Best Camera Settings for Sports Photography

When it comes to sports photography, capturing the right moment within a fast paced action is the key …

So how do we get such … easier now than before due to faster and continuous AF (Auto Focus).

During daylight, what would be the best settings:

- Setting shutter priority/or aperture priority: Normally, sports signifies fast action and as a result one needs to compensate with faster shutter to freeze the moment; to isolate the moving subject, a wider aperture is needed. However, if one needs to show speed with some optical motion blur the a slower shutter may be needed, not that/setting for shooting dark skies of course but slower than what one would want to achieve a frozen stance.

- Setting with different focal lengths: With standard focal length a shutter of 1/200 to 1/800 may be good enough whereas using a telephoto lens those values might not be enough and therefore achieving at least a non blurry shot would require a minimum of 1/focal length value. So if you have a 500mm focal length the minimum shutter speed would be 1/500 and that be mounted on a tripod; for freezing the shot with that focal length a 1/1500 to 1/2000 would be best.

- Working with ISO: for daylight shots an ISO of 100 to 400 would work flawlessly and the more it starts to dim out a higher ISO would be a needed. Do note that ISO varies between camera sensors, so do always see their respective ISO sensitivity reach and act upon that. A full frame sensor FX usually is less prone to inaccurate colors; yet a new/current crop sensor DX can also do the job well.

- Setting AF: I’d use continuous Auto Focus since my subject(s) is always moving and I need to keep track. Setting AF to continuous renders focus more accurate so the photographer can work the composition out with less effort at capturing a correctly focused subject … here though lens widest lens aperture play an important role; wider aperture results in faster more accurate AF … along with product build in technology, the lens is always ahead at attaining the best out of the shot within the frame.

Hope the info above helps a bit.

Happy shooting :)

Photo credits: Mykhailo Polenok, Ryzhov Sergey, Stefanschurr226, Cheryl Quigley, Yuran-78.