Perfect examples of when burst shooting can help

You might not need the camera’s rapid shooting skills often but when you do, they can be really useful

STRIKE A POSE

The art of portrait and people photography is catching a fleeting gesture, look or pose and shooting quickly can help catch the instant when a scene comes together. The model was moving slowly and changing pose, using the breeze to catch the material of her dress, and as the sun was setting, the scene was constantly evolving. In this instance, a prolonged burst of frames wasn’t necessary and I took short bursts of two or three frames as the scene changed. Also, as I was using a 50MP medium-format camera, shooting sparingly in this manner helped to keep the camera buffer clear. The image was taken on a Fujifilm GFX 50S with a 120mm telephoto lens.

IN THE FRAME

I was photographing a couple of guys practising their parkour skills. This chap leapt off an outbuilding with his arms outstretched and managed to get into position for a controlled landing about 5m below his launch point. I was using a Canon EOS 5D Mark II DSLR fitted with a 24-70mm f/2.8 lens. The camera’s fastest shooting speed was 7fps so I set that and got six frames from take-off to him dropping out of the frame. In this instance, I didn’t pan because I wanted to keep the modern architecture background constant as he dropped down. To freeze the action, I went for a fast 1/6400 sec shutter speed.

IDEAL COMPOSITION

Having the camera in continuous shooting mode can help you capture the ideal composition with moving subjects. For this shot of the Canary Wharf skyline, I found a position where I could have a DLR train as the foreground interest. In readiness, I set the Fujifilm X-T2 to shoot at 8fps and waited for a train, which was coming from my left and moving away from me. I took a few photos as the train appeared in the shot, took another burst as the train filled the foreground and then a further few frames as the train moved away. That gave me three different looks to choose from and the image I preferred came from the final set.