Whether you are a coach shooting sports video for training purposes or a parent shooting video of your child playing to have a as a keepsake, shooting good sports videos is far harder than you might think.
Games like football, soccer and rugby are fast paced and the distances the athletes cover are large, so keeping up with the action and getting good images of the important aspects of a game can be difficult. The editing of sports videos is also important and you will need the right tools to do that as well.
If you don’t want to spend hours taking video footage that turns out to be a big disappointment, here are the five most common mistakes that people make when they are shooting sports videos.
Forgetting to use the zoom
It takes a bit of practice to get the use of the zoom right, but the results will be well worth the extra effort. A mistake that a lot of people make is that they shoot a whole game without using the zoom at all, just as if though they were watching the game without a camera. The problem with that is that when you get home and replay the video or you start to edit with software like VideoChamp Sports, all you can see are some tiny, far away figures running around a field. To get the best sports video footage, you need to pan out to capture the positioning of players and the long balls, and zoom in to capture the tackles and to get the facial expressions of the players. The trick is not to worry too much about the blurred images that you might get when you adjust the zoom, because you can edit those out later.
Not concentrating on taking the video
Whether you are taking video using a specialist end zone camera or a sideline camera, or you are a parent taking video of your child with a home video camera, if you are the person who has been tasked with taking the sports video, that’s going to have be your main focus of attention for the entire game. You need you watch the game through the viewfinder, because if you try to watch the game as you would normally and the switch to the camera when you need to, you can guarantee that you are going to miss taking some important video footage.
Not shooting from the best vantage point
Shooting an entire game from eye level will limit your angle of view and it can also make the finished footage look boring. When shooting sports video on a hand held camera, try changing where you hold the camera sometimes, to chest level or above your head, for example. You will also get the best footage if you can find a high vantage point to shoot your video from, because that will give you more options and a better field of view. If you are shooting video for team coaching purposes, it would be advisable to invest in a telescoping endzone camera tower, like the HiRise Camera system because then you can guarantee a high vantage point wherever your team plays.
Trying too hard to keep everything in the center of the screen
If you watch sports footage on TV you will notice that the action don’t always appear in the center of the screen and sometimes the camera operator will let the action move across the screen rather than follow it. That calls for a bit of anticipation on the part of the person shooting the video, but the result is much more interesting video that is actually easier for the eye to follow.
Not changing locations during the game
A lot of amateur sports footage is taken from one point in the field for the whole game, which can make sports video look boring, so remember to change position when you can and, if possible, switch from the endzone to the sideline as the play dictates. Pick your moments to move carefully, though, so you don’t miss something important, and remember the direction of play, so you don’t get continuity issues with your finished video recording.
Unfortunately for the person shooting the video, the taking of the video footage has to take precedence over enjoying the game, but once you have accepted that and you have taken on board the above tips, you will find your sports videos are a lot more entertaining and, with just a few tweaks with editing tools like VideoChamp Sports, you will have some very professional looking sports video footage.
