Winter Sports Photography: An uphill struggle
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Sports photography has many challenges not least the fact that you’re attempting to capture fast-paced action in a moment, freezing it in time. Metering for light, exposure and focus points are all important when capturing sporting action.
A recent cold trip to North America to take up the challenge of winter sports photography, helped underline how difficult a mission mastering exposure can be when the light is inconsistent and the blizzard conditions make the simplest tasks difficult. For a start your fingers freeze up if you take your gloves off!
Days 1 – 3
Conditions were fantastic…. for skiing that is; six to nine inches of snow every day. This, however, proved not so good for photography, providing overcast conditions and flat light.
Having decided against the phaff of ‘manual’, the first photographic decision I had to make was: what setting I use? The default automatic mode wasn’t an option as I needed continuous shooting in order to capture my friends as they cruised down the slopes. But, it was bitterly cold and my pinkies soon suffered as I tried out the camera’s pre-sets. I decided upon ‘Sports Mode’ as surely Canon would have suggested??? With Sports Mode set, and position taken up at the side of the slope, I was ready to capture my subjects: Caroline, Steph, Nathan and Steve.
First set of results:
These shots of Caroline, taken in ‘sports mode’, demonstrate the challenge presented by poor light.
Days 4 -6
Thankfully, the clouds lifted and the sun came out, and sticking with the sports setting, these cruisey shots of Steph demonstrate how the change from cloud cover (above) to sunlight (below) offering better contrast and snow definition.
Things were looking up. It was time to up the anti and ask the guys to try and pull some jumps.
Amateur photographer meets amateur snowboarder.
With friends who barely ski in a straight line was it going to be too much to expect them to jump in a straight line, assuming they could make the jump in the first place?
We did a couple of practice shots before heading to the ‘terrain park’ where the serious boarders and skiers perform their jumps. I was sure that these more experienced guys would provide the ‘predictability’ that I required in order to set up the shot and capture the movement mid air. If I could see them setting off, then surely it would be easy to get the light right, capture the action to produce a magazine quality photograph.
How wrong I was.
I soon found that the default sports setting was limited in the extreme; trying to focus on a subject mid air proved difficult and with the setting restrictions, the glare of the snow, either a dark background of trees or light of the sky meant images were either over or under-exposed.
It was time to bite the bullet and use the manual settings. This can be quite daunting to someone relatively new to SLR photography. Setting the aperture and shutter speed needed time; consequently, I was missing the action as I persisted with different options. I was failing miserably. I’d perfect the correct exposure but find that the subject was blurred. I’d manage to get the subject and back ground in focus, but then I’d lose the definition in the photograph as the snow and trees lost their contrast. Very little was working out.
To add to my woes, the subject’s attire was unhelpful: Gone are the hot dog days of florescent ski jackets. The guys I was shooting seemed to opt for either pale or dark colours, which conspired to camouflage the subject with the tree-lined back grounds.
However, this photograph was one of the lucky few, as the skier soared above the tree line and my manual setting (with incorrect exposure) provided a moody semi-silhouetted shot.
The difficult light conditions, the cold and snow meant it was difficult to actually assess and compare shots in the field. The general glare made it difficult to see the camera’s display and the setting details which usually help make informed adjustments.
Seeing the light…..and the subject.
Some inspiration was required to help with the changing light, a consistent speed setting and a precise focal point. A car journey provided the eureka moment.
I discovered that if I switched the camera to TV mode and focused on passing cars, I could manually set the shutter speed, thereby letting the camera address the aperture exposure, and resolving the light issue. With the focus points set manually to centre focusing, I was able to get a reasonable picture, all be it of a car….not quite the winter sports photograph I was after.
A back country skidoo trip was going to be my chance to put my new-found action photography into practice.
The speed of the skidoos, combined with the snow thrown up from their treads, would also test my speed theory.
Eureka results.
Nathan getting air – overcast and snowing hard.
Two hours later Steve gets air on a bright sunny afternoon.
We were getting somewhere I needed to get back to the slopes and the terrain park.
With camera in TV mode shutter speed around 400/500 it was time to see what I could capture. I had one day left to take something satisfactory, with reasonable quality.
When I accepted the challenge of winter sports photography, I was under no illusions about how hard it would be. It proved an interesting challenge and one that helped me to look more closely at the camera’s configuration and settings.
All the photographs were taken using a Canon 400D with a Canon 70-300mm IS DO lens.
The location Steamboat, Breckenridge and Copper Mountain Colorado USA
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All images copyright Nicholas Giles
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Winter Sports Photography: An uphill struggle
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