How To Photograph Any Type Of Youth Sports Part 1/3?

Checking the lighting at a sports event is the first thing every photographer should do before shooting. The lighting condition and your method of tackling it will greatly affect the result of your images.

Here is how you can check the lighting.  Find out where the sunlight is coming from. After that, determine if the light is a hard or soft light. Once you have differentiated the type of light, position yourself at a location where you find is the best for your shoot. This will depend on your creativity and how you wish the pictures to turn out.

Have your camera on the go by setting it to Av, Tv or Manual. When you have your camera set to Av, you will have control of the aperture. However, your camera will choose the shutter speed. If you have your camera set to Tv, shutter speed will be up to you to control while your camera will decide the aperture. When photographing youth sports, the faster and more reasonable the shutter speed the light will allow, the better!

The setting of the shutter speed is indeed essential; whatever sport it is you are photographing. It is good to know your manual settings so that you can carry out experiments with a few trial and errors. Believe me, photography experimenting is great fun! Having done this, you will discover the right exposures for photography. Shooting indoors will be a little bit easier compared to shooting outdoors as the amount of light indoors is predictable and consistent. By having your camera set to manual, you can avoid your camera from being tricked into the wrong exposures while photographing outdoors. This is because the correct light exposures will vary when you shoot outdoors, according to the weather condition and your own positioning.
 
Try these tips out. I once again sincerely hope they will be of great use to you. This is the First part of How to Photograph Any Type of Youth Sports. Look out for the Second and Third part!