How to Videotape Sports Action

Shooting sports action well can be one of the greatest challenges facing a videographer. There are tricks to doing it. If you master them, you'll see your sports action tapes improving with each event.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• Camcorder Batteries
• Garbage Bags
• Camcorder Tripods
• Camcorders

Picking a Location

1. Arrive early to allow for setup time.
2. Park as close as you can to where you'll be taping.
3. Check out sunlight or electrical lighting to be sure neither will shine directly into your lens or onto your viewfinder.
4. Select a shooting position where nobody is likely to be standing in front of you or jumping up to yell during the event.
5. Check to be sure your pans left and right are equally clear of spectators.
6. Try to find an elevated location where you can look down on the action.
7. Choose a level shooting position - don't fight gravity by trying to shoot from the side of a hill.
8. Bring your tripod (borrow one if necessary).
9. Select a place close to house current so you can run your camera off the power supply instead of batteries.

Setting Up the Equipment

10. Adjust the viewfinder for sports coverage before you set up your tripod.
11. Set the height of the tripod so that when you're looking straight ahead, you're looking straight into either viewfinder at eye level.
12. Make your tripod head level by lengthening or shortening the legs.
13. Adjust the pan control (if there is one) on your tripod so there's a small amount of drag as you pan and tilt.
14. Put a handheld microphone (if you have one) away from spectators.
15. Arrange your extra equipment (camera bag and so on) so it's out of your way as you move about behind the camcorder.
16. Make sure the power cord (if you're using one) does not pass through the area where you'll be standing, so you don't trip over it.
17. Use a plastic garbage bag with a hole cut in it to protect your camcorder if you think it might rain.

Beginning to Shoot

18. Be sure you're familiar with the flow of action in the type of sporting event (baseball, tennis, and so on) you're going to cover, so you know what to tape and what to ignore.
19. Plan to shoot a fairly wide shot, during the first few events you tape, until you catch on. You can tighten up and shoot closer shots as your skills improve.
20. Keep both eyes open when you tape sports.
21. Use your left eye for the "big picture" and your right eye for determining what you're taping.
22. Anticipate a likely play and be ready to cover it when it happens.
23. Note that if most of the action in a potential play will be in a restricted area, you can go tighter for a better close-up of the action. But be ready to pull back to a wider shot if you guessed wrong.
24. Aim toward keeping the principal player in the shot all the time. But be ready to switch principal players if the shot calls for it.
25. Roll on every play or potential play if you want to get all the action.
26. Start recording an instant or two before the play action starts.
27. Count "1-2-3" to yourself when the play is over, then stop taping.
28. Shoot cutaways sometimes, but not always, in between plays.
29. Come off tripod and go handheld if you think you can get access to the field for a different vantage point.
30. Bring extra tape and batteries if you change vantage points.
31. Change vantage points only at a natural break in the action.

Tips & Warnings

• If you park close, your run to the car if you need something will be shorter and you'll miss less action. And when you're through, you won't have to carry your equipment as far.
• Arriving early means you'll have a better choice of shooting positions. You can also set up your equipment in a leisurely way, and have time to run back to get something you forgot before the action starts.
• If you select a hillside shooting position, you'll tire more quickly and your taping will stop being fun.
• If you set up in the grandstands, a rowdy crowd may make the stands jiggle, and that will make your pictures jiggle too.
• Adjust an optical viewfinder so its axis is parallel to the axis of the lens.
• Adjust an LCD viewfinder so its screen is perpendicular to the axis of the lens.
• Some tripods have a leveling ball. If yours doesn't, you can buy one at the hardware store and put it on your tripod head. It makes leveling the head much easier.
• When you tilt down to cover field action, you may find that the viewfinder is too high for comfort. Don't adjust the viewfinder - it's set correctly. Instead, lower the tripod height.
• If you separate the microphone from spectators, you'll hear only generic crowd noise and not individual conversations.
• Try stashing your equipment ahead of the tripod position and underneath the lens. If you put it behind you, you may back into it, and, even worse, while you're paying attention to the event, somebody could come along and steal it.
• Find a dry place to put your charger if it rains. If you can't find one, put the charger and battery in a plastic bag. Be sure to unplug the charger before you take the battery off charge.
• It takes a little practice to get used to shooting with both eyes open, but once you master it, you'll never know how you got along before. If you lose the action, you'll find it faster with your left eye open.
• The greatest plays happen when your camcorder is off. So plan to shoot them all.
• People don't want to see the crowd on your tape; they want to see the sports action. So don't spend a lot of time on cutaways, and if you must shoot them, don't make them longer than a second or two.
• The wider your shot, the less likely you'll be to lose the action, but the smaller the sports figures will be. Conversely, the tighter your telephoto shot, the larger the sports figures will be, but the more easily you'll lose them. You'll have to find a happy medium that works for you.
• Shooting at field level is much more difficult than shooting from a platform at the back of the stands. From field level you're closer to the action, and the action moves from one side to another much more quickly. The rule is, The closer you are to the action, the harder it is to shoot.
• Avoid using house current if it's raining or wet at your shooting position. Plan to work off batteries. You're at risk of injury or death from electric shock if water gets into the plugs on your extension cord.

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