- Hi, this is Peter Read Miller,
Sports Illustrated photographer
and Canon Explorer of Light, and today,
I'm gonna talk about soccer.
(upbeat music)
There are a couple of things that I think
are really important in
general about shooting soccer.
One of the first things
is your backgrounds.
Now if you're shooting on
a pro or a college level,
you probably don't have much choice,
but if you're shooting as a parent,
or at a high school game, it's tough.
Try and find something that's clear.
You've got chain link fences,
you've got cars parked,
you've got moms and
dads in folding chairs,
but somewhere there may be a spot
where you've just got some
trees, or some distant buildings.
Look for that, it really
makes a difference.
Backgrounds, busy backgrounds are
very distracting from the picture.
You know, a couple of thoughts for soccer,
and all sports in general,
obviously a high shutter speed,
but a very wide aperture.
That's a lower number.
That's as wide as your lens is gonna get,
because that will help
you with your backgrounds,
taking them out.
Another thing is to try and
get as low as you can to shoot.
There are several reasons for this.
One is that, on any level,
athletes look more heroic
if you're shooting up at them.
It just, it's subtle, but it
gives you something there.
The second reason is,
especially when you're shooting
younger athletes, smaller athletes,
you want to get down to their level.
You want to see their eyes, and also,
they're looking down a
lot when they're younger.
They're looking for the ball.
When you're in the pro league,
those guys know where the ball is,
but you want to be low whenever you can.
You want the action coming towards you.
You can have the sharpest,
greatest picture ever,
but if you don't have a face in it,
if you don't have eyes in
it, it's not a picture,
it's not a picture, so
having it come towards you,
and getting those eyes,
getting those eyes and that expression.
Even the classic header shot,
even then the eyes are closed,
but there's that whole
expression that they have.
And the last thing is to
shoot a little bit wider
than I think a lot of people would
because you don't want to cut off limbs.
There's just something that
looks wrong about a picture
with half a leg, or half an
arm, or something like that.
Shoot a little wider.
You can crop it in.
Today's cameras, you have plenty of room
to crop in the files, so
try not to crop off limbs.
(upbeat music)
In a perfect world, you would shoot soccer
with three cameras and three lenses.
Your main camera would
be a long telephoto,
400, 500, 600 millimeters,
or a 200 to 400 Zoom,
something like that, something
that'll get you out there,
and that's gonna be what you're
gonna shoot most of the game with.
When they do come close though,
a 70 to 200 is a great
choice, 80 to 200, whatever.
Different camera manufacturers have
different ranges, but
that's a great camera.
The third camera is not
even gonna be on you.
The third camera is
gonna be a remote camera
with a wide angle lens on the ground,
or on a little tripod behind
the goal fired by radio,
and we'll talk about remotes and radios
and all that in a future episode,
but now, let's talk about the real world.
You have one camera.
Maybe you have one or two lenses.
You have one camera.
Hopefully, if you're
shooting sports at all,
one of your lenses is a 70 to 200,
and hopefully, possibly, you can even get
a tele-extender to work with that.
That'll get you a lot of soccer action.
A 70 to 200 with a one four extender
will get you a lot of soccer action.
(upbeat music)
Camera settings for soccer.
First of all, P does not
stand for professional.
Take your camera off P.
I like to go with Aperture Priority.
That's the little A, and I like the lens
to be set as wide open as possible.
That's the lowest f-number you can get.
This will help you in several ways.
It will help you in achieving
a higher shutter speed
without have to go too high on ISO,
and it will take the background
farther out of focus.
It'll make your subjects that
are in focus pop much more,
so you want to go Aperture Priority,
and you want to try and
keep your shutter speed
up to at least a thousandth, or more.
ISO obviously depends on the light.
If you're shooting on a bright,
sunny day, you can keep it low.
I would not be afraid
to take it up though.
You want that high shutter speed.
You can fix noise from high ISO,
but you can't fix motion blur,
so try and go at least
a thousandth, maybe more
on the shutter speed,
Aperture Priority, wide open,
and let the ISO kind of fall where it may.
(upbeat music)
Yeah, I thought I'd take
you out on the pitch today,
out on the soccer field, talk
a little bit about positions
and shooting in the real world,
so in Europe and most of the World Cup,
they do not allow photographers
very far down the sideline,
so most of the shooting I've
done, and most people have done
has been from the End Line and maybe
they'll let you come around
the corner a little bit.
If you can get around
the corner past the flag,
that's a sweet spot.
That's a very sweet spot, I
believe, because you can see
a lot of the action in front of the goal.
You can even see the
goalie come out sometimes,
if he comes out the right direction.
You can see headers.
You can see goals being scored.
This is my spot of choice.
Now, moving inward,
anywhere along here is
still gonna give you
a pretty good view of the field
and the action coming towards
you, and then, of course,
hopefully, you have a long enough lens
that you can shoot the other end
with a say a 600 or a
500, and occasionally,
you can get some really
good stuff down there.
You can get a goal from the point of view
of the goalie coming out to stop it,
but either way, you're still good.
Now as you get in closer to the goal,
you're starting to lose
that side of the field,
so you don't want to get
too close to the goal.
I mean, I have seen some great pictures
from very close to the goal,
but you start to give up
a lot of area where you could shoot.
What you do instead is you
put a remote behind the goal,
and we'll talk about those
remotes in a future episode,
but that's really the key that's made
many of the best soccer
pictures I ever seen,
and we can talk about
positioning equipment,
how to fire it, whole deal,
so you want to get something in here.
Then, you can go out
there, or be back there
and not worry about what's
happening in the goal
because you've got a camera
that is covering you.
So that's pretty much
news from the pitch today.
I think if you do go down the sidelines,
probably stay fairly near,
within 10 years of the End Line.
I don't think the middle
of the field is very useful
because you're gonna get
everybody's backs at some point,
so I would say, stay
around in these corners.
Over there, put a remote behind the goal,
and there you have it,
soccer on the pitch.
(upbeat music)
So that's a wrap up on
the tips for soccer.
If you want to know more,
you can check out my book,
Peter Read Miller on Sports Photography.
You can go to my website,
PeterReadMiller.com.
And if you really want
to follow up with this,
you can take one of my workshops.
We shoot a lot of soccer.
We shoot soccer in almost
every workshop I teach.
All that information is on my website.
Follow us, subscribe, and
we'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)
