How to photograph diving?

If you can get up into the roof rafters, you would have a great angle to work with... centered on the diver, with the water framing him/her. Also, try getting the defining moment with the first exposure rather than relying on any continuous motor firing. Good luck...

Eric, there are no roof rafters; I mentioned that this was an outdoor event. I was shooting at the DeGuerre complex at Stanford University. There is a 25-meter pool for NCAA swim meets, a diving pool with two (2) 1-meter springboards and two (2) 3-meter springboards, and a 50-meter pool primarily used for workouts, water polo, and recreational swimming.

The four springboards face northward; there are fine spectator stands on both sides of the 25m pool and diving area; bleachers and a hilly lawn are there for the 50m pool.

There is an excellent discussion of shooting sports by Rob Miracle in (http://photo.net/photo/sports/overview.html), although I don't think he discusses diving. I suspect that what you don't like in your composition is that you're getting divers halfway out of the frame. The speed of motion not only requires a fast shutter speed, but also makes it difficult to have the shutter open at the right moment. In diving, one "decisive moment" (see Rob's article) is when a diver is at the top of the jump, and for an instant has no vertical motion. This moment is infinitely short, but shooting close to it is easiest, because the vertical motion is slowest just before and just after. You still have to deal with the delay between pressing the shutter release and the shutter's opening. You have to learn how long this takes. The time will be rather consistent if you pre-focus, inconsistent if you use autofocus. Learn to time the delay by practice, as Rob suggests. See http://www.WoodsElec.com/Morehtml/Calcdel.htm which describes the delays on some cameras (e.g. a Nikon 8008 takes 1/12th of a second). Knowing what the delay is might help learn it. Another decisive moment is when the diver is entering the water, but then the downward motion is fastest. Good luck. I'm not an expert, but have done some sports shooting as an amateur. I also have learned a lot from your comments on this forum, and wanted to try to return the favor.

Sean,

You've done a good job at determining why your shots didn't meet your expectations (blur, composition, and positioning). Those things can be corrected, with practice, planning, and honest critique.

When I took photos of diving at the University of Michigan for the athletic department, besides taking some shots at the meets, I would go to the practice and set up shots with the divers. This way I knew what dive was coming, exactly what the person was going to do, etc. I could also get to locations that were not possible during the meet, such as on the board, or on the board next to the diver.

All that being said, diving was not one of my favorite sports to shoot. The action lends is self to video, or in person viewing much more than still.

Look at Sports Illustrated during the Olymics, that's about the only time you'll see diving shots in print.

If you have any good shots, you might want to call the Sports Information director at Stanford. They might need shots for their files. If your shots are good, offer to shoot some other sports for them. You won't get rich, but you might be able to get a press pass, free lunch, and a GREAT seat at a basketball game or football game eventually.

Don't be disappointed that first attempts at sports photography generally suck. Even your shots that you think are good now, will most likely be greatly improved on after a few events and many rolls of film.

Brad Mills Link to my sports photos

I think you need to manage you expectations a little. Fast moving sports are extremely difficult to photograph. A 5% sucess ratio for your first time is pretty good.

With diving you never have the opportunity to shoot head on, which allows you to get by with lower shutter speeds, you are always shooting parallel to the movement. In the top half of the dive your spped problems come from the speed of ratation of the diver, and in the bottom half just the relative speed of the diver.

Getting awkward positions is just the nature of the sport. I bet you had some really bizzarre facial expressions as well.

The next time you shoot, try NHGII rated at 640, it should give you the shutter speeds you will need to freeze the action better. Also, you now have an apportunity to learn to pan the camera with the subject in the bottom half of the dive. When you first try this, you'll be longing for the days of a 5% success rate.

I know you're a Contax guy, but the Canon 200 F1.8 is the ideal lens for shooting diving. Enough shutter speed to freeze the action, and plenty of blur to nuke the opposing bleachers, or the diving platform.

Sean,

I have shot a few diving events, and was a little put off shooting them at first as you are. The most difficult thing was finding the right background for the shots. Taking a shot of a diver in the apex of the dive is good practice, but if all you see behind them is open sky, they may as well be jumping on a trampoline (sp?).

