If you've seen great sports shots they are frequently tack sharp players against a very soft background. The players stand out and the background shows enough detail to let you know what kind of place the shot was taken in. Here a grass field with a parking area visible in the background. The autos and surrounding shrubbery are soft enough to let the sharp players stand out. The players are moving but are sharp. With a modern digital camera and a reasonably long lens these shots are not hard to get.
If you're not sure what settings to use when you start this kind of shooting let's explore the settings I use and look at the reasons why.
You can set this up before you leave home and be ready to shoot without carrying a list and trying to do this sitting on the sidelines. As you become more familiar with your camera these settings are very easy to make quickly in the field but this time just sit down in a comfortable chair and put the camera in your lap. Ready?
If your camera has interchangeable lenses and you have more than one lens find the longest one and put it on. This may be a 70-200mm or 18-300mm or one of many others. Here we are looking at the large number and we want the lens that has the largest large number, usually 200 or 300. If your camera does not have interchangeable lenses you can zoom your lens to the end that gives you the largest or most close up view and if you've put a long zoom lens on your camera you'll want to zoom it to the longer end also.
Now, the mode. Usually a dial on the top of the camera allows you to select the mode. This is the dial that allows you to select portrait mode, action mode, scenic mode and others. Frequently it's set to Auto or the green camera mode. If you haven't used them there are some very useful modes labeled M, A, S, and P. On the Canon they are M, Av, Tv, and P. For our sport shooting setup let's choose either A or Av which allows you to set the aperture and will automatically set the shutter speed for you. Since we would like sharp images and a soft background we'll use the command dial to set the aperture to the smallest number your lens will allow. This may be 5.6, 4, 3.5, 2.8 or something else but as you turn the dial you want the smallest number it shows.
The next setting to make is the ISO and since we will be shooting a fast moving target and would like a fast shutter speed we want to set the ISO a little above it's lowest setting. Usually the ISO settings are 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600 and sometimes even higher. This time try 400 or 800. I've assumed the game is going to be in daylight.
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Now comes focusing. Your camera usually defaults to focus when you press the shutter button half-way down and as long as you hold the button half-way down the focus stays locked. For moving subjects we want the lens to continually refocus to keep a moving subject sharp so set your camera to the "Continuous Focus" mode.If your camera offers a continous shooting mode where holding the shutter release button causes the camera to shoot 3 to 6 photos every second, you may want to try this also. I usually depend on one shot at a time but I occasionally do use the continuous shooting mode.
And that's it. When you arrive at the game, point your camera to the field where the action will be and look through the viewfinder. Most cameras will display the current shutter speed there. You want the speed to be 1000th of a second or higher. If it's too low readjust the ISO to the next higher number and check it again.
In both of the included images the players are sharp even though they are moving, and the background is soft (blurry). Next time you are trying to be a sports photographer give these ideas a try and post comments here to let others know how it worked.
