Spray and Pray not all bad?

At first I thought there could be no good out of this.  But then I was reading about sports photographers or photographers who are shooting fast moving sports, that this sort of shooting works.  Are there other types of photography that could work with this sort of shooting?

It is not necessarily a case of hoping for a good shot, but for the money shot. Wildlife would be one if you are catching action shots like birds in flight, animals running. You could use it during lightning storms, but a longer shutter speed will get you far more keepers. I had a friend in the good old film days that shot sports, and I would go along to change out his film in his cameras, all with speed winders that would shoot 6 frames a second. Thirty-six exposures did not last long at some events. 

I can't imagine how much film photographers must have went through back in day when photographing sporting events where they were panning all the time.


I still find the term "Spray and Pray" hilarious. 

I use it for various events.  But usually in short bursts, not trying to compare with shooting video.

Kelly

I was under the impression that "spray and pray" referred to randomly pointing the camera and clicking the shutter button. What is being described above is burst shooting, which is perfectly reasonable for the subject matter. I don't think they are the same thing at all.

garyrhook wrote: I was under the impression that "spray and pray" referred to randomly pointing the camera and clicking the shutter button. What is being described above is burst shooting, which is perfectly reasonable for the subject matter. I don't think they are the same thing at all.

Spray and pray is not randomly pointing the camera. It is basically burst shooting except some pros use it even for non-action subjects. I've seen several people fire off 10 shot bursts for portraits. Some wedding photographers use "spray and pray". They use a burst for every shutter press. That's what people refer to as spray and pray.

Shadowfixer1 wrote:

garyrhook wrote: I was under the impression that "spray and pray" referred to randomly pointing the camera and clicking the shutter button. What is being described above is burst shooting, which is perfectly reasonable for the subject matter. I don't think they are the same thing at all.

Spray and pray is not randomly pointing the camera. It is basically burst shooting except some pros use it even for non-action subjects. I've seen several people fire off 10 shot bursts for portraits. Some wedding photographers use "spray and pray". They use a burst for every shutter press. That's what people refer to as spray and pray.

At events I may use Continuous for every shot.  But my camera's burst rate is not super fast.  If I quickly let up on the button I will usually get only a couple of frames.  So I am selective about the duration of the spray part 

leterrip

Oh no, not me.  I always slow things down to make sure I get the best shot I can.  I guess I'm not a sports photographer!  

I think this term is a little lose, you can spray and still have some thought it.  There for the pray side of things is reduced. 

I didn't know it was called spray and pray. I do it all the time shooting dog's running. Just started doing it a few years ago when I got serious about shooting the running dog's. I can't imagine getting a lot of the shot's I do by trying to time them but some guy from Florida claimed he could. My last film camera was a Nikon F5, still have it. I tried it on continuous one time. Sounded like a machine gun going off. I got about 24 frames of a cow picking up it's foot. That thing is so fast it would break you feeding if film. 

Shadowfixer1 wrote:

garyrhook wrote: I was under the impression that "spray and pray" referred to randomly pointing the camera and clicking the shutter button. What is being described above is burst shooting, which is perfectly reasonable for the subject matter. I don't think they are the same thing at all.

Spray and pray is not randomly pointing the camera. It is basically burst shooting except some pros use it even for non-action subjects. I've seen several people fire off 10 shot bursts for portraits. Some wedding photographers use "spray and pray". They use a burst for every shutter press. That's what people refer to as spray and pray.

I had a friend who used to do 3-5 shot bursts for event photos.  He's since stopped after he realised all it did was give him 2-4 times the photos he needs.

Once though we were both doing a wide angle shot of about 500 people.  We put our 1Dx cameras onto full burst and shot the crowd.  We did it to get them all to laugh/smile so we'd have a better shot.

Camera Diva wrote: Oh no, not me.  I always slow things down to make sure I get the best shot I can.  I guess I'm not a sports photographer!  

Makes perfect sense, when you have control of the subject.  But if you are hanging on for the ride, no telling what the subject will do next, continuous mode can be your friend.

Kelly

The dog's I shoot are so fast there is no way I could get decent photo's trying to time it. I shoot inn burst's of 4 and when I'm done in that brace, delete everything I don't want.

Shadowfixer1 wrote:

garyrhook wrote: I was under the impression that "spray and pray" referred to randomly pointing the camera and clicking the shutter button. What is being described above is burst shooting, which is perfectly reasonable for the subject matter. I don't think they are the same thing at all.

Spray and pray is not randomly pointing the camera. It is basically burst shooting except some pros use it even for non-action subjects. I've seen several people fire off 10 shot bursts for portraits. Some wedding photographers use "spray and pray". They use a burst for every shutter press. That's what people refer to as spray and pray.

Okay, thank you. I often have trouble with learning to appropriately use new jargon.