You do not need to shoot Manual to be called a photographer. Knowing how to shoot Manual teaches you the main principles of photography—or, to be exact, how to fully control your camera to reach your goals. I personally prefer to shoot in Aperture Priority mode, except when Shutter Priority makes more sense.
Here is a video that beautifully explains what I mean.
The question may seem like nonsense, but it's an important one. Just think about it: why do your iPhone photos not look as good compared with the pictures shown in sports magazines?
My answer is simple: Do you need a frame rate greater than 10 frames per second (fps) to capture fast-moving action? The second consideration is a lens that performs well in all lighting conditions to avoid excessive digital noise, which appears as graininess in your images.
This video explains other aspects of this branch of photography.
Let me make it simple. All cameras have at least 4 shooting modes: Shutter Priority (Tv or S), Aperture Priority (Av), Manual, and Auto or Automatic. If you are looking for videos or courses online, most of them will point you to use Manual Mode to have full control of your camera. But, to freeze movement, the most important mode is Shutter Priority. Movement can cause blur in your photos, and karate is all around movement.
AI Generated Image.
If the most important setting is shutter speed, why do you want to shoot manual? Set the camera to Tv or S and pick the lowest speed that you can to freeze movement, in most sports the starting point is around 1/1000.
Aperture must be always the lowest you can to keep ISO low or the lowest you can maintaining your photo sharp (depth of field).
Set your ISO to auto. You could choose a fixed number, but if light conditions change, you would have to adjust it manually, which is less efficient than auto mode. Keep in mind that since the event room is not well illuminated, the ISO will run high, producing "noise" in your pictures.
Good photographs rarely come straight out of the camera ready to be shared; they often require post-editing. Be prepared for long hours spent reviewing and editing every single picture, with one of your primary tasks being the reduction of image noise.
This configuration will free your time to think about other settings and composition.
This is the way it works for me. It's not the right way or the only way. Keep it simple. Manual is most of the time and overkill when you are talking about Sport Photography or Wildlife.
About two years ago I decided to get a backup camera to pair it with my Canon R6. Because I was shooting using mirrorless cameras for the last 5 to 7 years passing through Sony and then switching to Canon, I thought that it was a good idea to get a DSLR going back to the origins and keeping my photography skills sharp.
Two years ago I was shooting mainly wildlife and some portrait photography documenting the life of my grandsons. So after scanning the used market I decided to get a Canon 5D Mark III.
But then everything changed. They decided to practice Karate, and what was portrait photography transitioned to sport photography. I started to use the 5D with a wide-angle lens to compensate for the limitations of having the Canon R6 armed with a 70-200mm lens. The 5D Mark III served me well shooting mainly portraits and the award ceremonies, but it was falling short in shooting the action of the events. After a year shooting as described, I decided that it was time to replace it with something more suitable for sport photography.
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Upgrading from the Canon EOS 5D Mark III to the Canon EOS-1D X Mark II represents a major shift from a capable full-frame generalist to a heavy-duty, professional flagship engineered explicitly for high-speed sports and action.
For freezing lightning-fast karate strikes, sparring, and tournament forms (kata), this transition brings distinct performance advantages alongside a few practical trade-offs.
The Upgrade: The 5D Mark III tops out at 6 frames per second with a relatively modest buffer. The 1D X Mark II blasts up to 14 fps (and up to 16 fps in Live View).
The Karate Impact: Martial arts movements happen in fractions of a second. A spinning hook kick, a sudden blitz, or the exact impact point of a fist can be completely missed at 6 fps. At 14 fps, you capture the entire sequence of a technique, ensuring you secure the peak action frame. Paired with a fast CFast 2.0 card, the 1D X Mark II's buffer handles massive RAW bursts without choking.
The Upgrade: Powered by dual DIGIC 6+ processors and a dedicated metering sensor feeding the AF system, the 1D X Mark II provides vastly superior subject tracking compared to the 5D Mark III's aging 61-point system.
The Karate Impact: Indoor tournament venues often feature chaotic backgrounds, distracting banners, and erratic referee movements. The 1D X Mark II locks onto a fast-moving competitor and tracks them aggressively through rapid shifts in direction and erratic motion, resulting in a much higher percentage of razor-sharp keepers.
The Upgrade: The 1-Series flagship features an integrated vertical grip, weather-sealing built for punishing field conditions, and a professional shutter rated for 400,000 actuations (compared to the 5D Mark III’s 150,000 rating).
