Chapter 20 — Exercises

Action and wildlife are learned by missing — by firing late, focusing on the grass, smearing a pan, and then fixing each fault until your reflexes catch up. So most of these exercises send you somewhere a subject moves: the busy intersection, a sports field, the park or trail with its ducks and squirrels, a playground. A phone is a real action camera in daylight; where reach or pro-mode is needed, the exercise says so. Difficulty is marked ⭐ (warm-up), ⭐⭐ (core), ⭐⭐⭐ (stretch). Do at least the starred and odd-numbered ones; model answers and critiques for those live in the book's Answers to Selected Exercises. Keep the sharpest frames — one of them feeds your Portfolio.

Part A — The shutter decision: freeze, blur, pan (Shoot This)

Exercise 20.1 ⭐ — Three shutters, one mover. Find a single steady mover at the busy intersection — a cyclist, a passing car, a jogger. Photograph it three ways: (a) frozen at 1/1000 s or faster, (b) subject-blurred at 1/30 s with the camera held still on a wall, (c) panned at 1/30 s sweeping with the subject. Same subject, same place. Lay the three side by side and write one sentence on what each "says" about motion. This is Figure 20.2 made with your own hands.

Exercise 20.2 ⭐⭐ — The freeze ladder. Pick one fast subject (a running dog, kids on bikes, a fountain). Shoot it at 1/250 s, 1/500 s, 1/1000 s, and 1/2000 s, keeping framing and light constant. Find the slowest shutter that still freezes it cleanly. Note that number — it is this subject's freeze threshold, and it depends on the subject's speed, its size in your frame, and its direction across it.

Exercise 20.3 ⭐⭐ — Direction is free shutter speed. Photograph the same subject moving at the same speed twice: once crossing your frame (perpendicular), once coming straight toward you. Use the slowest shutter that freezes the crossing version, then use that same shutter on the toward-you version. Confirm the toward-you frame is sharper — and explain why in one sentence using Figure 20.1's third lever.

Exercise 20.4 ⭐⭐⭐ — Intentional subject blur as art. Make one deliberate motion-blur frame that reads as art, not error: camera locked on a tripod or wall, a slow shutter (1/8 s–1/2 s), and a moving subject streaking through — but with something sharp as an anchor (a still bystander, a sign, the pavement). The test: a stranger should see it as a choice, not a mistake. Write what your sharp anchor was and why it made the blur read as intentional.

Part B — Panning (Shoot This)

Exercise 20.5 ⭐ — First pans, low stakes. At the intersection, pan ten passing cyclists or cars at 1/30 s. Feet planted, rotate from the hips, and say "swing… and… foll-ooow" under your breath, drawing the last word past the shutter click. Expect most to fail. Keep your single sharpest subject-against-streaks frame and note what your body did differently on the one that worked.

Exercise 20.6 ⭐⭐ — The follow-through test. Shoot two sets of pans of the same kind of subject: in Set 1, deliberately stop your sweep the instant you press the shutter; in Set 2, follow through smoothly past the click. Compare keeper rates. You are proving to yourself, with evidence, that the follow-through is the whole game.

Exercise 20.7 ⭐⭐ — Pan shutter sweep. Pan the same subject at 1/15 s, 1/30 s, 1/60 s, and 1/125 s. Notice the trade: slower = more background streak (more drama) but harder to keep the subject sharp; faster = easier sharpness but less speed. Pick the shutter that best balances the two for this subject's speed and say why.

Exercise 20.8 ⭐⭐⭐ — Phone pan at dusk. (Phone path.) Using your phone's pro/manual mode, force the shutter to 1/30 s (or shoot at dusk so the phone slows itself), and pan a passing cyclist or bus. Brace your elbows against your ribs to steady the light phone. Land one frame with the subject sharp and the background streaked. This is one of the most impressive images a phone can make — keep it as evidence that reach and a big sensor are not what panning needs.

