by Jeff Bentz

At the center of it all is shutter speed. If you want to stop action cleanly, you need speed and often more than you expect. For youth sports, 1 / 500 of a second can work well. A soccer kick or baseball swing might look sharp enough. But step into something faster and more unpredictable, like a rodeo, and that number climbs quickly. Now you’ re working at 1 / 1000, 1 / 1600, even 1 / 2000 of a second just to keep up. And even then, it can feel like it’ s barely enough.

When a bull erupts out of the chute, the action is immediate and nonstop, but only for a few seconds. Those seconds feel compressed. I had my camera set to 20 frames per second, and once that gate opened, my finger didn’ t come off the shutter until the ride was over. You’ re not choosing a single moment; you’ re committing to the entire sequence and trusting that somewhere in that burst is the frame that captures the story. It works; however, it leaves you with thousands of images to sort through at the end of the weekend.

Freezing motion isn’ t the only approach. At times a touch of blur adds energy. A lasso mid-swing or a horse’ s legs slightly streaked beneath a sharp rider can make an image feel more alive. You might drop your shutter to 1 / 125 or 1 / 250 and pan the camera with the subject, trading absolute sharpness for motion and mood.

Every increase in shutter speed demands more light. That’ s where aperture and depth of field come in. Opening the lens up to f / 2.8 lets you maintain fast shutter speeds. It does narrow your depth of field, and in many cases that’ s exactly what you want. A shallow depth of field isolates your subject, especially at kids’ sporting events where backgrounds can be busy and distracting.

The tradeoff is precision. At f / 2.8, your margin for error is thin. When your subject is moving quickly, even a slight miss in focus can ruin the shot. Continuous autofocus and subject tracking become essential, and even then, short bursts improve your odds.

For many photographers, youth sports are where these skills take shape. There’ s room to experiment, to miss, and to try again. There is something rewarding about capturing those moments— the determination, the joy, the split-second timing that matters so much in the moment.

Photographing the Gilroy Rodeo, an opportunity I had through my relationship with GMH Today Magazine, pushes everything further. You’ re close to the action, the movement is more chaotic, and the light becomes something you constantly manage.

Early in the day, I was shooting with a Nikon Z8 paired with a 100 – 400mm lens. It gave me reach and flexibility, and with plenty of sunlight, I could keep shutter speeds high without pushing ISO too far. But as the sun dropped, the situation changed quickly. The light faded, and even at higher ISO settings, I was starting to lose the shutter speed I needed. That’ s when I switched to a 70 – 200mm f / 2.8.

It meant giving up reach, but gaining light, and in that moment light mattered more. The wider aperture let me hold my shutter speeds, but it also forced me into a shallower depth of field. Focus had to be exact.

Then there’ s ISO, the light sensitivity / noise setting. The setting you try to avoid pushing, until you have no choice. As the light fades, ISO becomes your lifeline. You raise it to maintain exposure, knowing you’ re introducing noise. Cameras like the Nikon Z8 handle high ISO well, but there is a tradeoff. Shadows get grainy, detail softens, and you’ re already thinking about cleanup later.

At the rodeo, with dust in the air and uneven lighting, that balance becomes critical. Every frame becomes a calculation. But that’ s what makes action photography so compelling. It forces you to stay engaged, always adjusting, anticipating, and reacting. You’ re reading the light, the motion, and the moment all at once.

In the end, it’ s not just about freezing action. It’ s about capturing energy in the split second where everything comes together. Whether it’ s your kid rounding third base or a bull rider holding on for one more second, those moments don’ t wait.

And when your settings, timing, and instincts all line up, you’ re not just taking a picture. You’ re holding onto something that was gone almost as soon as it began.

Jeff Bentz is a travel and landscape photographer in Gilroy, CA. Follow him on Instagram: @ jeff _ bentz _ photography View his portfolio: jeffbentzphotography. com

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