Sports photography- histograms & exposure

Lets talk about exposure- and im not talking about what brands and influencers keep promising you in exchange for your content…but rather the amount of light in a photo. 

This is actually super important for sports photographers. To shoot running and sports we need a fast shutter speed and that means we need light. So here’s what these little HISTOGRAMS actually mean. This is a histogram. If you ask me it is definitely with having them on your live view on your digital camera. 

Histogram for photo from Cheddar Gorge

Cheddar Gorge- Adidas Terrex. Photo Jack Atkinson.

The height of each bar in the chart represents the number of pixels of a particular brightness level that occur anywhere in the image.

Here’s a few cheat sheets on how they work and what they are:

Here’s the important bit- as sports photographers we need our shutter to be fast (1/800 or faster) which means that unless it is really sunny we are almost forced to try to ‘expose to the left’. My recommendation is always try to ‘expose neutrally’, which is easier if the person you are shooting is moving slowly or standing still (think portraits). However when shooting running you will find that you want your histogram to show that you’re exposing to the left. The reason histograms are important is because if the photo is too underexposed you will loose the details in the darkness.

My tip; ALWAYS USE HISTOGRAMS.