The Karate Impact: High-volume tournament shooting can rack up thousands of frames in a single weekend. The robust build handles heavy lenses (like a 70-200mm f/2.8 or 100-400mm) effortlessly, and you won't have to worry about premature shutter wear.
The Drawback: The 5D Mark III is roughly 950g. The 1D X Mark II weighs 1,544g (over 3.4 lbs) with the battery and card loaded.
The Impact: Carrying a dual-battery flagship body with heavy telephoto glass around a crowded gymnasium or tournament floor all day is physically demanding. It puts significantly more strain on your wrists, neck, and shoulders over long shooting sessions.
The Drawback: The 1D X Mark II uses the high-capacity LP-E19 battery, which requires its own specialized, bulky dual-bay charger (LC-E19). It does not use the standard LP-E6/LP-E6N batteries that you likely already own for your 5D Mark III or backup bodies.
The Impact: You will need to invest in dedicated batteries and a heavy-duty charger, losing the battery cross-compatibility you might currently enjoy.
The Drawback: The camera features one CompactFlash (CF) / CFast 2.0 slot and one traditional SD card slot.
The Impact: To unlock the camera's true high-speed burst potential, you must use high-performance CFast 2.0 cards, which require a separate card reader and represent an additional equipment investment.
| Feature | Canon 5D Mark III | Canon 1D X Mark II |
| Max Frame Rate | 6 fps | 14 fps |
| Shutter Lifespan | 150,000 cycles | 400,000 cycles |
| Battery Type | LP-E6 / LP-E6N | LP-E19 |
| Weight | ~950 g | ~1,544 g |
| Ergonomics | Standard body (grip optional) | Integrated vertical grip |
If your primary focus is capturing fast, unpredictable athletic action where missing a split-second strike means missing the shot, the 1D X Mark II is a massive performance upgrade. However, you must be willing to trade physical portability and battery standardization for that raw speed and professional reliability.
I was recently was watching a video and the author was summarizing about the end of the video the main difference between a DSLR and Mirrorless.
The main difference is that in a DSLR you have an optical viewfinder; you do not see what you are getting, which forces you to understand the exposure triangle. With a mirrorless camera, the viewfinder shows you what you are going to get—whether it is exposed correctly, whether you are in focus, everything! For somebody whose first camera was a mirrorless or just an iPhone, buying a DSLR is something that I only would recommend if that person wants to really learn photography from the ground up.
For somebody who shot for many years using a DSLR and later switched to mirrorless, I have to say that I understand what the author of the video is feeling. Nostalgia wins you over, and you have to go back, take that old DSLR, and enjoy those old times. The best mirrorless camera cannot replace the sound of a DSLR mechanical shutter. I do not know why, but even shooting in mechanical shutter mode, it does not sound the same.
Canon has a decades-long tradition of timing its flagship camera releases and development announcements around the Olympic Games. The Olympics serve as the ultimate proving ground for high-speed autofocus, rugged build quality, high frame rates, and sports-press agency support through Canon Professional Services (CPS).
Thanks to the donation and support of the Karate Parents who responded to my request to donate old gear that was no longer being used, I'm trading my Canon 5D Mark III for a Canon 1D X Mark II (around $1000 Used Market).
The Canon 5D Mark III (around $400 Used market) was my backup camera and the one I used for all the wide-angle shots during the 2026 season. It's a camera that was released in 2012, but it is considered a legend among photographers. The colors coming out of this camera are really nice, and for portrait photography, it is hard to find anything better. This is a DSLR; it does not have all the features that you will find in more modern mirrorless cameras, but in the hands of someone who knows that and knows how to work around its limitations, it's a formidable tool.
Then, why to change to the Canon 1D X Mark II?
The Canon 1D X Mark II is a camera that was released for the 2016 Olympics and is designed for sports and wildlife photography. It is fast, and its low-light performance is about the same as my main camera, the Canon R6. See above chart. I need a camera that could perform about the same as the R6 to cover the wide-angle shots. Not just for portraits, but capable of getting good action shots with a shutter speed of 1/1000 and in low-light conditions. The 5D Mark III was too "noisy" and too slow for these types of shots.
Keep in mind that Canon is not making any more DSLRs, pushing new users to buy their mirrorless cameras, which are more capable and include features such as eye tracking that make the life of photographers a lot easier. However, the price tag of the Canon R1—which is the replacement for the Canon 1D X series—is $6,000, a price that I can't afford just to have a camera that tracks the eye of the subject, something that with a little bit of effort on my end, I can do with the 1D X.
I'm using MPB for this exchange. This is a place that I have used in the past many times. They offer 6 months of warranty on any used camera that you buy from them.
