Tip Of The Week: Use Continuous Autofocus For Sports

Before the pandemic I was having fun posting tips every Tuesday on the blog. Of course when everything shut down I was not making sports photos anymore so the tips slowed up. I thought that it would be a fun thing to bring back to the blog. Last week I used Tuesday to post ten more tips for making softball photos. Today I will just look at one thing that you could do to change your photography. I hear a lot that my photos just are not that sharp. There are many factors that can come into play to make your photos not as sharp as you would like. One of those though could be your autofocus. When I ask when they see it and if it is mostly when the action is coming to them I know exactly what it is. To make sure your camera is focusing correctly for sports you want to be in continuous autofocus mode. On my Canon that was AI Servo, and on my Sony that is AF-C mode. What that does is to tell your camera to keep focusing on your subject. If you are in single focus mode it will focus when you press the shutter halfway or when you engage your back button focus. By the time you press the shutter to make the photo your subject has moved out of the focus plane. It happens really quick, but the athletes are quick too. This little tip should help you when the action is moving right at you. This sounds really simple, but it will really make your keeper rate grow when you make the change.

Getting Back Into The Swing Of Things

I hope to make this a fairly frequent part of the blog this year. If you have any questions or ideas for future Tuesday Tips posts let me know. This blog started with me trying to learn everything that I can. I am still learning every time that I go out there. There is no sense keeping these things to myself so maybe the blog can now be a place where we both learn.