Photographing Indoor Sports: The Right Settings, Gear, and Tips for Shooting Basketball, Martial Arts, and Other Low-light Sports
by Alan Hess
Martial Arts
I have been training in the martial arts since I was a child, and I still work out at a karate gym (called a dojo) a couple of times a week. Photographing the martial arts and boxing can be really challenging, because the fighters move around a lot but the photographers are usually designated to a static position. The other challenge is that the sport is a lot faster than you would think, with some punches and kicks needing a very fast shutter speed to freeze. An advantage to photographing these sports, however, is that they take place in a very limited area and you don’t need an expensive telephoto lens to get close to the action.
1/200 second, f/2.8, ISO 1600
To capture this shot, I watched practice so I could anticipate the ...
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