Hey Paul, this comment sparked my curiosity:

> Got a lot of great photos this time because I put to use what I learned shooting basketball.

I suppose you mean "action photos"? Any (informal, quick and dirty) tips? Especially for photos to be taken with phones or cheap cameras? Or is it hopeless?

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EvanAnderson 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I still shoot primarily on DSLR. I don't know how a modern mirrorless compares, but for me shutter lag is the big killer when it comes to action shots.

I grew up shooting 35mm film and my first digital cameras were a shock with their significant shutter lag. To some extent I can "learn" the lag for a given camera and compensate somewhat for things that move regularly. For irregular motion (like sports) shutter lag is maddening.

Re: hopeless - I supposed you could use multi-shot burst on laggy cameras and pull the trigger early.

	▲	UltraSane 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Modern digital cameras have a mode where they are constantly taking pictures in a small rolling buffer and when you press the "shutter" button it simply keeps the last n seconds of images. It is an amazing feature for action photography and is how a LOT of amazing shots have been captured. With 6k and higher res video the line between video and photography is blurring and with RAW codecs you can just capture scenes in video and pic out what frames you like.

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PaulHoule 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

For me one realization was that a good portrait is a good sports photo. It is better still to show some action or make a photo that tells a story but you can sell pictures to the parents of a student athlete if you make their child look like a superstar.

The best purchase I made for indoor sports photography was DxO photolab which has a denoiser that means photos shot at ISO 6400 look perfect and can even make decent shots at 50000+ ISO

https://mastodon.social/@UP8/114961647210448472

With basketball and a lot of sports there is the problem that if you follow the ball you get a lot of shots of people’s rear ends because that is how the geometry works so you have to fight that and look for the opportunities where things open up and you get a good ‘portrait’ and if you do that the action and story shots will happen. Headers in soccer are a special case, you realize people in sports are trained to do things a certain way so you know if the ball gets kicked high towards certain players they will try a header so you shoot a burst. For baseball you camp at a spot where you can see home plate and third base so you can show what is at stake, get the runner making a score, etc.

https://mastodon.social/@UP8/114849463914827733

I started out with a Sony alpha 7ii which was deeply discounted, when it broke and I wanted to stay in the game I got a 7iv and sent out the 7ii out for repair, now I have a monster backpack and often go out with two cameras

https://mastodon.social/@UP8/114866409940645564

But since the lid blew off in Gaza we have a clear bag policy at my Uni so I take just one camera to games. For indoor sports my weapon of choice is this lens

https://electronics.sony.com/imaging/lenses/all-e-mount/p/se...

but my favorite lens for walking about and outdoor events where I can get close is

https://tamron-americas.com/product/28-200mm-f-2-8-5-6-di-ii...

which I use for things like

https://www.yogile.com/trackapalooza-2025#12s

because the optical quality is great for a lens so versatile.