Changing Your Camera Settings on the Fly

Changing your camera settings (most notably shutter speed and ISO) is a part of sports photography that makes it so challenging. You have to become keenly aware of your environment and how it affects your shooting. Indoor venues again are for the most past static. Once you have a setting, you often don’t need to change it. Outdoor shooting is where you will have to continually change. Practicing with your equipment is vital. You have to know where each dial is, what it does and how fast you can make the change. When you are shooting for yourself, there is not as much pressure but if you are shooting professionally a second or two may cost you a critical shot.

Try to get an ISO setting (the lowest possible) that will allow you free and flexible use of your shutter speed control. It is easier to adjust shutter speed than it is to change ISO
Keep your lowest possible f/stop available. For lenses with a floating f/stop, this is a little trickier as the increase in stop will make it harder to find an accurate shutter speed. It is still important to make sure your f/stop setting as low as it will go
Maintain at least 1/500 shutter speed but don’t be afraid to increase this in very bright situations. When you are using a lens that has a floating f/stop, you will need to bracket this setting somewhat. Choose the lowest f/stop position (lowest zoom) and check what shutter speed you are at (for example 1/1000). Now check your shutter speed requirements at full zoom which will also be your highest f/stop (for example 1/640). Now take the median value as your setting (for example 1/800). This will give you a moderately over or under exposed frame but will be close enough to manipulate post shoot.

Outdoor shooting poses any number of issues with your camera settings. Backlighting, spectral highlights from sweaty skin, reflection from snow and water, lack of light due to time of day or overcast and any number of other issues. Your frames will have to be monitored constantly to ensure you are bracketed correctly. Most DSLR cameras have a setting for viewing your photos that shows spectral highlights. This is my setting of choice as it will show you where you have overexposed. Sometimes this is unavoidable such as when you have a backlit subject.

Now is where the fun begins. The settings and adjustments you just made have to be changed every time the light changes. You may have to increase your ISO, decrease or increase your shutter speed or a combination of both. As mentioned, it is always a bit easier to have an ISO setting that is functional enough to allow you to change just your shutter speed during the shoot. If this means going with an ISO setting of 200 instead of 100, then do it. The change in quality between ISO only really starts to show in details over ISO 400. With most mid-high end DSLRs, the actual cut is around ISO 800 so you can see that the higher end cameras do offer you more flexibility in image quality.

IN SHORT

Camera settings are just part of sports shooting but an important part. Again, I stress that you should really become very comfortable with your camera and settings. Changing on the fly will give you instantly better results in your pursuit of the “sweet shot”. Use your camera’s display settings and built in metering system to guide you during your shoot. With practice, you will be able to change on the fly without even thinking about it!