Success Rate

I am an evolving photographer! How do I know... because as I once lived by the "spray and pray" philosophy of shooting, as of Jan 21, 2012, I'm a lot more selective about holding down the shutter release button on my camera. I came to this realization when I went to the Essent World Cup of speedskating here in Salt Lake City. I found a sweet spot at the apex of one of the turns and busted out my (now defunct) Nikon D300 (with the MB-D10 battery pack) and my Sigma 120-400 f/4.5-5.6 lens with the hopes of photographing some of the best speedskaters in the world, in addition to many of the Olympic hopefuls.

Per my last post, I turned off the image stabilization mechanism and decided to be slightly more judicious in my shooting. With the battery pack, my camera fires of about 6 frames per seconds. My original philosophy was to hold the shutter release button down and find the best one, maybe two, images from each burst. However, my success rate was horrible. I'd come back with some 1200 photos and find maybe 50 good photos. Ultimately, It felt like I wasn't giving the lens an opportunity to focus as I tracked the subject.

When shooting sports, my camera settings are as follows: Continuous Focus; Short Tracking; and I use the secondary focus button on the back of the camera (not the shutter release button). So, with the focus settings in place, OS off, I did several short bursts as each skater negotiated the bend. Having the OS off netted sharper images, and the shorter bursts allowed the lens to focus faster as I tracked the subject.

At the end of the day, I still came away with 900 photos and found that close to 200 of them were in focus, sharp and framed appropriately.