Sample Speed Skating Photographs and Tips on Camera Technique
| This is a selection of my pictures of Long Track and Short Track Speed Skating at the Olympic Oval in Calgary. The full collection has hundreds of images in several free thumbnail galleries. Go to my Speed Skating Home page to see more details. Click thumbnails to see enlargements in this window. Pictures can be large and may require scrolling, so make sure your browser does not automatically re size the pictures. Let the mouse hover over each thumbnail to identify the original gallery... Peter Reath |
| Comments on photographing Speed Skating and other sports A number of people have been kind enough to ask me for tips on low-light photography of high speed sports such as speed skating, luge, ski jumping and skiing, which makes it tempting to launch into a major ego trip. But truth be told, it's all been done before and the techniques are covered in many photography reference books. For enthusiasts there are web sites such as Rob Galbraith's which offer an excellent forum for discussion. Waiting for the other shoe to drop? Well OK, here are some things that photographers can consider when covering speed events when flashlights are prohibited. |
| Pass if you haven't got the glass When these images were taken it was very hard to take low-light pictures of speed skaters indoors unless you had well maintained professional sports photography equipment costing enough to make your eyes water. Don't despair. Increasingly powerful cameras are available in consumer products. Look for the ability to adjust White Balance, fine tune Exposure Compensation, automatically adjust exposure speed with aperture locked, coupled with ISO settings up to 1600 without excessive grain. The LCD viewer should have options to examine images in detail. This includes histograms and features to examine enlarged portions of the image for sharpness, (everything looks sharp in the tiny viewers - it's only when you examine the full size image that reality sinks in). Lenses should have apertures down to F2.8 and preferably have automatic focus features that can pinpoint an athlete in motion. The pictures in these galleries were taken with Nikon D1X digital cameras using a Nikkor 80-200mm AF-S lens and to a lesser extent a 28-70mm AF-S lens for closer work. Because of the large amount of vulnerable glass in these lenses I use L37C filters for lens protection Garbage in - Garbage out We have to get the right composition, color balance, exposure and sharpness in the camera before trying to work with the image. Although you can do wonders with in-camera electronics and external picture editors such as Adobe Photoshop, the best shots should only need minimal editing. Initially impressed by the Nikon's electronic enhancements, I now have the sharpening, contrast and other in-camera adjustments turned off. The following notes suggest ways of improving the raw image, but please don't look for advanced subjects such as profiling techniques - I leave that stuff to the real professionals. |
| Brightness is cool For speed skating I set the white balance to eliminate the majority of any excess yellow from the track lighting. This results in a slightly cold appearance in my pictures, but avoids the way that yellow seems to accentuate grain. I also tend slightly towards over-exposure, since under-exposure creates dull, grainy images. I am prepared to let the ice highlights blow out if it means having a better exposure for the skater, but I try to avoid large areas of glare. We are talking about a fine adjustment to the Exposure Compensation here, and something that may require re-adjustment throughout a race. |
Get in their face Wait and click the button at the moment the skater seems to explode through the frame. If I get timid and take the picture a split second too soon, I usually end up with a poor image. I cannot rely on electronic enlargement to make good pictures from tiny images of skaters, so most of the pictures that get into my galleries require little or no cropping. This might answer a few questions I have received about lens size. Quite simply, use the lens that gets the skaters perfectly framed. My zoom is usually set to somewhere between 80mm to 135mm, because my success rate drops as I go below 75mm or above 200mm. Note that the D1X multiplies the setting by 1.5. |
| Take a stance I am right handed and stand with my left elbow tucked into my side for stability, which means that I am pointing the camera towards my left shoulder. It should go without saying that it is important to lock parts of the body that can cause camera shake or spurious rotations. My legs are positioned so that I can rotate to cover the skater all the time, and arrive in the most comfortable and stable position at the point of exposure. I practice this movement before every shot. Also, I periodically take time in events to relax and take a few deep breaths, because it is most important not to be tense while shooting. |
Follow the action I pan nearly every shot, so it is vital that my body rotates to match the exact line taken by the skaters. Following a skater round a corner may require vertical and horizontal movement, so it is necessary to minimize the body parts used to achieve that compound rotation, i.e. move from the waist. Trying to correct the line by adding unnecessary movements by wrists, neck or knees will only increase the likelihood of camera shake. Failure to track the skater accurately may result in tilting and poor framing. It may seem obvious, but I never use the LCD screen for action shots, preferring instead to use the viewfinder. |
| Follow the leader In long track, luge and skiing events I try to follow the subject for about 75 to 100 feet before exposing. In short track I pick up the skaters in the straight and follow them through the curve. I only attempt to focus on the lead skater, even if the better skaters are behind. This is why I rarely promise to photograph a specific short track skater, because if the subject never gets to the front in the final laps, I never see them. |
Follow through It is very important to continue panning after exposure, so that you do not introduce additional braking movements or tensions during exposure. This means being aware of your surroundings and fellow photographers, so that your lens does not smash into something or someone who was not expecting the follow through. Use your practice movements to check your space and warn others. The follow through can be quite dramatic provided you do not lose balance. |
| See the light I spend a lot of time examining the track lighting before and during each competition. Exposure settings can vary by just walking a few feet, or by changing the height of your position, or by light coming from outside the track. Often I would use intervals in competitions to test lighting angles, or to examine test images at full size on a lap top. |
Go against the grain It was necessary to use F2.8 and ISO 800 or ISO 1600 to obtain good exposure speeds with the technology current at the time these images were taken. Some people shy away from ISO 1600 because of the grain, but I believe that the grain is acceptable in the D1X if the exposure and white balance are correct. |
| Know the flow In order to bring out the grace and power of athletes you have to know how and when they reach motion peaks, e.g. the leg extension in speed skating and the forward lean in ski jumping. By knowing the athlete's behaviour you can better position yourself to frame them at that optimum moment. I hope these few thoughts have been useful, but remember that photography is an art in which personal expression may sometimes be more important than technique. When you have started viewing pictures, you can revisit these notes by clicking on the "Intro" button at the bottom of the thumbnails. Peter Reath |
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