advice on shooting cricket

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nickaldridge

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Nick
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Hello,

I'm just wondering if anyone has any advice for photographing cricket? I'm shooting at an indoor charity game this week and would appreciate some tips.

I'm looking to get into sports photography and have been heading down to the odd non-league football game and a few training sessions, but this is my first time shooting cricket.

This is my first post on here - I've ben a (struggling) freelancer for about two years, doing charity's annual reports and some behind the scenes stills on music videos mostly and am slowly making the jump to sports images.

Any help gratefully received!

Nick.
 
long & fast lenses, a monopod, patience, sarnies, a seat.
 
Something like a 400mm f/2.8, or a 600m f/4 I would expect to be ideal. Depends how close you can get really.
 
The problem with indoor cricket is the netting and terrible sodium lighting.

It will be hard for you to get a good vantage point.


Good luck.
 
i am worried about the lighting - trying to sort out a stool too - seems like its just about essential!

thinking of taking along a 70-200mm f2.8 lens...think that'll be long enough? the location seems to be about the size of a sports hall. going to be heading down to do some scouting tomorrow...should have a better idea then.

thanks so much for all the tips - any more greatly appreciated!

nick.
 
I've only ever shot cricket outdoors so light hasn't been much of a problem using my 100-400 L, the problems I have found are mainly ones of concentration as you need to follow every ball to be sure of not missing any wickets. I reckon the pros must have one camera lined up on the batsman with a fairly high f stop set to get everything in focus that they trigger remotely so that they can watch where the ball is going to then use a second body to pick up the fielders, or maybe their reactions are just a darned sight faster than mine :'(. Postioning as someone else said is important, trying to get both the bowler and batsman in shot can produce some nice ' action & reaction' shots, profile shots of individual bowlers and batsmen can produce some nice results but can lack 'context'. One thing I can say is that whenever you're set up with a good line on a right-handed batsman they'll snatch a single, a left-hander will then be on strike and promptly get out flailing around and you won't get a shot worth having as all the action will be blocked from view :)

Good luck.
 
Nick, it's all about position and timing. If you sit behind the bowler off to the left / right (long off / on), and if your after a shot of the batsman playing a shot, then I usually pre-focus on the batter with as small an aperture as I can get away with, and fire a four shot burst as the bowler hits their delivery stride (pro level) or a split second later for amateur. Indoor wise you should be fine with a 200mm focal length.

This sequence was shot a few years back at Headingley, the day Darren Gough played against his home county - he was bowling and was damn quick.

All 20D + 100-400isL at 400mm, f10, 1/250 all un-cropped / resized









GL
Ian
 
The problem with indoor cricket is you can't get behind the bowler, the netting is very thick and usually very dark coloured. I think you will struggle. You will be too close to follow the action. Good luck though.
 
i'm just waiting for clearance from the charity i was photographing for...will put the pics up when i am allowed to - would love to know what you all think. thanks so much for your help/ advice.

nick.
 
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