Introduction

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1. Fill the Frame

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When shooting action or sports photos, your most effective tool is the outer frame. What you choose to include or exclude from your photo can make or break your shot. Some of the most effective sports shots are as powerful as they are because they fill the frame with their subject. Faces, especially, are great for this because it immediately draws your viewer into the emotion of the game. While this doesn't necessarily apply in every situation, depending on what you're trying to accomplish, the most effective sports photos bring you as close to the action as possible.

2. Know the Game

All great sports photographers are knowledgeable about the sports they are shooting. The games are, by their very nature, unpredictable. (Just ask Vegas) The best way to be in the right place at the right time is to be there before the action takes place. If you're photographing soccer or football, don't just stay on the sidelines. Move behind the endzone or the goal. Just because it might not make for a great place to watch the entire game as a spectator doesn't mean it won't result in the best photo you get all game.

3. Leave Room to Run

If you are attempting to capture a subject in full flight, whether it's a high jumper clearing a bar, or a diver off a board, or just a sprinter coming off the blocks, you need to give moving subjects something to move into. While it can occasionally make for an interesting composition to have a moving subject about to break through the edge of the frame, this is one rule you want to master before you try to break it.

4. Travel Light

This is important for those of you who love to lug around a ton of equipment. Watch a professional sports photographer on the sidelines of any game. They don't lug their entire collection of lenses along with them. Most professionals carry two bodies, one with a short lens and one with a long lens, with a monopod attached to the camera with the long lens. They do this because, by necessity, their long lenses way upwards of seven or eight pounds. For you home photographers, a quality zoom lens (70-300mm or greater is your best bet) will usually be enough that it can get all the shots you need and be light enough to be shot handheld. If you're shooting action well, your shutter speeds are often so fast that a monopod or tripod won't help your shot anyway.

5. Understand Your Equipment

This is where our reviews really come in handy. We do tons of low light, long exposure, and high sensitivity tests to properly test how a camera performs when light is less than ideal. Unless it's a bright sunny day, it can be very difficult to get enough light into the camera quickly enough without having to up a camera's ISO speed. If you assume shutter speed is a relative constant in action photography, there are only two ways to get light in the camera faster: higher sensitivity to light (larger ISO numbers) or larger apertures (denoted by f/2.8 or f/2, the smaller the f/ number, the larger the aperture).

Lenses with large apertures, especially those that maintain that large aperture as you zoom in closer, can be very expensive. If you don't own one of those lenses, you can get around this restriction by moving as close as possible to the action, relying as little as possible on the camera's zoom, and upping the ISO speed until you get an acceptable shutter speed. That will result in noisier images, but it will better capture action. Learn how aperture, ISO, and shutter speed all work relative to one another and you'll be able to make adjustments on the fly. It will also help you understand (and possibly justify) paying for equipment that will get shots your current gear simply isn't capable of.

6. Be Prepared

Going hand-in-hand with the tip above, follow the old Boy Scouts motto and be ready for anything. Know how your camera works. Have charged batteries. If your camera allows it, know how to set a shutter speed and get an effective photo at that speed. Know what your camera's different shooting modes do and how to set it so that it will shoot continuously as long as you hold the shutter release down. Most cameras also have some sort of a sports or action mode for beginners, but that might not get you all the way there.

Also, when shooting, always be framing your next shot. If shooting with a DSLR, look through the viewfinder and see how your photo is going to look ahead of time. For games where you have a subject that is relatively motionless, such as a batter in baseball, a quarterback in football pre-snap, or a goalie in hockey, hold the shutter button halfway down to achieve focus. That will allow you to time your shots well, as you won't have to wait for the camera to automatically focus before a shot can be taken. Sports happen fast, being prepared will keep you ahead of the game.

7. Learn to Love Light

Light is everything in photography, and in sports photography, you want as much as possible. Quantity over quality. When you have the opportunity to shoot sports on a bright afternoon, it's easy to get shutter speeds of 1/2000s and higher. That's not always necessary or possible, though. A shutter speed of 1/500 or higher will effectively freeze most action shots. Getting effective sports shots indoors or after dark is extremely challenging.

If you don't have the money to shell out for a DSLR that's great in low light and a $1500 lens with a huge aperture, then you may have to settle for a compromise, such as a fixed 85mm or 200mm f/4 lens that won't zoom, but will let in enough light to get you the shots you need. If you've got a restricted budget, check out our point-and-shoot reviews to find cameras that are best in low light. If you're undecided about shelling out for lenses like those, but have the money, try renting one for the day, to see if it's a purchase you want to make. (Just don't break it!)

8. Stands are for Spectators

Get down on field level. The whole point of sports photography is to draw your viewer into the action and the emotion of the moment. Shooting from high up is great when you want to analyze the game, less so when you want to just capture the fun of it all. Get as close as you can to the action without being a nuisance and not only will your photos be more effective, you'll be asking less of your equipment.

9. Fundamentals

Like any good athlete, a sports photographer first has to know and understand the fundamentals. Learn the rule of thirds, learn proper posture and form so you'll get sharper photos. Learn how to draw attention to your subject by framing him or her properly. Sports can get very hectic, with so many different jerseys flying around. Learn to crop your shot effectively in the viewfinder so you don't have to rely on photoshop later on.

10. Learn From Your Mistakes

You can own all the best equipment in the world, but if you don't know how to work it, or how to shoot properly, it won't be worth anything in the long run. The more you practice and critique yourself, the better of you'll be in the long run. Understand that even the greats don't get every shot perfect; they take dozens of shots to try and capture the one perfect image. I heard a story once from the five-time president of the White House News Photographers Association, who was working on the first season of The West Wing as a consultant and on-camera photographer. He and some other professionals were shooting the "assassination" attempt at the end of the first season, with full awareness of how the scene would play out, where Sheen would be, and when the shots were going to ring out and from what direction. These professional White House photographers still took multiple takes to get one usable shot of Sheen being shoved into the limo by secret service agents.

The point is, you only get the shots you want by going out and trying...and failing. You're going to miss shots. You're going to take awful pictures. If you learn from those mistakes and continue to get sharper, it won't take long before you've got more amazing sports photos than you know what to do with.

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