously want to get nice and close to the subject and not have a lot of stuff in the background. The other thing is that with a longer focal length, you can get the background to drop out of focus so that the subject really pops against the background.

Shoot, Shoot and Shoot Some More

Audri Lanford: Can you offer any other ideas for actually capturing that moment? That's really a tricky part of kids sports photography.

Vik Orenstein: It is. If you think about it too hard, it's like asking a centipede which foot he steps with first. You have to try not to think about it. I tease people. I say, "It is very Zen. You have to imagine that you are the camera, you are the child, you are the lens," all that stuff.

But it's really true, you have to try to not think about it and go on a visceral level. Let your gut dictate when you shoot. And shoot a lot. If you have a camera that you can set to shoot in bursts, certainly do that. Especially in this day of digital -- you can shoot a whole bunch of stuff and it doesn't cost you anything.

Even if you're not shooting bursts, shoot a bunch of shots and expect to get maybe one good one out of 20 or 40 even.

In Closing

Anyone can get great sports shots. According to Vik Orenstein, you just have to combine the right kids sports photography techniques with the proper equipment and keep shooting until the phenomenal shots happen. And have fun!