How To: Capturing Sports Motion

Bolt Productions is excited to announce the start of a new Blog How-To series!

Each month, we will feature a new how-to on the latest photo and video tricks and techniques. This month, we’re kicking things off with an excellent how-to from our friends at Broncolor: Capturing Sports Motion

Ever wonder how photographers can manage to shoot an almost frame by frame view of action? This slow motion, rotoscope-like photography style is key for capturing intense details and action, and is thrilling for photography lovers to look at. The goal for Broncolor’s How-To shoot was to capture the unseen motion in the action of the baseball players swing. In most cases, these actions take place too fast for the human eye. In order to capture this still image, the photographer used the Broncolor Scoro and multiple flash bursts. The Broncolor Scoro is packed with features including multiple burst of flash as well as combining packs with different delay times and power settings. To shoot this effectively, you need to put your subject in front of a black background. For lighting, we recommend two P70’s and several softboxes to illuminate the frame.

The final challenge with this shoot was recording the baseball player in each portion of the swing without causing the image to be too confusing or overexposed. In order to resolve this issue, the camera was turned during exposure to ensure that the players movements were recorded in multiple positions for the amazing end result.

Interested in shooting sports motion yourself? Check out the Broncolor YouTube page for more great How-To’s, and don’t forget to stop by Bolt Productions in Dallas to rent your essential equipment! Otherwise, check back on our Blog for more updates and professional photography and video production tips and tricks. We can’t wait to see what your shoots turn out to look like!