Several Kingston Camera Club (KCC) members have been taking advantage of the warmer weather and longer days to capture "great" action pictures at various sporting events.

Keen sports photographer and KCC member, Tim Morland explains: "What I look for is to portray human interest, intense effort, skill and concentration.

"Specialised equipment is needed in some situations. My photos were all taken with a range of focal length lenses (e.g. 200mm, 300mm and 500mm).

"Your chances of a nicely composed capture can be greatly boosted by using a frame rate (10-20 frames per second) burst".

Kingston Camera Club member Tim Morland enjoys taking photos at hurdlin events (Credit: Tim Morland)

Morland says some big events do prohibit photography, such as Premier League Football, but many others do not.

Moorland has captured a variety of sport action shots when attending cricket matches and hurdling events and following Fastnet race yachts.  

Kingston Camera Club member Tim Morland enjoys taking photos Fastnet yacht races (Credit: Tim Morland)

Paul Waller is another KCC member who enjoys sports photography.

His photograph 'Jump' was taken at Godstone Point-to-Point races in May 2024 and was entered into KCC's last print competition of the year; this season he has made a point of trying new genres, and this was a change from his usual subjects of architecture, street portraiture, and abstracts.  

'Jump' was taken at Godstone Ponit-to-Point races (Credit: Paul Waller)

He said: "My print got a top mark of 10 with which I was delighted.

"Point-to-Point races are the amateur little brothers of National Hunt races like the Grand National or Cheltenham Festival and are an excellent and inexpensive way of experiencing and photographing horse racing.

"It is very easy to get close to the action at point-to-point races. 

"To get this shot I lay on the ground, about 10 feet away from the fence.   

"I used an ordinary 24-70mm zoom lens, a fast shutter speed, and 'burst' mode at 10 frames per second.

"All of this sounds very technical but can easily be achieved with most cameras."

He added: "I was deliberately shooting into the light, as I knew this would give me a very dramatic sky.

"However,  this also meant that the rest of the picture was quite dark.

"However, modern photo-processing software can work wonders, and I was able to bring out the detail in the horse and jockey."

Jacqui Prout also enjoys sports photography.  

Her "dramatic" rugby image taken at a Harlequin Quin' game truly demonstrates her well caught action. 

'Quin' was shot at a Harlequin match (Credit: Jacqui Prout)

Also taken at Godstone Point-to-Point in 2024 is her "well caught" photograph of racing horses.  

This image was taken at Gostone Point-to-Point (Credit: Jacqui Prout)

Chris Robbins has a "well captured" action shot in his rugby scrum picture taken on Wimbledon Common with Wimbledon Rugby Club in 2024.  

Robins said: "The shot was taken on a Nikon D 7500, ISO 1600, F 5.6 at 1/1000.

"Usually, my main interest is street photography, but I very much enjoy sports photography including horse racing. 

"I would like to try football but having had mixed results because I find it very difficult to find the concentration of the action.

"Unlike rugby where you can better visualise where the action will be happening"

This image was taken on n Wimbledon Common with Wimbledon Rugby Club in 2024 (Credit: Chris Robbins)

Kingston Camera Club meets in term time on Monday evenings at 7.30 pm for an 8pm start until 10pm at St Andrew's Church Hall in Ham.

Parking is available.

Newbies can attend two free meetings before deciding whether to join.

Further information about the KCC can be found on its website.