As promised last week, I’m going to continue my series on taking great shots with your point & shoot camera. Susan R Mills wanted to know how to take better action shots. Hers tend to come out blurry.
One of the advantages of my new camera (Canon Power Shot SX200 IS) is that it allows the user to adjust the shutter speed. If your camera is missing that feature, can you still take action shots? Absolutely. There are ways you can get around this. For the photos here, I set my camera to the automatic mode so it did all the thinking for me.
When your camera snaps a picture, it takes a number of things into consideration. The main one being the available light. If you want a more detailed explanation, check out my previous posts here, here, and here. But basically, if the light is low, then the camera will set itself to a slow speed and the depth of field will be narrow. A narrow depth of field is what makes the background look fuzzy while the subject is in focus. It’s perfect for portrait shots. If you’re taking action shots in low lighting, chances are great your pictures are going to be blurry, especially if your camera doesn’t have image stabilization.
If you take a photo when the lighting is bright, the depth of field will be wider (so more of the background will be in focus) and the camera will set itself to a faster shutter speed. This means your action shots will be in focus.
Another thing to take into consideration is the speed of action. The surfer isn’t moving very fast. Thanks to gravity, my son is. Also, if you use your flash, it will freeze the action. That might help.
Of course, all cameras are different. One model might do a better job taking action shots compared to another one. The best thing to do is experiment to see what your camera will allow.
I hope that helps. If you have any questions about this topic or anything else about photography you’ve always wanted to know, you can leave a comment here or email me.
Next Monday I’ll be covering another topic dealing with shutter speed.
And be sure to check out tomorrow’s post. I’ll be reviewing North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley.