See sports photography differently through a wide-angle lens

Wide-angle lenses have long had a place in the kit bags of professional sports photographers. Whether capturing epic shots of a winning athlete acknowledging a stadium crowd or clustered behind the goal at a football match, wide-angle zooms and primes are used daily to deliver dramatic images to picture desks.

But what else is a wide-angle lens good for in sports photography? What creative opportunities do wide-angle lenses unlock for sports pros? And how do you make the most of the sweeping view of ultra-wide lenses such as the Canon RF 7-14mm F2.8-3.5L FISHEYE STM and RF 15-35mm F2.8L IS USM?

Skateboard photographer Atiba Jefferson shares his tips on working with ultra-wide lenses, with technical insight from Canon Europe’s Mike Burnhill.

If you can get close enough to the action, or at least have the ability to position the camera remotely, a wide-angle lens gives you a unique perspective that suits a broad range of sports – from five-a-side football to Formula 1. With a fisheye lens such as the Canon RF 7-14mm F2.8-3.5L FISHEYE STM, you can be within touching distance of your subject and still capture the world around them, complete with the incredible distortion that makes these lenses so compelling.

Fisheyes make everything look bigger than in it does in real life, Atiba says. "It’s just a different perspective. A standard lens gives you exactly what you see, but no-one can see what a fisheye lens sees, and that’s what makes them so special."

If you need to go even wider, the Canon RF 14mm F1.4L VCM is a great option. It delivers a richly detailed, ultra-wide 114° diagonal field of view and focuses close for dramatic shots. With its durable L-series design, fast f/1.4 aperture and smooth VCM (Voice Coil Motor) autofocus, it’s a lens that’s ready to take on sports photography in challenging conditions. As a hybrid RF lens that works seamlessly alongside the Canon RF 20mm F1.4L VCM and RF 24mm F1.4L VCM, it has added filmmaking features, making it a highly practical option for professional sports photographers working across stills and video.

Every millimetre counts when shaping the look of sports shots, especially in tight indoor venues, and the Canon RF 10-20mm F4L IS STM opens up new creative possibilities. It’s the widest Canon RF zoom lens before you reach fisheye, offering dramatically exaggerated perspectives. The constant f/4 aperture is just one stop slower than the RF 15-35mm F2.8L IS, and with advances in EOS autofocus and high-ISO performance, it remains fast and capable enough for professional sports shooting.

For extreme creativity, reach for the Canon RF 7-14mm F2.8-3.5L FISHEYE STM. Paired with a full-frame camera, this powerful lens provides a 190° circular fisheye image at 7mm and a frame-filling 180° diagonal fisheye image at 14mm. Commonly used in action sports photography, fisheye lenses capture both the drama of the moment and its surroundings, drawing the viewer straight into the action when used at close range.

Atiba recently put the Canon RF 7-14mm F2.8-3.5L FISHEYE STM to the test on a skateboard shoot in downtown LA. "It was great to be able to get so many of the buildings in with that fisheye lens," he says. "That’s what we really love, the curvature of the buildings and all of that stuff."

Not every sports photographer needs L-series build quality, and Canon offers a solid range of RF wide-angle lenses – including the Canon RF 16-28mm F2.8 IS STM and RF 24mm F1.8 MACRO IS STM. "With the RF 24mm F1.8 MACRO IS STM, you've got a compact lens that does so many things," Mike says. "It might not have weather sealing, but it's optically fantastic and comes with super-fast light transmission that is perfect for indoor sports."

1. Move closer
2. Carry cleaning equipment
3. Capture a sense of place
4. Change your viewpoint
5. Find a frame
6. Look for the small details

Getting close to the subject with a wide-angle lens places the viewer at the heart of the action, highlighting the determination in an athlete's expression and the intensity of the moment – from beads of sweat to the scene’s raw energy. When you’re dealing with unpredictable, high-speed movement however, you’ll need to keep an eye on the camera’s physical distance.

