As a rule of thumb, to get sharp action shots when covering sporting events, use manual mode to control the exposure triangle (shutter speed, aperture, and ISO) yourself. This will allow you to dial in the exact settings you want or need for each situation. Having manual control keeps the camera from automatically changing exposure and will produce results that more accurately match your creative vision.

To help demonstrate my thought process and give insight into what equipment and settings I use for different events, I have listed the settings, camera, and lens for each example image on this site.

Before I dive into some settings recommendations, I want to make a distinction between photos that are out of focus and photos that are blurry. If something is out of focus, it means that the plane of focus was not on the subject. On the flip side, a blurry image may have been focused correctly, but there is motion blur due to the shutter speed not being fast enough. If you’re having an issue, this is an important difference because the solution to one or the other is not the solution for both.

1/1000 of a second is the classic go-to shutter speed for sports photographers. I have found that sometimes, at 1/1000, there can still be noticeable blur in some scenarios. Personally, the shutter speed I prefer to freeze action is 1/2000.

As a camera’s megapixel count increases, motion blur disappears at a higher shutter speed due to the increase in detail captured. In addition, with fast moving dirt or water droplets in the scene, 1/1000 might not be quite fast enough to completely freeze them. To me, 1/2000 delivers crisper images. That being said, I am often forced to shoot a stop slower due to light restrictions.

While 1/2000 is a good place to start, my shutter speed often varies depending on the sport I’m shooting. For sports like baseball or tennis, I will bump my shutter speed up to 1/4000 or 1/8000 to freeze the ball on the bat or racquet.

For other outdoor sports played during daylight hours, you should be able to use 1/2000. As the sun sets and the stadium lights come on, you may be forced to lower the shutter speed to 1/1000.

When shooting indoor sports like basketball, volleyball, and hockey – where light is often limited – I try and use 1/1500 if possible. If I can’t attain that by widening my aperture and raising my ISO, I will lower the shutter speed half a stop.

The absolute minimum shutter speed I will use for action photos is 1/500. Below this you will definitely start to see noticeable motion blur in all sports.

Here are six examples shot with fast shutter speeds to show the difference they make. Hovering over each image will magnify them. At 1/500, there is significant motion blur in the arm and even face. Bumping up a stop to 1/1000, the face still appears just a bit blurry and the arm is still in motion. Getting to 1/2000, the face is perfect and the arm is mostly sharp, but the hand still has some motion blur. 1/4000 is pretty much completely sharp, with the tips of his fingers having a hint of blur. Past 1/4000, everything appears tack sharp.

The next tool to getting quality images at sporting events is knowing what your aperture needs to be.

Most lenses used by professional sports photographers have wide maximum apertures such as f/2.8 or f/4. While these lenses may be bigger, heavier, and more expensive than more versatile super-zoom lenses, their wider apertures let in more light, allowing photographers to use faster shutter speeds in poorly lit arenas. In addition, lenses with wider apertures isolate the subject more when shot wide open, resulting in smoother out of focus areas, cleaner backgrounds, and a subject that almost pops off the page.

There are plenty of situations when a smaller aperture like f/8 or f/22 can be used to your advantage. A small aperture can have unique effects, such as sunbursts, or help get wide angle scene setter images. About 95% of the time, I’m at one extreme or the other when choosing an aperture for sports.

Having a wide aperture can be the hardest setting from the exposure triangle for early career sports photographers to replicate. This is because lenses with wide apertures are often extremely expensive. For example, the Nikon mirrorless 400mm f/2.8 costs around $14,000. Nikon’s smaller 400mm f/4.5 is about $3,250. That’s over a $10,000 difference for a lens with the same focal length but is one and a third stops darker.

I don’t recommend rushing out to buy a $14,000 lens just to make the images look “more professional.” Use what you have access to and learn how the aperture affects the images before deciding you need f/2.8. For most photographers, even many professionals I know, having a 200-400mm f/4 or 200-500mm f/5.6 is perfectly acceptable for what they shoot. Personally, I much prefer the look of a 400mm f/2.8 or 600mm f/4 prime lens when compared to the zoomable counterparts.

Below is a set of images comparing f/2.8 to f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, and f/22. These illustrate how f/2.8 compares to progressively smaller apertures.

As you can see, there isn’t much of a difference between f/2.8 and f/4. My thoughts here are that it may not look like that much of a difference, but it’s the little things that add up and make your photos stand out. This is why I prefer a f/2.8 lens, but understand why people use an f/4.

Progressing through the examples, you can see the difference becomes more obvious, especially once you get to f/2.8 vs f/8. At this point, you can almost make out facial features of fans in the stadium behind the athlete. For reference, generally between f/5.6 and f/8 is the maximum aperture of most inexpensive super-zoom lenses. When on professional assignments, it is often vital that my backgrounds are as clean as possible, meaning f/2.8 or f/4 is basically required.

One last important thing to consider: since these images are uncropped, this is what the apertures look like when filling the frame. The farther the subject is, the more you have to crop, and the more the background comes into sharper relief. Additionally, the shorter the lens, ex. 200mm vs 400mm, the less background blur you will get at the same aperture.

ISO is the only setting of the exposure triangle I ever use in Auto, and only in specific situations. Typically, this because there are a lot of scattered clouds or the field I’m shooting on has shadows crossing it. These situations cause the exposure to change rapidly, sometimes in the middle of a play. Auto ISO allows me to concentrate more on composition, rather than constantly changing the ISO.

Other than this, I set my ISO to whatever it needs it to be for a proper exposure. If I don’t want to go slower than 1/1000 of a second and I can’t widen my aperture anymore, I will push my ISO as high as it needs to be to get a properly exposed image. If this means 12800 or 25600, so be it. I’d rather have noisy images over blurry images any day.

While I might be making it sound like there are no limits to high ISO, that’s not necessarily true. Different cameras perform better in low light, while others physically do not go above ISO 6400. You can make your own decision on what the highest acceptable ISO is for your camera and personal shooting style.

As amazing as it would be to always have enough light to shoot at 1/8000 all the time for every sport, that’s almost never going to be the case. Simply balance what shutter speed you find gives sharp results for the sport you’re covering with the maximum aperture of your lens & what ISO you are comfortable shooting at. It takes time to figure this out for each camera and lens combination, so keep mental (or physical) notes on your gear and how it shoots.