Most of my photography has been of relatively stationary subjects, where I just use single-servo AF and either focus & recompose or move the single focus point to where in the frame I want the subject, or largely-individual sports like triathlon. But I’ve struggled getting sharp shots in team sports photography with a large number of moving people in frame.

If I try using continuous autofocus, it often focuses on the wrong subject or the background or seemingly nothing at all. If I try falling back on the techniques that work in other contexts, I usually just can’t get the shot off at the right time.

I don’t really understand the different autofocus options on my camera. I was mostly using what it calls “3D”, but I also briefly tried “group-area”. I don’t really understand how group-area differs from d9 or even 3D. And my camera’s manual doesn’t clear things up for me. I spent a little while in manual autofocus with a fairly closed aperture, by using autofocus and then switching to manual and leaving it untouched; but this only worked when play stayed roughly the same distance from the camera for a while, so didn’t really scale well.

Separate from the focus question, I spent the afternoon shooting at 1/1600. I’m not completely sure if this is fast enough, and maybe some of the blur in my photos is actually better explained by camera shake (shooting at 200 mm on a 1.5x crop sensor) or movement of the subjects. I suspect it’s probably not relevant, but I thought I’d mention it just in case.

What’s the best advice for how to get sharp shots in team sports photography?

(Included photo is a SOOC jpeg of a set play on the opposite side of the field from where I was…a situation that minimised my chance of focus problems.)

  • ZagorathOPEnglish
    3•5 months ago

    shoot in bursts

    Oh definitely! It makes reviewing photos afterwards a pain, but it’s definitely worth it. Never could have gotten anywhere near as many good shots without it—or even with burst mode on my older D3100 which only burst about 3 photos per second.

    3D is what Nikon called “tracking” on their DSLR bodies. It tracks your subject as it moves around somewhat decently. I’m not sure how well it works on a D7500 with lots of potential subjects, but the idea is that you put the focus box over your intended subject, engage tracking, and the camera will follow the subject around as it moves

    Do not use auto area, 9 point, etc because you’re going to want to control where the camera is focusing when there are lots of people on the field. Most cameras will generally go for the closest subject, but the action point could be behind them.

    Ah yeah thanks! This is precisely the sort of advice I was looking for.

    What lens are you using? You’re going to want a decent amount of reach. I’m a big fan of the Nikon AF-S 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR on a crop body and used it for many years on my D5300.

    55–200 f/4.0–5.6, and while I wouldn’t mind a faster or faster-focusing lens, I think that’s the perfect focal length for what I’m doing. I took a decent chunk of 55–69 mm photos, and while the 200 mm photos sometimes would have benefited from an even longer focal length, it wasn’t so bad that cropping in post isn’t viable. I’m not producing wall-sized prints! A 70–300 would be perfect if my camera were full-frame though. But here I’m trying to shoot a football-type sport and I’m able to get a metre or two from the sideline.

    I’ve tried shooting cricket a couple of times, and there I’m pretty sure even 450 mm (35 mm equivalent) wouldn’t be sufficient. A field can be easily 90+ m across with the pitch right in the centre, and even at an amateur level the players don’t usually like you being directly in front of where the batsman’s facing.

    Assuming your lens is sharp wide open, set your camera to S and let the camera manage ISO and aperture as needed

    I’m actually thinking M with auto-ISO might be the way to go in the future, to lock the shutter speed nice and fast and force it to keep the lens open, but still react well to when the play goes under shadow. The wide aperture is more necessary for style than for light though, because the sun is super bright.

    Anyway, thanks a heap for all the advice there. It’s very helpful!

    • @IMALlama
      2•5 months ago

      Glad you found the reply helpful!

      It sounds like you have the right lens for your situation. With sports I feel like you’re always going to be compromising on focal length (too tight for close action, too wide for far action). It sounds like you’re reviewing your EXIF info, so you can certainly use past data to help inform what focal length you’re using the most.

      I would personally lean on shutter priority unless you can guarantee that you’ll never over-expose. Clipped highlights obviously aren’t recoverable. I don’t know that I trust myself enough to watch the histogram and we’ve had many games that were partly sunny - oscillating between direct and indirect sun. It would be nice to be able to say “increase shutter speed if necessary otherwise bump ISO” but that’s sadly not a real shooting mode.

      My 150-500 is a fairly slow lens, but since it’s on a FF body it’s amazing what it can see through. Chain link fences don’t completely disappear, but they’re a lot less visible than they were on my somewhat faster 70-300 on a crop body.

      • ZagorathOPEnglish
        1•5 months ago

        Any reason not to use shutter priority mode?

        Mainly just to force the lens to stay wide open even if play moves from a shaded area into the bright sun.

        But yeah you might be right. The autofocus on my lens seems to be reasonably quick, but that just might not be good enough for quick sudden movements in play. I’ll have to practise and play around to see if it’s a user problem or an equipment problem. In the latter case I may have to stop down. In which case manual with auto-ISO becomes even more important.