Sony Artisan of Imagery Patrick Murphy-Racey has been shooting sports for 30 years. The longtime Sports Illustrated veteran has provided tips on how to improve your sports photography from setting up your Sony mirrorless camera to capture the moment, how to utilize ISO and exposure to freeze motion and how autofocus can track your subjects in order to take your photography to the next level.
On The Phoblographer's YourTube Channel, Murphy-Racey talks to Chris Gampat about sports shooting fundamentals. "Get as close and you possibly can and use the longest lens possible so as to blow out the background and not have the background fighting with your subject or your foreground action." - Patrick Murphy Racey
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As one of the the first photographers to use the Sony α6500 PMR was tasked with giving the camera a full test flight to see what's capable of doing. In this video, he describes how he sets up the high-speed Sony α6500 for shooting fast action sports. Murphy-Racey goes through the menus on the Sony α6500 and discusses the settings he changes and why he does so when he is shooting stills.
Here are a few gear reviews where PMR goes through equipment that he relies on to shoot fast action.
Patrick Murphy-Racey Reviews The α6500. From high-school, college and pro football to golf, tennis, volleyball and even karate, he took the camera into a variety of challenging situations and he has the photos to show how it performed. “The α6500 is a miniature BEAST of a camera,” he writes, “extremely responsive, fast in every way, and perfect for shooting sports. To use an old car term, it's ‘a wolf in sheep's clothing.’ It is by far the best sports action E-Mount camera Sony has made to date.”
70-200 f/2.8 G Master First Shoot: Test By Sports Pro Patrick Murphy-Racey
"As a sports photographer what I care about it all about how the camera works in conjunction with the autofocus in the lens. And I want to know how quickly it acquires and how it holds focus as it's moving. I'm interested in tracking moving subjects. That's what I want to do."
He sums up his thoughts with an eye to the fall and winter when football and basketball seasons start and Murphy-Racey will be shooting constantly, "I can't wait for football and basketball season because this is going to be my staple lens for the short end in football and even down court on basketball."
