In this YouTube video, I discuss some of my favourite sports photography tips for beginners.
If you’re new to sports photography then you will be spending a lot of time reading articles, watching videos and speaking to other photographers. Finding your way can be tricky and some of the things you learn in the first year of sports photography will likely be among the most valuable.
I’ve put together the video to go through some of the most important things I have learned over the last 7+ years of photographing professional sports in England. As always, some of this is open to opinion, but in my experience shooting football (soccer), these tips will stand you in good stead if you’re looking to eventually shoot for newspapers, agencies, etc.
In brief, my tips are below, but be sure to watch the video further down this page for the full run-down. Also, I’d love it if you’d consider subscribing to my channel on YouTube.
Best sports photography tips for beginners
- Know your settings: Knowing your camera well is absolutely vital, especially if you will be shooting an action sport or a fast moving event. You need to know what impact changing specifics settings will have on your photo and the only way to do this is practise, practise and practise some more. For this, I’d personally recommend knocking your camera into ‘manual’ mode and start shooting. Play around with the settings and get a feel for how your resulting shots change.
- Learn the exposure triangle: The mere mention of the exposure triangle can send a rookie photographer into a head-spin, but take some time to try and understand it. I promise you that it’s much simpler than you probably expect it to be. Once you know it and the relationship between ISO, aperture and shutter speed, you will be in a much stronger position when out shooting.
- Get low: For most action sports, the lower you are as a photographer the better the shot will be. There are exceptions, of course, but if you think of football for example, players are looking down at the pitch much of the time as they dribble, pass shoot or chase the ball. If you’re above pitch level, you’ll get lots of shots of the top of the player’s heads. Get low and you get some facial expressions and detail.
- Crop tightly: Get rid of all of the unused space around the subject of the photo, this will help focus the eye of readers/viewers on the subject of your image.
- Keep the ball in shot: If the sport you’re shooting has a ball, then keep it in shot when capturing action shots.
- Head-on: When possible, always try to keep your action shots of the players facing/heading in your direction. Photos of player’s sides and backs generally aren’t very interesting.
- Straighten up: Make sure you keep your shot level. In your editing software, use horizon lines or vertical structures (stadium stands, goalposts, flag poles, etc) to straighten up your shots.
- Know the story line: Finally, whichever sport you shoot, you’re there to capture the story. You can give yourself the best chance possible of doing this by doing some reading up beforehand and knowing what is happening or could happen in the game. Think landmarks, records, promotions, return from injuries, new signings, transfer speculation, etc.
