Focus on action
When shooting sport, it’s crucial to isolate your main subject from its background to really make the activity stand out
In sport photography it’s important to try to maximise the visual impact of every image you take. One way of achieving this is by reducing the depth of field to an absolute minimum, which means that your lens and aperture choice are crucial.
A fast (wide aperture) prime telephoto lens such as a 300mm f/2.8 will not only give you the best possible optical quality, it will also give you the tiny amount of depth of field you’re looking for. Unlike most lenses, they are designed to work at their best wide open at f/2.8, giving crisp, sharp images and throwing anything in the background out of focus. They also have incredibly smooth bokeh which makes it look like the subject is isolated from it’s background, giving the picture an almost three dimensional feeling. The down side is that such lenses are very costly! (See Kitbag, above right).
The nature of sport means that your subject is going to be constantly on the move, so you need to optimise the settings on your camera to give yourself the best chance of securing a shot. You rarely get a second chance when shooting sport, which means you must be confident that your camera can focus accurately and maintain that focus at the critical moments.