Action Photography: Tips, Tricks and Inspiration

Who doesn’t love action? It’s the only thing that fills our nerves with adrenalin and excites our mind to the hilt. Action can be in any form like a professional biker, a skate-boarder, a surfer or anything. But when it comes to action photography, it’s not that easy as it seems. Capturing those short timed action moments requires a fair amount of technical and creative skills. In this article, I’m going to tell you some tips and tricks which would help you to capture those action scenes in your camera. But before that, let’s take a look at some of the most amazing action shots.

Phew, those were some real amazing shots out there. But how to take them? Well, you first have to make sure you know certain tricks before trying to shoot them.

It’s all about timing

In action and sport photography, it’s all about the timing and waiting for that precious moment to shoot. The irony here is, that precious moment is only for a split second and if you miss it, you are never going to get it back ever in your life. So, you have to be very patient and wait for the correct moment to click.

Speed matters

Action and speed are two inter-dependent terms. Obviously, if there is action there will be speed. So, in action photography speed holds a a very important role. You have to be very quick to shoot at that instance of time. Otherwise, you have to come back home empty handed.

Perspective is important

Perspective literally means, they way you look at the things around you. For a normal person, a tree may only be a tree. But what really makes it a subject of art is, a photographer’s perspective. A good perspective involved watching and imagining things with different angles and point of views. So, don’t lock yourself to only one point of view. Get down, go back and forth and try something new. You’ll be amazed to see the results.

Shooting Techniques

Apparently, only having better perspective won’t solve the purpose. You also got to have adequate shooting technique to freeze that moment. For that, keep your shutter speed high (after all, you are capturing action sequences) and also keep your Aperture more so that you can make use of most amount of light. ISO can be adjusted according to the light available at the time of shooting.

Focus on the subject

Since here we are concerned about action photography, so it’s understood that our subject will be moving. In that case, it is indeed imperative to keep your focus on the subject or else you’ll end up with blurred photographs. Having panning focus mode selected is recommended in action photography.

Practice, practice, practice

In the end, the single most important thing remains is, practice. You have to practice a lot to get that perfect shot. Don’t loose hope if you can’t click decent shots in your initial tries. Keep trying, keep practicing and keep improving. All the best