Photography can seem like a confusing overwhelming beast. Luckily we live in a time where we can ditch the heavy DSLR cameras, shoot from our phones, and get some killer shots.
Think about it, when you go to buy a car you look at the images online, check out the cars description, mileage all of that jazz, then imagine going to see it and it looked nothing like the ad you saw. Or what if you wanted to book a hotel online and when you got to your room you realize the photos listed on the booking site were 20 years old! You’d have a pretty bad taste in your mTaking and sharing great photos has endless benefits from sharing on social, to updating your Sports Bridge account and making your profile stand out even more.
In this article, we are going to be providing some tips & tricks for taking better photos of your team and making them stand out to parents.
Hire a professional
So let’s start at the basics, if photography really isn’t your thing that perhaps the easiest path is to hire a photographer.
Lots of coaches are hiring a professional photographer to come and shoot their training sessions and their games, they get a ton of useable content for their social and Sports Bridge account, they are in the photos, they are high quality and they didn’t have to do any of the photography themselves.
Let’s dSo obviously we can hire professionals, but there’s a cost with doing so. How much do photographers charge? Good question, answer. It depends. (Insert obvious eye roll emoji here) It depends on the photographer’s age, skill levels, and the amount of time they will be shooting, or the number of locations you want them to shoot at.
We’ll use the example of a game for our pretend photographer to come and shoot. Looking at the higher end of photographers, some of the best of the best in your area would typically charge around $600-1000. Now that is a lot of money and not something the majority of us has laying around.
How do we reduce that? Simple, find younger photographers. Or find students. that are willing to do the shoot for exposure, say you’ll tag the aspiring photographer in all content you post online. That’s a really easy way to get the costs down to basically nothing for someone to take photos of you and your team.
The best way we’ve found to hire photographers is through Instagram. Search through hashtags like #NAMEOFYOURCITYphotographers and variations of that. Start by viewing their insta profiles, and sending them a short DM.
Buy a good camera
Let’s dive into some examples of when you should update your team.
So next up on our list of stepping up your photography is getting yourself a good high-quality camera. Hiring professionals is all good but you want photos on a more consistent basis, so that means you are going to have to do some of the shooting yourself.
Looking at cameras can get intimidating quickly. So many brands and so many models to choose from, the cost difference is crazy. How much do you really need to spend? Let’s break some of it down.
Type of camera you should get. Mirrorless camera
Why Mirrorless/what is that?: It’s a type of camera, they basically allow you to see the image live in your viewfinder and see the adjustments to exposure (just like your phone) DSLRs don’t do this, so make taking good photos harder.
How much should I spend? Expect to pay around $500 for a decent camera.
Here’s one we always recommend. The Sony A6400, you should easily be able to find a second-hand one for less than $600. Check out a full-priced one on Amazon here.
Next up you have to think about lenses.
When choosing a camera a key area is to choose one that allows you to add different lenses, this is where modern digital cameras shine over mobile photography. Different lenses allow you to shoot different focal ranges, just a fancy way of saying how close/far something is from the camera, just like the zoom feature on your phone’s camera – just way better!
Best bang for your buck is a good zoom lens. Lenses have a bunch of weird numbers associated with them, so we’re going to try and breeze through them quickly and simply.
When you see a zoom lens with numbers like this 28-75mm. That’s just how much it can zoom. 28mm is relatively wide, 75mm is relatively zoomed-in. the little – between those number shows that the lens cam zoom between those ranges. Those numbers are a good starting point for you to choose a zoom lens around. Something like that will give you tons of zooming in and zooming out for when you’re trying to catch different sporting moments.
Next up the when there’s a weird little f at the end or beginning. Something like f/2.8. This number in simple terms is just how blurry the background can get, the lower that number the more blurry your background will be. Its also allowing more light into the camera’s sensor, (which is why the background goes blurry) so you can shoot in lower lighting conditions. One other thing is the lower the f value typically means the more expensive the lens becomes. Aim for something around the 2.8 range, that will give you great depth of field (blurriness) and allow you to shoot for a little longer in the evenings. f values are where phones just can’t keep up, phone companies try to give the blurred look using cleaver software tricks but there so limited with what they can do with those tiny lenses. If you want to be a step above the other coaches, then invest in a nice little zoom lens with a good f stop.
Use what you already have
Using your phone’s camera is the cheapest of our options and allows you to get right into photography with no real upfront cost. Whipping your phone out is quick and easy, phones have made photo quality so good it’s hard to believe such small devices take such good images.
With phone cameras being so good it becomes difficult to stand out, in a sea of high-quality phone photos, how do you get yours to stand. out? If everyone has access to good, high-quality cameras then just having the phone isn’t enough if you want to outshine your fellow coaches, you need to know how to go above and beyond and push it to its limits.
1. Get low!
Too many photos are taken at face height, we get it, it’s so easy to grab your phone open the camera look at the screen and snap the photo. Done. A quick way to improve your photos is to simply crouch down when taking them.
The ground-level view makes shots so much more dynamic. Get some of the grass in there as well, it will add layers to your photography.
2. Play with different focal ranges
Focal ranges, remember from earlier? Just testing you! Focal range is just the technical term for zooming. Phones typically have 3 zoom ranges now. Wide, mid, and zoom. The highest quality one being the mid (the default one)
Get some more unique shots by getting really close to a player of yours and hit the 2x and get some real expression shots. The combination of the zoom and you being close allows you to do more than just take a photo of your team playing, it allows you to capture emotions.
3. More candids
We see lots of posed photos with teams. While these are great and show a good team dynamic, what parents really want to see is the heart of the team. People show you more of themselves when they think no one is looking, so capture those moments. Do it slyly if you need to!
Here are some good examples of candid moments you should definitely get. Same as number 2, closeness is key!
– Players laughing
– Players scowling/frowning
– Exhaustion (hands on the back of their heads after running a million laps in a beep test)
– Cliche close up high five
– Close up textured shot of your jersey
– You. get. the. idea.
Hopefully, you’re filled with lots of energy, and creative ideas by now, with the knowledge that you can capture incredible shots just using. your phone.
Before we close out, here are a few areas where phones lack the punching power of cameras.
– Limited zoom, you have to get a lot closer to the action which isn’t always possible.
– No real background blur when a subject is moving. Portrait mode is great for those selfies but utterly useless if a subject is moving.
– Quality. You’ll struggle zooming and cropping a phones photo not to mention if you want to up your game even further and edit it.
– RAW. Camera photos allow you to shoot in RAW – this is just an image format like a jpeg or png but a lot bigger. It allows you to make a lot of edits before the photo gets all grainy and also allows you to zoom/crop your photo without losing a ton of quality.
That’s it hopefully you’ve got a better idea of how to technically take better photos. Content is king and it applies to sports more than ever. In a sea of competition, you need to stand out. Now go get shooting!