Photo Tip: Shoot vertically for sports action

When shooting sports action, the best way to get the photo is to shoot vertically. Unless your sport involves someone laying down (like wrestling or swimming), shooting vertically will almost always give you the best composition.

Look at these two photos. Which one is better?





The horizontal one has too much wasted space on the sides. Even if I zoomed in to fill the frame from head to toe of the ballcarrier, there would still be plenty of wasted space. But the one shot vertically uses much more of the frame.

Sure, you could crop the horizontal photo, but unless you have a camera that shoots 10 megapixels or more, you will not get enough image information in a tight crop to make good prints. It may look fine on the web, but never framed and on your wall.