Kevin Hunt Video

We’ve all seen the footage… The quarterback goes back to pass, he throws it… whoosh! The camera pans quickly to try and follow the ball, tilting up, then down, then left, then right… Where’s the ball?!

It’s not pretty.

Football isn’t an easy sport to shoot. Then again, what sport is? No matter what your son or daughter is active in, if you want to capture good – even great – home video, I’ve got a few tips:

1) Steady as she goes – Use a tripod

You don’t really think you can zoom in for a steady closeup of your son all the way across the soccer field do you? Always bring a tripod.

But you don’t always have to use it.

Take the soccer example. Most of the game can be shot on tripod, you’re just following the action after all. But you will want to get up out of your lawn chair from time to time, put the camera in your hand, and go stand near or behind the net that your child’s team is shooting at to be able to be close to the action and follow the ball.

Same is true for baseball… If your son is pitching, get the camera on the tripod behind the backstop, or somewhere on the 1st or 3rd base line.

The simple rule is, if the action is far away use the tripod to steady your shot. Anyone who watches your home video highlights will appreciate it!

2) The sequence of events – Plan your shots

Simply put, a sequence tells a story. The pitcher begins her windup. The batter takes a swing and connects. The ball is rolling past the shortstop and is picked up by the left fielder. Cut to the batter rounding first, then jogging back to the bag.

How did you get that?

You have to break the action up. Even the best videographers can’t follow a baseball from the bat to a fielder’s glove. There’s too much distance to cover in too short of an amount of time.

Whatever the sport think of how you will edit your footage from one shot to the next. In basketball, get a closeup shot of the point guard bring the ball up, then widen out to see the pass to the wing. When a shot goes up follow the ball into the net, then find the player who just scored it to get them running back on defense.

3) Let it breathe! – Hold your shots

Don’t start recording when the center snaps the football to the quarterback, and don’t stop it the moment the receiver gets tackled. In order to have enough footage to edit you’ll need a few seconds before the action and a few seconds after, to allow you to transition between shots.

4) It’s all in focus – Manual focus is best

Auto focus works for some shots… the closeup of your son in the on-deck circle… your daughter’s face as she gets set to shoot a free throw… But you can’t always rely on it for the best possible shot.

By using the manual focus setting, you make sure that the action on the field or in the gym is clear no matter where you’re aiming the camera at.

How do you do it?

In football or soccer, for example, zoom in on the farthest goal post or marker, auto focus on it, then switch your camera to manual focus…. zoom out and the objects in front will be in focus. Your camera won’t be working overtime to focus on all the moving parts coming into view. If you stay in auto focus, you can’t guarantee the camera will always focus on what you want it to. It may see a car on the highway in the background, it may try to focus on the referee… use manual focus!

5) Who’s zoomin’ who? – Easy on the zoom

It’s tempting to zoom in and out on the action. But it’s not necessary. if you do it too quickly, you’ll make your audience sick. You’ll also lose your ability to anticipate where the action is heading.

There are times a quick zoom in or out makes sense. That’s what editing is for. But if you are at a comfortable distance most of the time – not too far away and not too close – you will be more able to anticipate and react to the game.