Tips for getting exciting, sharp action shots

Besides doing photography for my own personal enjoyment and the occasional wedding or portrait session, I have worked for a local company for the past 4 years taking youth sports photos.  Every spring and fall we shoot the local soccer clubs team and individual shots, and while it is not terrible pay, it is not the most thrilling thing to shoot as a photographer.  Lately we have been trying to get into covering the soccer tournaments shooting action shots, a much more exciting subject for us photographers and something a lot of kids and parents can get excited about too.

 Sports photography at first might sound easy, but it quickly becomes apparent how difficult it can be.  Even the best photography gear out there does not take the user out of the equation. Below are some "best practices" to help get great shots of your kids or others. 

- If your camera has it, work in manual or shutter priority mode.  For a typical sunny/partly cloudy day, a good starting point is 1/1000 sec, f4, ISO 100.  Depending on what lens you have, you will have to vary this.  Your shutter speed should always be 1/500th or faster to ensure freezing the action.
- Shoot as wide open as you can to get that shallow depth of field.
- Most cameras have a couple of different focus methods.  You want the tracking mode, on canon cameras this is AI Servo mode.  This mode will actively search for moving subjects and keep focus.

- Use a monopod if you have one.
- Wear sunscreen. :)
- Shoot with the sun at your back so it lights up the kids.
- I like to position myself about 20 yards from the goal line on a side.  This lets you get good shots of both sides of action.
- Use the longest telephoto you have.  If you have a tele-converter, use it too.  For these, I used my 70-200 f2.8 with a 1.4x tele-converter, which cuts 1 stop of light so it becomes f4.  The longer the focal length and smaller your F number, the more separation you will get from your background.

The Canon 7d auto-focus modes

- Every camera has a slightly different auto-focus system, so it is hard to generalize what to do, but I'll go over what I use on my Canon 7d.  There are 5 auto focus modes available on the 7d, covering almost the entire frame down to a single point in the frame.  I have tried the Automatic AF selection before with mixed results.  I think this is too broad an area for the camera to work with, so it has a hard time determining what you mean to focus on.  Similarly, the single AF point is too focused.  Kids are unpredictable, and I'm not good enough to keep that small point on them the whole time.  I use the AF expansion mode, which uses a selected AF point and adds the 4 points around the outside of it.  This gives you some room to play with, if you keep the center point on the child and it moves suddenly to one of the neighbor points, you won't loose focus.  Play around with your camera to decide which one you like best.

 - If you use a single AF point or AF expansion like mentioned above, use the center AF point and always center the action.  There are two reasons for this:  first, it keeps the action in the center of the frame and cuts down on the number of shots that will be cut off near the edge of the frame, and second, the center AF points are always the most accurate.
- I like to use single shot shooting mode with kids.  The reason I do not use the high speed (8 frames/sec on the 7d) mode is because it fills up the memory card extremely fast and I do not really have the need to catch that "cover photo" like moment in these shots.  I'm not trying to get on the cover of Sports Illustrated, I'm just trying to get a photo that shows the child in motion really.  Keeping my eye up to the viewfinder and following the ball, I got really good at anticipating the kick or the shot or whatever was going to happen.  Try both methods and see what you like.

 - Speaking of looking through the viewfinder, keep both eyes open.  It helps you be aware of what is going on outside the frame, and after not too long squinting with one eye through a viewfinder, your eyes will start to revolt.
- Shoot in the vertical orientation.  A battery grip really helps out with this.
- Finally, be courteous to the refs, linesman, and other parents.  No one likes a photographer who gets in the way ;).

Happy Shooting!