Part C — Focus and tracking (Settings Drill & Shoot This)

Exercise 20.9 ⭐ — Find your continuous-AF switch. Without shooting yet: locate, in your camera or phone, how to switch from single AF (AF-S/one-shot) to continuous AF (AF-C/servo), and how to choose the AF-area mode (single point vs. zone/group vs. wide). Write the exact menu path or button. You should be able to do this blind, because in the field you will have seconds.

Exercise 20.10 ⭐⭐ — Toward-you focus run. Have a friend (or a willing dog) walk, then jog, straight toward you. Shoot a burst first in single AF, then in continuous AF. Compare how many frames are sharp in each. The continuous-AF set should win decisively — that gap is the most important focus lesson in the chapter.

Exercise 20.11 ⭐⭐ — Acquire early. Photograph an approaching subject twice in continuous AF: once stabbing the shutter only at the last second, once acquiring the subject early (half-press and track for a second or two before firing). Compare sharpness. You are demonstrating predictive AF's need for a running start.

Exercise 20.12 ⭐⭐⭐ — AF-area shoot-out. On an erratic subject (a dog at play, kids in a game), shoot matched bursts using single-point, then zone/group, then wide/auto-area (with subject detection if you have it). Which kept the subject sharp most often for this unpredictable motion? Write which mode you'd now default to for sport — and which for a predictable path like a runner in a lane.

Part D — Reach, wildlife, and the approach (Shoot This & Eye Training)

Exercise 20.13 ⭐ — Get close instead of zooming. (Phone-friendly.) At the park pond or a feeder, photograph a duck, squirrel, or garden bird by physically getting as close as the animal allows — no zoom. Then photograph the same animal from your starting distance using maximum zoom/crop. Compare the detail. The close frame should crush the cropped one. This is the whole phone-wildlife lesson in two shots.

Exercise 20.14 ⭐⭐ — The patient sit. Choose one spot near approachable wildlife (pond edge, feeder, park bench) and sit still for twenty minutes. Do not chase anything. Photograph whatever comes to you. Note how the animals' behaviour changes as they decide you are furniture — and how that gives you frames a moving photographer never gets.

Exercise 20.15 ⭐⭐ — Eye level with an animal. Photograph a low animal (a duck, a cat, a dog, a pigeon) twice: once standing and shooting down at it, once crouched or lying at its eye level. Compare the intimacy and dignity of the two frames. Connect this to the eye-level lesson of Chapter 13 in one sentence.

Exercise 20.16 ⭐⭐⭐ — Read the comfort zone. (Eye Training — no keeper required.) Approach a wild but tolerant subject (a duck, a heron, a rabbit) slowly and obliquely. Watch for the alert signal — head up, body tense, a step away — and stop the instant you see it. Write down at what distance the animal showed alertness and what the specific signal was. You are training the single most important wildlife skill: knowing when your presence is changing behaviour, so you can stop before it does.

Part E — Anticipating the peak (Shoot This)

Exercise 20.17 ⭐ — Name the peak. (Eye Training.) For five different actions (a basketball layup, a swing at its highest point, a wave breaking, a dog catching a ball, a jumper), write one sentence each describing exactly where the peak is — the instant the movement hangs or completes. Naming peaks precisely is the precondition for anticipating them.

Exercise 20.18 ⭐⭐ — Pre-frame and wait. Go to a spot where one action repeats at a known place (top of a skate ramp, a basketball hoop, a swing, a fountain spurt). Pre-focus and pre-frame on the peak spot, watch the rhythm for several cycles, then make 30+ frames, each released on the cue before the peak. Keep your three sharpest peak frames. In your best one, is the subject at full extension?

Exercise 20.19 ⭐⭐ — React vs. anticipate, head to head. Photograph the same repeating peak two ways: one set where you press when you see the peak (react), one set where you release on the cue before it (anticipate). Compare. Count how many anticipate-frames caught the apex versus react-frames. The arithmetic of reaction time will be visible in your own take.

Exercise 20.20 ⭐⭐⭐ — Room to move. Make one peak-action frame composed with deliberate space in the direction of travel (the subject leaping/running into the open part of the frame), and one with the subject crammed against the leading edge. Compare how each feels. Write one sentence connecting this to the composition grammar of Chapter 6.

