How I Achieve Great Sports Photos

Hello my fellow shutterbugs!

Today I decided to give you some insight as to how I shoot sports. My husband is a JV girls tennis coach and I have had the pleasure of shooting two of their matches this spring. Unfortunately, a good chunk of their tennis matches were cancelled due to rain (Michigan, get with the program!). The two matches I shot were around 5:00 pm, which is awesome lighting, since the sun is in just the right spot.

Settings
Nikon D3200 w/ 55-200mm lens
ISO: 100
Aperture: f/3.5-f/5.6
Shutter Speed: 1/1000

So as you can see, the settings I use for sports work fairly well for me. The shutter speed is fast enough that I can freeze the girls as they move, while the aperture allows for the background to be blurry and the person to be tack sharp.

Of course, tennis isn't all serious all the time:

The girls are so much fun to shoot and I had a blast. Sports photography is not something to spend hours and hours thinking about. If you have a fast enough shutter speed and your exposure is on point, you'll get great pictures. I wouldn't mess around too much with ISO, however, because then you'll wind up with unnecessary grain in the photo. Keep it at no more than 200 and you'll get great results.

I will be posting soon about my recent decision to only shoot in Manual mode for a week, as well as some pictures from my husband's upcoming college graduation :)

xoxo, Ang