Top 10 tips for photographing your child’s youth sport

Top 10 tips for photographing your child’s youth sport

Fall is upon us and with school back in full swing, you might be heading out to more and more school sports games or amateur organized sports games with your children.

Many of us are shooting consistently with our smart phones and indeed those produce great photos for sharing online. This guide is geared towards those that want to take it to the next level with their fancy cameras to really showcase your youngsters skating skills, volleyball skills, or pirouettes.

Want to know what camera might be right for you? Check out this link from ‘dailymom’ about the best cameras for moms (or dads): http://dailymom.com/capture-2/moms-guide-to-buying-a-digital-camera/

Now for what you came here for, the tips!

Tips:

1. Shoot with one eye open. Remember what your camera sees isn’t what the naked eye sees. The lighting in the gym may look good to you when shooting on screen but what the camera actually sees is a different story.
2. Shoot in manual (automatic is good when you’re starting out but won’t give you the flexibility to follow the tips below)
3. Shoot with a nice lens! Probably the easiest but most expensive tip. A nice lens can do absolutely amazing things for your photos.
4. Crop your photos accordingly (after you’ve taken them of course). This tip should be done before you upload your photos or print them for an album. Crop them so that you can have the person observing really focus on the most important piece of the shot, your child or team!
5. Play with the ‘burst mode’ on your camera. This will allow you to take multiple photos at once and choose which one is the best later on when you put them on your computer. This is especially handy during fast paced sports or activities when you can’t be sure if you’ve captured the action properly.
6. Use the sports mode on your camera if you have one.
7. If your child or team is quite young, try and shoot from a low angle. This will make it look like it’s more in the middle of the action and not on top of it from the adult perspective.
8. Get close to the action! Pretty self-explanatory but the closer the better unless you have a telephoto lens.
9. If you want to blur the background and have the focus on one child or thing, use a portrait lens.
10. Have fun! Don’t be too intimidated by your new equipment for taking these fabulous photos or those around you. There are many online tutorials that you can follow along with to learn one step at a time. Get out there, enjoy that game and snap away 🙂