Part F — Burst, buffer, and the cull (Settings Drill & Read the Frame)

Exercise 20.21 ⭐ — Meet your buffer. Set RAW (if you shoot it) and hold the shutter on continuous drive at a blank wall until the camera slows or stops. Count roughly how many frames you got before it stalled. That number is your buffer depth in RAW — now you know how long a burst you can afford. Repeat in JPEG and note the difference.

Exercise 20.22 ⭐⭐ — Short aimed bursts. At a repeating peak, deliberately practise short bursts: finger off the button, then a 4–6 frame burst bracketing the apex, then off again. Do a whole session this way. Compare your keeper rate and your post-shoot cull time to a "spray and pray" session. You are proving the §20.6 thesis with your own clock.

Exercise 20.23 ⭐⭐ — The ruthless cull. Take a large action take (your own or from Exercise 20.18/20.22) and cull it formally: fast reject pass for fatal flaws, then keep the single best frame per burst/sequence, then slow-look the survivors. Reduce a session to no more than five keepers. Write down how many you started with and how many you kept. Few is success.

Exercise 20.24 ⭐⭐ — Settings drill: assemble the setup. For each scenario, write the full starting setup (mode, shutter, drive, focus mode, AF-area, ISO) and one sentence of justification: (a) a child's outdoor football match in bright sun; (b) a panned cyclist at dusk; (c) a kingfisher diving at a known spot on a river; (d) a sprinter crossing the finish line in shade.

Exercise 20.25 ⭐⭐⭐ — Fix the photo. (Read the Frame.) Diagnose and prescribe a re-shoot for each described failure: (a) "A photo of my niece's hurdles race — she's a soft blur, the fence behind her is tack-sharp." (b) "A panned motorbike — the bike is sharp but so is the background; it just looks like a normal slow daylight shot." (c) "A leaping dog, frozen sharp, but its feet are already pointing down and it looks like it's falling, not flying." (d) "A heron that flew off the instant I got my best frame lined up." Name the cause and the specific fix for each.

Part G — Interleaved (mixing prior chapters)

Exercise 20.26 ⭐⭐ — Exposure under pressure (Ch. 3). Shoot a backlit action subject (a runner with the bright sky behind them). In Shutter Priority at 1/1000 s, the subject comes out a dark silhouette. Using Chapter 3's tools, fix the exposure for the subject (exposure compensation or spot metering on them) without dropping below 1/1000 s. Write what you changed and what it cost.

Exercise 20.27 ⭐⭐ — The decisive moment, fast (Ch. 10). Return to a place where human moments happen — a market, a playground, a busy corner — and apply Chapter 10's anticipation to a fast human gesture (a high-five, a thrown ball, a jump). Make one frame that is both a decisive moment and a peak of action. Note in one sentence how the two ideas are the same skill.

Exercise 20.28 ⭐⭐⭐ — Compression for a clean background (Ch. 9). Photograph a moving subject with a long focal length specifically to compress a busy background into a clean soft wash behind it (Chapter 9's telephoto compression). Then shoot the same subject wide. Compare how the background helps or hurts the action. Write which lens choice isolates the subject better and why.

Exercise 20.29 ⭐⭐ — Light on the action (Ch. 5). Photograph the same action at two times of day: harsh midday and golden hour. Note how the light (Chapter 5) changes the feel of a frozen moment — the hard noon edge versus the warm raking glow. Decide which light suits this action and say why.

Stretch challenge

Exercise 20.30 ⭐⭐⭐ — One subject, the whole chapter. Pick a single repeating action you can return to over a week (a local skate spot, a pond with diving birds, a school playground at the same hour). Across several visits, make: one clean freeze at the peak, one clean pan, one eye-level intimate frame, and one frame composed with room to move. Cull each session hard. At week's end, lay your four best together — that is a tiny action portfolio, and one of the four is almost certainly your Portfolio Checkpoint keeper. Write which of the four is strongest and why.

Model answers and critiques for the starred and odd-numbered exercises appear in the book's "Answers to Selected Exercises." Try each with a camera before reading them — in action photography especially, the missed frame is the lesson.