Film choices for sports ?

[John Curran]

Hey all. I normally shoot nature subjects on slide film. I want to try shooting a local soccer league and was wondering what are the films of choice for outdoor (color) sports photography. Thanks in advance

John

 

[Nathan]

Hey all. I normally shoot nature subjects on slide film. I want to try shooting a local soccer league and was wondering what are the films of choice for outdoor (color) sports photography. Thanks in advance

John

Hi John, I'd give Fuji press 400, 800 or 1600 a go depending on the light and the max aperture of your lens.

 

[Pinholemaster]

When I shot color transparencies of outdoor sports, such as soccer, I used a quality 100 ISO film. High shutter speeds with wide open aperture to make sure your backgrounds at not cluttered.

 

[Lee L]

I'd first ask what your preferences are. What range of shutter speeds and apertures do you want to use? I likely shoot in a completely different way from what you want to do, but I'd choose the ASA first, based on the exposures you want to use and the lighting you expect to see. How much do you want to freeze the action? How much do you want to isolate what's in focus with wide apertures?

I'd use print film for greater latitude because you can't control the contrast of the lighting and you can't wait for better light. After that, I'd choose a lower or higher saturation film based on whether I want uniform colors to really pop or not... personal preference there.

I can recommend the Fuji Superia films from experience (I use the 1600 indoors at EI 1250) natural colors, lower contrast, and fine grain for the speed, but I'm sure there are Kodak films that would do as well. I hear the new Fuji Natura 1600 is good, but not distributed yet in the US. I intend to try the Kodak 400UC this spring for soccer to see what it does with the uniform colors. It's a highly saturated film, but not overexaggerated, and reputedly has good skin tones, although I haven't tried that yet. I'll have to see if the contrast is a bit too much.

Off the film choice topic:

My cameras have top speeds of 1/1000, but I find that even that can be a bit too "frozen" looking, making the images too static looking. You might want to mix in some slower shutter speeds until you find your own sweet spot, or make adjustments according to what you want. I'd also advise that you wait a bit for the follow through when photographing passes or shots. Shooting at the instant that the foot impacts the ball on the ground doesn't often make a great shot. You get a much better sense of the action when you wait until the ball is off the players foot by about a half meter or so and the player is following through.

I shoot with rangefinders, primes, both eyes open, 1:1 viewfinders, incident metering, and manual zone focusing with depth of field to cover me. That way I can watch the whole field and my framelines at the same time, and make better choices about framing when the action is fast. I'm also not worrying about zooming or focusing, so I can concentrate solely on the action, and the only photographic parameters I have to worry about are framing and timing the shutter release. I also get to see what's happening at the instant of exposure. When I first started, I calculated DOF with the 75, 90, and 135mm lenses I use when standing off the endline about 6 yards, in line with the edge of the penalty area. So I pre-focus and know exactly what part of the field I'm getting. I also find this more consistent than some of the poorly-used autofocus DSLR wide aperture results I've seen (sharp spectators, out of focus players). I found this the best place to shoot from for what I like to do. You may need to have the ref's permission to shoot from there. Besides having the players facing you, you also don't have a background cluttered with spectators in myriad distracting colors, and you catch other players in the background.

Lee

 

[copake_ham]

Hi,

I recently did some sports shooting for the first time. In my case it was at the Tucson Rodeo last month.

I originally was thinking of using some Velvia 100 for the richness but realized that I would be sacrificing much needed speed.

In the end I wound up digging a roll of Fuji Sensia 400 out of the freezer. I then grabbed a 4-pack of some 24exp. Kodak consumer ISO 400 film called "Versatility" from the local Walgreen's. Just "snapshot" stuff.

I just uploaded two shots I took at the Rodeo to My Gallery here on APUG:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)

The Barrel Racer shot is with the Fujichrome; the Bronco with the Kodak.

Obviously the Fuji I used is far superior in quality to the consumer Kodak and if I'd had the time and opportunity - I'd of gotten UC 400.

But my real point is that I think you want speed. In my particular circumstance it was a bright, cloudless day. In fact it was classic Sunny/16 as I was regularly metering f16/500 until later in the day when long shadows brought me to f11.

I got a kick out of this experience with sports shooting and hope to do it more in the future. Maybe a demolition derby next time?

Have fun.

 

[reub2000]

I recently got a chance to shoot some basketball for my highschool. Good experience. Definitely decide how much you want your shots frozen. I found 1/250 a nice comprimise that showed a little bit of movement. Faster shutter speeds might have froozen the action, but then again I was using a 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 lens and couldn't go much faster. Freezing the action worked when something exiting was going on it the frame, like a player in the air. Didn't quite have the Canon 1D Mark IIN x2, EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, and EF 300mm f/2.8L setup that the pros all had, but it is possible to shoot sports without that stuff.

 

[John Curran]

Hi all, thanks for the responses. I've shot 2 rolls so far, Fuji Provia 100 and Fujicolor Super HQ (consumer grade). Unfortunately niether has come back from the lab yet. I live in the desert southwest so most of the time I'm shooting sunny 16, 1/500th @ f8 through a 400mm lense (I want to blur the background).
So a 100 or 200 ISO speed is fine except for the rare overcast day. I've suspected that print film is probably preferable for it's lattitude and most of the pro sports shots I've studied seem to have more latitude than the slide films that I'm used to. Color saturation is what I'd prefer, (colorful uniforms) so I'll definately give the Kodak 400 UC a try. I also appreciate the tips about over freezing the action and field positioning.

Thanks again
John

 

[film_guy]

For sports, try Fuji 400 NPH or Fuji Pro 800Z. I find the colors really toned down compared to any Fuji Superix Xtra or Kodak Portra at the same speed (both too reddish for my taste). I've shot some volleyball, b-ball and soccer and anything below 800 is too slow indoors, and for outdoors, depending on how overcast the sky is, anything below 400 is too slow. For shutter speeds, try staying above 1/250 and if possible 1/500th.

Make sure you're closed enough or have a fast telephoto lens with a monopod to get in close.

 

[copake_ham]

For sports, try Fuji 400 NPH or Fuji Pro 800Z. I find the colors really toned down compared to any Fuji Superix Xtra or Kodak Portra at the same speed (both too reddish for my taste). I've shot some volleyball, b-ball and soccer and anything below 800 is too slow indoors, and for outdoors, depending on how overcast the sky is, anything below 400 is too slow. For shutter speeds, try staying above 1/250 and if possible 1/500th.

Make sure you're closed enough or have a fast telephoto lens with a monopod to get in close.

I'll second the recommendation to use a monopod whenever possible. For the two shots noted in my earlier post I didn't do so (was using a 105-210 zoom) - but only because the monopod was busy holding up my Bronica ETRSi that I was also shooting.

Even though I was seated - I found the monopod helpful because it facilitated one-handed shooting.

 

[John Curran]

film for sports

I got a kick out of this experience with sports shooting and hope to do it more in the future. Maybe a demolition derby next time?

I see that you are sometimes in NY. I grew up out there. There used to be a figure 8 track at Islip speedway on Long Island. Don't know if it's still there, but it'd be a cool demolition derby.

 

[copake_ham]

I see that you are sometimes in NY. I grew up out there. There used to be a figure 8 track at Islip speedway on Long Island. Don't know if it's still there, but it'd be a cool demolition derby.

Alas, Raceway Park (remember those great radio ads with the high-pitched voice that sounded like the chipmunks?) is long gone.

Our weekend home is in upstate NY and every Summer there are numerous County Fairs. Up that way, probably the single most popular event at every County Fair is the Demo Derby!