Photo practice with the Nikon D7200: A serial paparazzi gets ready for action

Reportage of sports and other events is one of the most difficult genres, requiring a good training of photographer and equipment suitable for the job, because you have to shoot very dynamic subjects. Usually what’s happening is photographed from a distance, so long lenses are used. But in addition to the long focal length lens need to have a high light transmission, that is, it increases the accuracy and speed of autofocus.

D7200 Series The Cyclist in White

Speed photography: a self-propelled snow white

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ISO 100, f/5.6, 1/500 s

This series was shot at a glance. It’s good that the camera has already made the necessary settings: 21-point continuous shooting with tracking autofocus has been selected. The challenge for the camera was quite simple, because the distance to the cyclist did not change too quickly.

To capture emotions or a specific expressive phase in the movement of the people being photographed, the “human + camera” system needs to react instantly in order to get good shots. To speed up the autofocus, you usually shoot with the lens aperture open or slightly closed , which results in a small DOF especially if you’re shooting with a telephoto lens , i.e.e. the subject may find itself in the out-of-focus zone at any moment.

Of course, experienced photographers who have been shooting certain scenes for a long time are able to anticipate the development of the events they know, to press the shutter in time and catch exactly the moment you need. In that case, they should suffice with the single AF AF-S single shot capability. However, unexpected things can always happen that you cannot fully prepare for.

Also, there are situations where the subject is moving relative to the photographer at varying speeds and it’s simply not humanly possible to accurately calculate its position at any given moment e.g., a soccer player dribbling . And this is where continuous shooting combined with tracking autofocus comes in handy.

The D7200 offers two continuous shooting modes: low-speed CL and high-speed CH . If the second has a clearly set speed of 6 fps 7 fps for shooting in 1.3x mode , you can set the desired value from 1 to 6 fps for the first. Why it was needed?

In the D7200, the buffer holds up to 100 frames when writing in JPG , and at maximum continuous shooting speed, it will fill up in just 17 seconds. If you know that the action to be filmed does not require such a high speed – you can lower it and thus stretch the shooting time or increase the number of filmed series, which are guaranteed not to “shut up” when the buffer overflow.

Don’t forget that the speed of filling or rather – of clearing the buffer is affected by the speed of the memory card. If it turns out to be an outdated type today it’s class 6 and 10 cards , it could be a bottleneck. For responsibly filming fast-moving events choose cards of the UHS-I class.

Another important setting is the number of focus points involved in tracking an object.

If it is large and does not move too fast or almost perpendicular to you , you can accompany its movement and shoot a series of shots with the wire. Here it is enough to focus on one contrasting detail, and for a human being it is usually on his near eye. In such situation it’s better to use one sensor for focusing if the composition allows it, you should choose it out of 15 central sensors – they are cross-type, t.e. more sensitive .

D7200 Series 3D-tracking

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ISO 400, f/4, 1/3200 s

The original focus was set to the near corner of the bus. As you can see, the 3D tracking system predicted the movement of the bus and switched the focus points. so the nearly complete overlap of the bus and the car passing by in the foreground had no effect on the accuracy of the focus the focus remained on the initially selected object.

When you want to keep an object moving towards you with varying or increasing speed such as a cyclist, motorcyclist or car approaching you on the road in focus, you should choose from 9 or 21 sensors to keep it in focus more accurately, and sometimes all 51.

The number will depend on how confident you are in your ability to anticipate an object’s speed and follow it with a camera turn. Also the number of points should be related to the size of the object in the frame. Ideally, the selected number of points should cover it with a small margin.

By the way, the D7200 has a 1.3x cropped mode where the 51 focus sensors cover almost the entire field of the frame. What’s more, it increases the equivalent focal length of the lens, which is generally useful for sports and reportage photography.

Nikon cameras also use Nikon’s proprietary 3D focus tracking technology to keep the subject in focus. In this case, the photographer points the active focus point at the desired object, and then the automation based on the color information ! of the object tracks its movements and switches to the neighboring focus point by itself.

This mode is especially useful in situations where the subject to be shot may be temporarily blocked by others. But you have to be careful when using it: if you jerk the camera and move the focus point, and there is another object of the same or similar color nearby, the tracking system can switch to it.

D7200 Series Yellow Truck

Speed Shooting: A tow truck rushes to the rescue

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ISO 400, f/4, 1/3200 s

The car was moving at an acute angle to the axis of the lens and was approaching quite fast when shooting this sequence. Nevertheless, autofocus had time to catch on 21 points were used and kept the subject in focus until the last frame of the series.