Photography, especially sports photography, took a great leap with the addition of the motor driven film winder.
That simple addition allowed us to expose more frames of film in a second which allowed us to choose the
image that represents the action at the peak of performance. In todays digital cameras the same thing
happens except information is held in a "buffer" until you stop shooting then it is delivered to the
digital memory card.
Start your burst as you see the action starting and roll through it to the end, somewhere in those shots you
should have the right shot. You sometimes have a choice between burst speeds, fast and slow. The
difference can be imporant for the type of shot you are taking.
Almost anything is a good candidate to use burst on but shooting action is usually the best.
When you are trying to capture the peak of action burst will help isolate that fraction of a second,
that perfect frame.
Can you see where I'm going with this shot? I have prefocused on that hump of snow
in front of Tyler. . . . . .
Here is the shot I wanted to get, prefocused for that spot then cropped to the right size and you have a great image.
There are things you should watch out for, slow shutter speeds.
The shot of the spawning salmon was shot at 1/60 sec. There is a little bit too much motion blur with
the combination of panning and slower shutter speed. Also shots requiring flash are not
good candidates for burst photography.
The use of a tripod is not necessary when burst shooting, if the action is fast you probably will be following it.
Burst is so fast it doesn't give you time to move much. With the action of the tide coming into
Thunder Hole a tripod would be nice to keep the framing consistent, you could print a series of images which
might make a nice sequence on the wall.
Have fun with burst look for shots that might produce interesting results. For portraits use the slow mode 3
frames per second, it could be the difference between eyes open and closed. For sports the fast mode 6-10
frames per second may be necessary.
Remember with a SLR camera the mirror requires a split second to move out of the way so your
sensor behind it receives the information,
if you see the perfect moment in your viewfinder
you missed it in the camera.