Technique assessment

Shutter release

Tom says… In continuous autofocus (AF-C) mode, the default setup is for the camera to take the shot as soon the shutter button is pressed – regardless of whether it has achieved focus or not. However, out-of-focus shots are no use at all, and are a waste of space on the memory card and a waste of time to have to trawl through, so I advised Eddie to go to the AF-C Priority Selection menu and set his camera to only take a picture once focus had been achieved.

Shoot Manual

Tom says… Eddie had been setting Aperture Priority mode and Auto ISO, so the camera would provide a matching shutter speed for a good exposure. But that won’t necessarily pick a speed that’s fast enough to freeze the action, only quick enough to counter shake. I suggested he set Manual exposure with go-to settings of 1/1250 sec and f/4, with ISO starting at around 4000-5000, and increasing this as it gets darker. The shots may be underexposed, but they’ll be consistent, and you can fix this when processing in Photoshop.

JPEG not raw

Tom says… Eddie was shooting Raw for optimum image quality, but in sports photography speed is paramount, and working with JPEGS is much faster. They write to your memory cards quicker, prevent buffering, transfer to your computer in much less time, and are faster to edit too as the camera does most of the processing for you. You have to ensure all your other settings are spot-on, though!