Hello everyone. Yesterday it was the first time for me shooting sports. It was Volleyball. How the *** do professionals get solid photos with all the faces, people running around, athletes getting in your shot while you are focused on a subject, limited space etc? I took around 1300 photos. Only like 300 of them are usable. It was extremely tough anticipating the ball and trying to capture the action. And when I did… the faces… Oh my god. And not only that… it was women playing…you can imagine how many of the photos they will like. Some are pretty good athletic photos not gonna lie. And to my defense I had only one lens a 24-105 f/4. I am waiting for the new Sigma for Sony mount. I think it will help a lot. Anyway I would love some advice. Thank you.

Edit: By saying it was women I wasnt trying to be sexist at all. But my girlfriend was playing and when see saw the photos she would look at every minute detail of her body.

  • broben2@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I’ve photographed (indoor) volleyball for two seasons.

    I used a zoom initially, but then settled on using 50mm and 35mm primes, depending on location (35mm court-side vs 50mm up in the bleachers). Then I crop photos liberally in post.

    I typically keep the settings at 1/250, f5.6 or f8, and use auto ISO. I like the wider aperture to help focus the viewer on a specific player/scene, and the narrower aperture for photos that need multiple players in focus.

    I mostly concentrate on a single player at a time (camera focused on player or location, not the ball), and use back button focus.

    Also, at least for my camera (Nikon D780), I have to press the shutter slightly before when I think the photo needs to be taken. That could just be my reaction time and the speed of play, not the camera itself.

    I typically take 100-300 shots a game, and narrow them down to 10-30 keepers.

    Also, even if I like a photo compositionally or its a great action shot, I’ll delete the photo if it makes the player(s) look unflattering.