Camp can be one of the most fun times of the year, and you should have great photos to remind you of those fun times. But how do you shoot great photos when your friends are very active – moving and jumping around – holding different objects and standing in broad daylight? We’ve come up with 5 quick tips on how to shoot great action photos during your camp so that you’ll have those fun memories frozen in time.
1. Prepare yourself and your camera
Do you want to shoot your outdoor or indoor activities? Where will you be doing your activities? Is it a busy area that will have plenty of distractions or a quiet area?
Prepare yourself by making sure you know how to set your ISO low and how to decrease your aperture, that way you won’t spend precious minutes setting this up before taking a shot. Prepare your camera by charging the batteries and making sure it works fine.
2. Choose your subject and emphasize it.
This is when your foreknowledge of the busy-ness of the location comes into play. Ask yourself: what is my subject? Is it my friends or a particular object at camp?
Whichever one it is make sure to emphasize it in your shot. Remember the rule of thirds and position your friends accordingly, emphasize them in the shot and avoid distracting elements from the background.
3. Freeze your friends in action.
Now it’s time to start shooting! If you want to freeze your friends in action without blurring, put your shutter speed at 1/500 or even 1/1000 – depending on the speed your friends are going!. Increase your aperture accordingly to make sure you’re getting enough light. It might take you a few shots to see which settings work best.
4. Blurring action.
If you want to create a blurring effect on your photo to show movement, then set your shutter speed to a lower setting, 1/30 might be enough. Again, it’s important to adjust your aperture by decreasing it slightly to let in less light.
5. Catch the action at its peak!
You want to shoot your friends at the peak of their action – this is the best way to capture motion. If they’re jumping, shoot while they’re mid-air. If they’re playing tennis, try to get the shot just when the ball hits the racket. Whatever it is, time your shots well and you’ll have a great story to tell when you get home.
If you’re reading this article and feeling bewildered at the terms ‘shutter speed’, ‘aperture’, and ‘ISO’ or they sound familiar but have no idea how to control them then it’s time to join our camp! Our teen summer camps will teach you the basics of shooting in manual mode so that you learn how to control the settings in your camera despite the brightness of your location or movement of your subject.
Sign up for our teen camps now, spots are filling up fast! Then look at photos done by our previous campers by checking out our Facebook page.