So here I'm, waiting for the Canon 1D X Mark II. Getting ready for Season 2027.
Cropping. Since early in my photography journey, I learned that cropping is an essential part of what later became my photography style.
Cropping allows you to correct the composition of any photo, but at the same time, it is a tool to emphasize the focal point in an image, highlighting what is important.
The above montage is a good example of cropping used to highlight what is important: the subject’s face. Who cares if you left out an arm or legs? Your audience will be focusing on his facial expression without paying any attention to the rest. Cropping can define your photography style. In this example, you could have chosen a composition where you show both arms, and nothing is wrong with that, but then you would have to zoom out, losing the details in his face.
Cropping is an artistic tool in the toolbox of photographers.
I still have around 600 pictures to edit. While I am trying to publish them as fast as I can, I have the luxury of editing them to correct the composition and bring art to a sport that many associate with violence. I love all the pictures that I have published so far. From more than 2,300 pictures at the end of the event, these pictures made it into the final cut, and less than 50% of the pictures go that far. The rest are not that bad, but I do not believe they are at the level that the athletes and their relatives deserve.
So here are the two pictures that I have selected like the best from this event.
In the first image, you can see a father encouraging his son to keep going and do his best to win. Technically, it may not be the best picture, but the message in that picture is so powerful! Teach your kids not to lose their humanity, no matter what sport they are practicing. I have seen kids going into a fight with the goal of harming the opponent, and that is unacceptable.
The second picture is eye-catching! Her performance was good, but everything about her seems designed to be visually perfect. I don’t like that the background of this picture is so busy, but after all, you are in a competition and you can’t choose the background. I may take the picture later on when I’m done editing the rest of the pictures and replace the background with a more suitable one. Stay tuned.
During the competition our grandson Liam decided to give me a private (in public) Bo demonstration. I loved it! Thanks Liam!
Overall, I ended up tired, but satisfied! Thanks USA Sport Karate and Jeremy Roque for letting me roam on the floor capturing these moments.
Without any discussion, there is not a cheaper way to go around the world than replacing the background of your pictures.
I know, you may think that I'm cheating, but I'm clearly explaining every time I post one of these altered pictures, that the background has been replaced to avoid any confusion.
I'm getting old, and the odds of me taking our grandsons to all these places are getting lower with each passing day. So I decided to dream a little bit and pretend that we are doing that.
I have experimented with two different ways to do it. One is very simple: taking the picture I want to modify, uploading it to Google Gemini or ChatGPT, and asking them to replace the background. The results using this method are good, but from time to time, these AI tools change the faces to match the lighting from the background, and I'm not that pleased with that.
The second method is to create the background using these two AI tools or to use a picture you have taken of a place to replace the background. In this second method, I have been using Luminar Neo, a tool that is very simple to use and allows you to remove the background of any picture. Then you use a new layer behind the subject layer to introduce the new background. The most difficult part in this second method is that you need to match the light and mood of the layer that contains the subject with the one in the background layer. I'm not that good at that part, but I feel that I'm getting better with every new picture that I edit.
If you have any ideas for a new place where I can take our grandsons, please let me know, and I'll do my best to create this new scenario.
I recently bought a battery grip for my Canon R6. While I was taking wildlife pictures, I was never shooting more than a few hundred pictures in a session, so I never felt the need to have more battery power in my camera. Now shooting sports, I end up with 1000 to 2000 pictures by the end of the day and have to change the battery in the middle of the session. A battery grip extends the battery life to cover a full day of shooting. Another reason I got the grip is that I have been shooting more in portrait orientation, and the grip helps in this case by providing a better hold and a set of buttons in that position that feel more comfortable.
One important point is that I bought a 3rd party made grip, Canon price for these grips is from 400 to 500 dollars while the 3rd party is from $70 to $100! Years ago, a Chinese product lacked the quality that you see nowadays. I have tested the grip in my last wildlife photoshoot, and I'm pleased. Here is a picture of the one I got.
Here is a video review of the BG-R10 that may help you in your decision taken process.
Cropping a portrait is a valid option. I remember sending my Mom (RIP) a picture that I took of one of our grandsons, where I cropped part of the top of his head. She emailed me asking if that photo had a second file that included the top of his head. I asked her, when you watch TV, have you not noticed that most scenes show the faces of the actors, and the top of their heads is often cropped?
Here are two pictures that help clearly explain the concept.
In this picture, the message is all about the picaresque character of the boy. The way he is looking at me and smiling is what is important. The rest of this head does not add any value to the scene.
Let's discuss why cropping works so well in this second picture.