The most interesting pictures I have taken include those from underneath the platform, with a wideangle lens (24mm I believe). I have shots with the diver at various positions in the frame, with the pool in the foreground, and the stands in the background. It may not be easy to get to that point on the deck unless you have credentials; but for college events, they are not that hard to get.

Don't forget that blur shots can be creative too! Have you tried any long exposures?

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

Sean
ProAssist - Boston, Online Photographic Assistant Listings

Sean, Diving shots work best when you shoot at right angles to the subject. Either straight on, to the back or directly to the side (or above from a blimp if you are well connected) and ground level or below. If you can manage to get directly behind the board these shots can look dramatic and unique. Shooting diagnal or slightly above the the subject often looks amatuerish.

With diving you have to either get the subject to either fill the frame or pan back to get the board or some water. Catching a diver in mid air with no reference point often looks like a live video shot of fly ball sitting in the sky - boring.

Try to catch the diver in mid air at their peak. The are moving at their slowest speed and 1/250 shutter speed will catch this. Next, if you simply can't focus on the moving subjest just wing it and pre-focus by watching the diver move through the frame for the first couple of jumps. F/11 at 1/250 or 1/500 should be possible with 400 speed film in daylight with a 80-200 mm lens.

If you shoot color print film in daylight please get some professional film and get away from the grocery store variety. The high contrast and ridiculous colors of these will trash your shots.

//scott

I do not have any real comments to add to those creative ideas already expressed. I attended the goodwill diving championship this past year in Long Island. I had a somewaht high seat (not in the rafters, but close) and used my motor drive to capture a few sequences of entire dives. I then scanned them in and combined some into a single picture showing the stages of the dive. Kinda fun for me, but like you said, not the quality I could sell to SI. I really should do the PhotoShop work over, since I've learned how to make it look better (alignments, etc.). Here's what I learned: Background: My pictures look too crowded/busy for my taste. The comment about picking the first shot instead of the just blasting away with a motor is right on. Close or far. All of my shots where with a long lens, but I was still too far away. It worked for this shot because I was able to get the entire arc of the dive in the same frame. Yeah, blurry can be artistic, but I wish I had had an even faster setup for these shots (lens or film)

If you are interested, you can see my ONE result of 4 rolls of film at http://home.att.net/~plordo/diverseq3.jpg. Do you have an example of what you shot?

I am a diver/coach. I love taking pictures of diving! Sports photos are not easy, but once you figure out how to shoot a sport your sucess rate will improve. Things that have helped me - 1) fast shutter (fast film), forget blowing them up to 20x30 get good shots first. 2) Know the dive AND how the diver does it (ie, is this person higher than others, or farther out?). 3) For the most part, forget taking shots of optionals. Way too fast. If it's not blurry, the diver will look awful (divers make wierd faces when spinning fast :) 4) Sit perpendicular to the board, and set your focus. Don't try to auto focus. 5) Use a large aperature to blur the background. 6) Shots from directly can be nice if you can get them. 7) Really nice shots I have taken were from the front corner against the sky or bright lighting (yeah right, in a pool?? :), include the board and make the diver a silouette (sp?) 8) Oh yeah, for best results take 1 shot per dive.

Hope this helps! It *is* possible to get some great shots, I have an album full. Don't give up!!

Lars.

Since Stanford finished up its home season this past weekend, I'll have to wait a while to test out some of these new ideas; some of my swimming pics don't suck, so I may actually contact the university and see if they want to use any of them. Thanks again to all.

I'm coming late to this, but can't resist adding a comment. Like any sports photography, shooting diving is more sucessful if you know the sport well and if you can get access to training sessions where the team will be more tolerant of distractions.

For more interesting entry shots you might consider renting a waterproof housing and getting underwater. If you like scuba, lurking directly under the board will give you a very non-cliched angle and if the team is using a spray to make the water surface matt you won't distract them too much.

Top-down shots can be great, and although it is an outdoor pool with no rafters, the three meter springboard platform might give you a view down onto the one meter board. In addition to the springboards, is there a five or ten meter platform you could shoot from? Any of these will give you angles where you can use the pool surface as a background, simplifying composition and minimising the relative movement of the diver.