THOSE FROZEN MOMENTS
As featured in the Peoples' Post - 27 March 2012
Hanging out of the side of a helicopter taking photos for a client, or trying to get a steady pic from the window of a car while game spotting, you need to operate your camera at higher shutter speed.
Hanging out of the side of a helicopter taking photos for a client, or trying to get a steady pic from the window of a car while game spotting, you need to operate your camera at higher shutter speed.
School in Cape Town taken from a helicopter at 900 feet
Most cameras have
settings that allow control of exposure time or shutter speed. This
is the length of time, in thousands of a second.e.g. a common speed
of 125 means one 125th
of a second, or 1000 means one 1000th
of a second. Do not confuse this with sensor or ISO speed, the
direct analogy of film speed. They are however complementary.
- Advanced cameras allow the exposure to be directly set, but even
- Others, including basic digicams have a ‘fast’ or sports setting to be used when you want to freeze the action. Check yours out, often denoted by a running man icon.
Use the “sports”
setting when you want to freeze the action or at any time that you
are shooting from an unsteady surface. An important tip is that then
using this feature, lens focus becomes critical. Where possible, set
your camera to focus in the centre of the field of view. High shutter
speed generally means large aperture and low depth of field (more
next time).
If the subject is moving
across your field of vision, it may be necessary to pan the action.
This is when you gently swivel your body while holding the camera
steady, to keep the moving object in the centre of your lens. When
this happens, the object remains in focus, while the background blurs
- creating the effect of movement in the photo.
This is the most basic
lesson in sports photography. As with everything, there are other
techniques available at a more advanced level.
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