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5 sports photography tips for SIDs
by Jacob Walton – University of Indianapolis, Sports Information Graduate Assistant @jaydee23walton
Sports photography is just one of the many responsibilities that comes in the classic sports information director’s toolbelt. But as it comes with the profession, you can have some familiarity with many different tools, but it's hard to master them all. We all know how incredibly valuable a quality photo can be. It can push your department higher and higher, improving click rate, engagement, and many of the other factors.
Why is this? It’s because readers are attracted to the high-quality visuals. In “
Eyetracking Web Usability,” a book by Jakob Nielsen and Kara Pernice, in which they performed one of the largest studies on eye-tracking to see what readers will look at first. They showed that high detailed photos can massively improve the eyes that your content will get. Here are five tips that hopefully can help you capitalize on this and take your shooting to the next level.
Camera settings
A DLSR is a scary thing to be handed and told “use this.” For many SIDs, it involves a lot of learning on the fly, Googling and hoping whatever you’re trying works. Here are some basic settings to get you started that can set you in the right direction so you have to worry less about settings and more on the shooting.
The big three setting are going to be your aperture, shutter speed and ISO. While there are thousands of articles on the internet describing these in incredible detail, here are their descriptions in layperson’s terms.
Aperture is the size of the hole that is allowing in light to the camera’s sensor. It's measured in f-stops. So for example when you see the F2.8 on your display, that is your f-stop. The lower that setting, the brighter your photos will be. The higher the number, the darker they will be.
Aperture also is a double-edged sword as it controls the depth of field on your photos. That creates the awesome look of your athlete appearing sharp as can be, with the background being blurry. The lower your f-stop the more this effect will be applied; the higher, the less it will be. Many photographers use a 70-200mm 2.8 lens for this exact reason. That 2.8 f-stop will allow for a large amount of light while creating a perfect depth of field.
The tip I always give sports photographers is to set your f-stop and stick with it (normally lower the better). It takes one variable out of the equation and allows for a simpler shooting experience.
Shutter speed is quite simple when you look at the word. It's how fast the shutter of your camera moves, allowing for light to hit the sensor. To keep it simple, the faster the shutter speed, the more able you will be to stop a moving object, something that is incredibly important for sports photography. I personally always will start my shutter speed at 1000 and move from there. With a higher shutter speed comes less light, so it will be a balancing effort of keeping enough light while keeping your shutter speed high enough.
Finally, and probably the most confusing but simple of the three, is ISO. This is the camera’s internal capability to increase brightness, increasing the sensors sensitivity to light. When you increase this setting, you also increase the graininess of the photo. So this, along with your shutter speed, is a balancing effort. You want to keep your ISO low while your shutter speed high, but of course that will not always be possible, based on the lighting conditions. If you need more light without the ability to lower your shutter speed, then you might want to raise your ISO. It's always going to be a battle between blur and grain in your photos.
Shooting with a purpose
This is something that was taught by me by my first boss in sports information — have a reason as to why you are shooting. Most of us are not professional sports photographers; we are sports communications directors, and shooting methods and purpose will not necessarily be the same.
Take a look the day before you go out to shoot a game at who you have photos of and who you don’t. You may have a thousand photos of the quarterback, but you have none of your all-conference wide receiver. Being prepared with at least mental notes of who and what you need can reduce the feeling of shooting the same people over and over again, while also helping yourself in the long run.
This applies not only to the subject but to the types of photos. Action shots are great, but a high-quality group huddle, a photo at the line of scrimmage, a coach talking with a player, are all just as valuable for the graphics you may need to produce later. They allow for different use in things such as rankings releases, awards releases and even in losses where you do not want to single out one player.
One final tip of when it comes to shooting with a purpose, or, as my supervisor said, “shooting like an SID,” is deleting as you go. During a media timeout at a basketball game, or a halftime, go through some photos on your camera and delete the obviously bad photos. This allows you to speed up post game sorting and editing and can help you get home sooner.
The angles
The angle of the photo is just as important as what is in the photo. I’ve learned that a variety of angles can prevent your photos from looking all the same. Moving around the action to capture different sides of the game can create a variety of high-quality shots. Sitting near your own team’s bucket can allow for you to get some great defensive shots on the basketball court and allow for some creative angles of offense. This can go with any sport. Play around with where you shoot from. Sometimes you can look at where every single photographer is posted up and immediately assume that it’s the best spot - but that is not always true.
It's not only from where you shoot, but from what eye level you shoot. If you can, get low, shoot up to the action. This creates that larger than life aesthetic for your student-athletes. Also, don’t be afraid to get high. Volleyball is a perfect example of where going to the top of the bleachers and shooting down towards the net and the players can help get that perfect attacking photo.
Editing
Editing is one of the more underutilized tools when it comes to SID photography. It can help increasing overall photos quality by quite a large margin. There are countless adjustments you can make. and here are three that I feel are incredibly useful, quick and easy to use.
1. Exposure is going to be how you primarily adjust the brightness of your photos. In the settings part of this article, I talked about how with a faster shutter speed you may get darker photos. By increasing the exposure in post production, you can lighten up those dark photos.
2. The second setting is your white balance. This is how you will correct the colors of your photos to make them as most accurate they can be. To keep it simple: your temperature is your yellows and blues, and your tint is your greens to magenta.
3. When editing for color, it is best to find a something in the photo you know is white and adjust these settings to make sure that is white. It takes some experience but once you master this and can do it efficiently, you can step up your picture and editing game.
Learn from the best
Learning from others is commonplace in sports communication for graphics, releases, video, social media and even photography. Following other photographers and watching how they work can help guide you in the right direction and develop your own style.
The sport I struggled with for the longest time was volleyball, I just straight up stunk at shooting it. So, I looked at the best volleyball photos being posted to social media throughout history, and tried to replicate them. This strategy can be used for any sport. Others have done the work of learning the best angles, the best style, the framing, so why not incorporate what they’re doing into your own work?
Have fun
Surprise tip number six! Have fun with it. Sports photography is an art. Get creative, if you have an idea and am not sure how to do it, look up what you’re looking for, try it out. Getting in the groove shooting can be incredibly rewarding and seeing the fruits of your labor when you’re putting out stories and posting to social media is great.
More about Jacob Walton
CSC member
Jacob Walton is a 2022 graduate of the University of Indianapolis, having majored in communication with a concentration in journalism. He now serves as a graduate assistant in the UIndy athletics communications department and directly handles media relations for women’s soccer, men’s and women’s tennis, wrestling and baseball..
As an undergraduate, he worked for four years at the student newspaper,
The Reflector, winning several awards for sports writing, page design and sports photography. He spent his junior and senior years as an athletic department intern, doing photography and working as the contact for men’s and women’s tennis as a junior and as the cross country/track and field contact his senior year.
In the video below, Walton talks about his young professional career, his love for sports communications, and the “why’s” that have driven him to pursue a career in our profession. This video was for his Digital Multimedia Production (Comm 520) graduate class, taught by Dr. Katie Greenan. The goal of the assignment was to develop the tools necessary to create a “defining moment” story using multimedia software. Walton chose to tell his journey of becoming an SID and how and why he developed a love for the profession.
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