Commack High School Girls Varsity Fencing vs. Sayville
Congratulations to the Commack girls fencing team on a decisive win over Sayville.
Fencing is a fast sport so you’re going to end up taking a lot of images to get a few decent ones. Here are a few tips to make things somewhat easier.
First, if you have face/eye detection in your camera, turn it off. It’s not going to pick up faces under the fencers’ masks and it will probably pick up faces in the background, which you don’t want.
Move your camera’s focus point over to the side that your fencer is on but not too far or you’ll cut off their feet if they lunge.
Take a photo of each fencer without their helmets just before and after their bout. That will help your viewers, and you, identify the fencer’s photos in between when they have their masks on. I try to include one photo of the fencer without their helmet at the beginning of each bout.
Stay well back from the referee. They have a hard enough job without you in their way. You’re going to miss some shots when they move in front of you but that’s show biz. If you’re sitting on the floor you can slide around to compensate.
If you can take photos facing the fencers, stand to one side a bit so you’re not in their line of sight and always stand on the weapon side. This may sound counter-intuitive since you would think their arm would block their face but they rarely hold their weapon that high and if you’re on the other side you won’t see the tip of their weapon to get the touch.
Naturally, you’re going to want to shoot on continuous autofocus in a fast burst mode.
That’s about it.
