6) Know your equipment
Knowing your camera gear is most important.
** Lenses - What you use will normally depend on what sport you are shooting. For many field sports you will want good reach. But, cost is always a factor there. Most sports photographers use large prime lenses. If you see any major sports event, you will see guys with those large white lenses. These are usually Canon lenses, 300mm, 400mm, 500mm and 600mm (of course Nikon now do have some white lenses). These vary from f/2.8 to f/4 lenses. Since most of these are out of the average budget, you need to consider other options. In general you will want a fast (f/2.8) lens. The 70-200mm f/2.8 is a great choice and starting point. Sigma also produce some good long lenses worth considering.
** Shutter Speed - For most cases, you either want to shoot in fully manual mode (M) or else in shutter priority mode (Tv). The availability of light will be key for any event. Ideally you will want a shutter speed greater than 1/400 of a second. This should freeze the action, especially for a field sport. Other sports may require faster speeds (horse racing, car racing, etc). Of course, using fast shutter speeds will generally mean an open aperture. This will be f/2.8 or as close as your lens will allow.
** ISO - Using high ISO might be the only possible way to get a faster shutter speed (depending on light). Knowing how well your camera does in low light or high ISO will be very important. For many Canon cameras, you can get away with ISO 400 or ISO 800 without having to worry too much. This may be a little more tricky for older Nikon cameras. Of course, if you use a Canon 1D MkIII, Canon 1D MkIV, Canon 7D or Nikon D3, Nikon D700 then you can use ISO 1600 or even up to ISO 3200 without having much concern.
** Burst - In many cases, you will be shooting bursts of images, to try to capture that peak moment. To get the most from this, you will probably need to shoot jpg images. Small bursts of 3-4 images should be fine, but for an intense section of action you may shoot a large burst. Don't forget that your camera will then need more time to write this burst to the memory card, before it can shoot again. However, RAW files do give you more scope with the post processing.
** Focus - In most cases, you will be using the fixed centre point focus. You will generally want the main focus of the action in the centre of your image. Mostly you will need to use AI Focus or AI Servo focus mode. This will better enable you to track the action.
** Accessories - A good monopod is always useful to help stabilise your camera/lens. It will also take the weight off your arms. Also, don't forget your memory cards. These will come in different sizes and speeds. The write speed of your card can make a big impact on the bursts you can shoot.
