Sport Photography is an exciting and one of the most challenging type of photography. This also include underwater photography. The equipment required used to be rather costly. You will need a good digital SLR and long telephoto lenses.
Two areas of challenges with sports photography are:
1. Lighting. Lighting can be a difficult aspect of sport photography. It is not so much of a problem if the action is taking place in the bright outdoor. Under this kind of condition, it is easier to match fast shutter speed with the brightness. However, when the sport action is taking place indoor or underwater, the lighting condition is not so favourable. To use a fast enough shutter speed, the ISO setting have to be increased. This may result in increased graininess of photographic outcomes.
2. Getting the right timing at the right moment. Because sports are usually occurring at a very high pace, the photographer will need to be very skilled at locking the camera to the action. To add to the challenge, a photographer do not always has the luxury and luck to be in close proximity to the location where the action is. That is why, a long lens is recommended. However, long lenses tend to magnify the panning or any movement to the camera. This makes following the action and framing the scene very challenging indeed.
A continuous powerdrive that allows for fast sequential capturing of shots is an added advantage. This will allow the photographer to select the best shot from the series of sequences.
Typically, a fast shutter speed is used so as to capture the details and not be succumbed to blurry images that are caused by fast movements.
As for Underwater photography, it is not for the average photographer. Water exerts its own properties when the photographer is submerged, making shooting more difficult.
If you are into underwater photography, you will need two types of equipments. And these tech toys ain’t cheap too.
1. Underwater lighting equipments.
2. Underwater housing for the camera.
For underwater lighting equipments, Nocturnal Lights is a popular choice.
As for underwater camera housings, there are several models for housing digital compact cameras. For example, WP-DC17 housing is for Canon IXUS 860 digital compact camera. For Fuji FinePix F50fd there is the FXF50 camera housing. The FxF50 housing is shown below.
A high end underwater housing is the aluminum alloy made Subal ND3 for Nikon D3.
When choosing an Underwater housing for the camera, there are several factors and considerations.
Firstly, make sure that the buttons are easy to handle underwater. They should be big and not awkward to use.
Next thing to check is whether internal flash can be used as well, when the camera is within the underwater casing.
Another consideration is whether the memory card of the camera used is of a reasonable storage size. This is because, you can’t reload the camera while in the water.
However, recent changes in video technology for capturing sports video such as Gopro is changing the way of how people capture sports moments.