It strengthens eye contact
The crop brings the viewer very close to the subject’s eyes. The eyes are sharp, well lit, and positioned near the upper third of the frame. This immediately pulls attention to the expression, which is calm and focused. By removing extra space around the subject, the emotional connection becomes stronger.
It removes visual distractions
The background is a solid red mat. While it is clean, a wider frame would show more of it without adding information. The tight crop limits the background to just enough color to create contrast with the white gi and the skin tones. This keeps the viewer focused on the face instead of the environment.
It emphasizes facial detail
The crop allows freckles, skin texture, and eye color to be clearly visible. These details add realism and personality to the portrait. If the image were looser, these subtle features would be less noticeable and less impactful.
It improves composition and balance
The subject’s head is slightly tilted, and the crop follows that angle naturally. This creates a dynamic composition rather than a static one. The framing feels intentional and balanced, with no wasted space pulling the eye away from the subject.
It supports the story of the image
The karate uniform is still visible enough to communicate context, but it does not dominate the frame. The crop prioritizes the person over the activity, which works well for a portrait focused on character and presence rather than action.
Summarizing. Cropping out part of the head is a valid and widely used compositional choice when done intentionally to strengthen an image. It helps direct attention to the eyes and facial expression, removes unnecessary or distracting space, and creates a more intimate connection between the subject and the viewer. This approach often improves balance by placing key features more effectively within the frame and can result in a cleaner, more impactful composition. This technique is commonly used by professional photographers and is considered a creative decision rather than a technical mistake when it clearly enhances focus, emotion, and visual clarity.
The following image is the original wedding photo.
A distracting object was touching the bride’s dress. It was real. It was there. It pulled attention away from the moment.
Here is the edited version.
The object is removed. The dress looks clean. The focus is back where it belongs, on the bride and the emotion of the day.
Editing is not about changing reality. Editing is about protecting the memory.
Weddings do not get a second chance. Moments happen once. Photos are what remain.
If a small distraction breaks the story, it is my responsibility to fix it with care and accuracy.
This is the difference between taking a picture and delivering a finished photograph.
I enhanced this image by shifting the green tones of the leaves for an artistic purpose, guiding the eye toward the bride and the emotion of the moment.
This type of editing is valid in photography when it is used intentionally to support the story, not to change the truth of the scene.
Photography is not only about recording what was there, but about expressing how it felt.
Sometimes replacing the background is not about changing reality. It is about removing distractions so the subject can finally speak.
A busy background can pull the eye away from the story. A cleaner background can guide attention, improve contrast, and strengthen the emotional impact of the image. This is especially useful when the original background adds nothing to the moment or when it distracts from the light, the gesture, or the expression.
Background replacement is a tool, not a shortcut. When done carefully and honestly, it helps the viewer focus on what mattered when the shutter was pressed. The subject. The light. The feeling.
Editing is part of the creative process. The goal is not to fake the scene, but to present the photograph in the strongest and clearest way possible.
Here are some examples I have prepared using Luminar Neo, which does a wonderful job in these cases.
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For more than 10 years, I have shared some of my work for free on Flickr, accumulating more than 89,000 pictures. That does not mean in any way that those pictures are not important to me. I love them, and by sharing them, I hope that the audience feels at least a fraction of what I felt when I took them. I do not add any restrictions on downloading or sharing; I only add a copyright notice. Expecting the courtesy of crediting the source.
What does this copyright notice mean?
Quote:
"All rights reserved" is a copyright notice meaning the creator retains all exclusive rights (reproduction, distribution, etc.) to their work, prohibiting others from using, copying, or adapting it without explicit permission, serving as a warning that the owner intends to enforce their intellectual property rights under law, though it's no longer legally required for protection in most countries.
What it means:
Exclusive Control:
The owner has the sole right to copy, distribute, display, perform, or create new works from the original.
Permission Needed:
Anyone wanting to use the work must first get written permission from the copyright holder.
Warning:
It's a clear signal to others that the creator takes their intellectual property seriously and will legally protect it.
How it works in practice:
Automatic Copyright:
Under modern law, copyright protection is automatic upon creation, so the phrase isn't strictly necessary for protection.
Common Notice:
It's still widely used in copyright notices (e.g., "© 2026 [Name]. All rights reserved.") as a reminder and deterrent.
Historical Origin:
It stems from older laws, like the Buenos Aires Convention, that required such a statement for protection, a requirement now largely obsolete due to international treaties like the Berne Convention.
A little thing like this means more to me than all the money I could have asked for any of those pictures.
