Hi, I'm Doug McKinlay and you're watching AdoramaTV.
Now we've all seen those great pictures of athlete's frozen in motion - the 'Decisive Moment'.
But how do the photographers get those pictures? I often get asked what my settings are when I am looking
to freeze action, but you know,
there's no simple answer.
AdoramaTV presents
Stay Focused with Doug McKinlay.
There's no magic answer when it comes to shutter speed for stop action photography
There is constantly changing variables, could be the light,
the angle of the light, subjects speed, the lens you're using.
So it's up to the photographer to make a decision on the spot
for each situation. Of course, shutter speeds are the key component for great
stop action pictures.
On bright sunny days you are going to get really fast shutter speeds and lower ISO's.
Cloudier days may be slower shutter speeds augmented with
high ISO's. Now each photographer is going to have to make their own decision
given the light situation they're in but as a rule of thumb
1/250th of a second is enough to stop action
if it's coming across the front of the lens.
1/60th however can stop action with the subject coming toward you but either way
I always set my camera to shutter priority, that way I know I have complete control
over the shutter speeds.
Now focal length of the lens is important too.
Currently I'm using this: 70 - 200mm 2.8.
The reason being is I can isolate my subject
from the background I'm not too concerned about the backgrounds here, I'm more
concerned about the action in my subject
The longer lens allow me to really really get tight.
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One key thing to keep in mind
when taking fast action pictures is your images have to show motion.
For example if you use a really fast shutter speed
on a car on a road it's going to look like the car is just parked.
So you need to find something that's got obvious action, obvious motion
like an athlete, or swimmer, or skateboarder
and catch them at the peak of the action 'Decisive Moments'
When you freeze some things it's like stopping time
you able to see subjects in ways you can't in real life
and it can be quite beautiful or even scary. When shooting moving subjects it's best to use autofocus
and set to servo mode - this allows the lens to continue refocus as a subject moves.
Pressing the shutter button half way down activates the autofocus
and only when the subject is composed to the photographers liking should the button be
pressed all the way down
thus taking a picture. An important thing to keep in mind with this technique is that the
subject was always be in the autofocus target zone -
a series of focus boxes depicted in the viewfinder. Fortunately most DSLR's
allow for reconfiguration of these boxes across the viewfinder
allowing photographers to choose which part of the scene they want to concentrate
and focus on.
Sometime subjects are just moving too quickly, they are
coming really fast at you or an acute angle you just cannot lock focus.
So the trick to deal with this problem is you pre-focus, you pick a spot in the scene
where you know your subjects gonna cross
and just as they hit that spot you take the picture.
So to burst or not to burst
that's the question. So you might think you've got a really fast motor drive and
it's going to be easy,
your going to to grab any shot you can see lots of action,
stopping action. The problem with the burst rate is that sometimes the actual image
you want
falls between the frames and you miss it, so I think it's best to start shooting a
one-shot
and pick your subjects property, watch for the action,
a 'Decisive Moment' as Cartier Bresson used to say.
So that's it from me, I'm Doug McKinlay for AdoramaTV,
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