Shooting without looking through the viewfinder, with the camera held at arm’s length can help. "It’s hard to be perfect when composing this way, especially when you’re worried about getting hit in the face or camera," Atiba says. "That’s what’s great about a fisheye lens though – it gets so much. When you shoot with the Canon RF 7-14mm F2.8-3.5L FISHEYE STM all the way wide at 7mm you’re pretty much going to be safe covering everything. You won’t crop an arm out with 190°, so your composing gets a little more relaxed."

The intelligent subject detection and tracking available in full-frame EOS R System bodies such as the Canon EOS R5 Mark II and EOS R6 Mark III keeps focus on the subject’s body, head or eyes, freeing you to follow their movement.

Getting close to the action is one thing, but taking a more scenic approach with a wide-angle lens can bring a breath of fresh air to your sports photography. Showing a small athlete dwarfed by their surroundings adds variety to a series of images shot at a single venue or over the course of a tournament. While a telephoto lens can be used to frame a small subject in a vast landscape, the effect is different – more compressed and isolating, rather than the immersive perspective that can be achieved with a wide-angle lens.

Try including foreground elements or moving around the scene to emphasise scale and atmosphere. Even tilting the lens slightly up or down can make the scenery appear more expansive.

Shooting from a low or high position with a wide-angle lens can have a dramatic effect on the image, particularly if the camera is close to the subject, which will appear much larger in comparison to the background. Shooting from low down can exaggerate the height of an athlete, for example, or the elevation of a jump.

"A vari-angle screen is a godsend in these circumstances, because you can try to get the right angles without having to lie down," says Mike. "You can work out where you're going to see dramatic things and are able to hold the camera comfortably."

Wide-angle lenses capture so much of the scene that it's easy for distractions to creep into the frame and for the subject to appear lost in a picture. But taking advantage of a natural frame when composing a sports shot can help to draw a viewer's attention to the right place.

Getting close to foreground objects and throwing them out of focus with a shallow depth of field is an effective technique, although not always an easy task with wide-angle lenses. A lens with a fast aperture, such as the Canon RF 20mm F1.4L VCM or RF 24mm F1.4L VCM can help to soften distractions. Looks for gaps in branches, get low and shoot through flowers, or point the lens upwards to frame the subject against the sky, as Canon Ambassador Martin Bissig has done here.

Finding a composition that you can allow the athlete to complete when they enter the frame is key. "That’s the way we work in skateboarding – we compose the photo and just leave it there, and let the skater enter the frame" Atiba says. "That’s why we prefocus a lot, because the skater will hit the same spot every time. But you can also track focus. The tracking focus on the Canon RF 7-14mm F2.8-3.5L FISHEYE STM is amazing, so there are different techniques you can use."

While the dramatic perspective offered by the best wide-angle lenses for sports photography is striking, it's often the small details that really give an image lasting impact. Effective use of the Canon RF 14mm F1.4L VCM’s vast angle of view, or the distinctive distortion of the Canon RF 7-14mm F2.8-3.5L FISHEYE STM relies on thoughtful composition, controlled exposure and creative techniques to produce images that remain engaging.

Techniques such as motion blur or a zoom burst can emphasise speed, while considered use of flash can draw attention to the subject in a dramatic way. However, ultra-wide and fisheye lenses demand extra care when it comes to positioning Speedlites. That’s the main thing that’s tricky [regarding exposure] with fisheyes," Atiba says. "It’s harder to get your lights closer because you’re seeing so much more of the scene."

Advances in lens technology also open up new ways of working. The Canon RF 7-14mm F2.8-3.5L FISHEYE STM, for instance, features a high-quality drop-in filter system that allows optional circular polarising and variable neutral density (ND) filters to be adjusted while you’re shooting. Using a variable ND with a fisheye can be particularly beneficial for video, Atiba notes: "You could sometimes use [gel] cutouts on the back of certain EF lenses, but this is another world."

The work of Atiba and other Canon photographers demonstrates that, in a discipline dominated by telephotos, keeping a wide-angle lens in your kitbag allows you to photograph sport differently – putting viewers closer to the action, showing more of the surrounding context and creating images that stand apart from the standard long lens look.