What Camera Settings Should You Adjust When Taking Pictures of Sports?

Year round there are sports to suit every taste and skill level. No matter what the season, temperature or climatic conditions, there are sports which can take place. From the extreme harshness of a sub-zero degree blizzard in which the Iditarod Dog Sled Race is run across Alaska and Canada to the balmy delights of championship surfing on tropical isles like Hawaii, digital photographers can revel in the challenge of taking pictures of sports. As an aid in meeting the challenge, of taking pictures of sports under a broad range of conditions, both amateur and professional model cameras come equipped with a variety of settings. These settings can facilitate the process when taking pictures of sports and enable the photographer to come away with saleable images no matter what sport is being covered. Let’s look here at some camera settings for taking pictures of sports.

Whether a camera is operating in a manual or fully automatic picture taking mode, the following settings are often adjusted when taking pictures of sports. These include aperture or the diameter of the opening of the camera iris through which light can pass to reach the film plane, CCD or CMOS digital sensors. The shutter speed determines the length of time light is allowed to pass through the aperture to reach the digital sensor array or film plane. Unless the camera is a fixed-focus model in which the lens does not move, the lens focus is a key setting to consider when taking pictures of sports. There are other settings which also may be considered such as white balance or tone, and the ISO settings. Here we’ll continue with a more in-depth look at what camera settings should you adjust when taking pictures of sports and how they can be applied.

Aperture settings can range from a pinhole-like f/64 to an eye-popping f/1.8, f/1.2 or (gasp!) even larger. As the light level grows dimmer, the need for ever wider lens apertures increases. Fast action sports like formula auto racing, horse racing, power boat competitions or team blitz action as experienced in ice hockey, basketball and other indoor court sports require careful consideration of lens apertures used for taking pictures of sports. Remember though, the wider or larger the lens aperture the narrower the depth-of-field range of the image.