Digital Sports Photography: Take Winning Shots Every Time

This book is geared for the beginning to intermediate photographers, but has some decent tips for the more experienced shooters out there. (I've been shooting for a newspaper for four years and learned several new things that I'll be sure to try out.) The nice thing about this book, as compared to several others, is that the author does not assume the reader has an unlimited source of money for a new camera or new lens and he does his best to walk you through the steps when using a less expensive camera. The chapters on photo editing should be especially useful to the non-professional.

This is a completely up-to-date book about shooting a variety of sports with digital cameras. What impressed me is that it is very practical and to the point. Illustrations are used effectively to make points. He emphasizes that you need to understand the sport you are covering in order to be able to anticipate what might happen next. He deals with the challenges of fast action, low light, and the fact that amateur photographers may not have sideline access the way professional photographers do. It's also worth remembering that when you are taking distant shots with zooms lenses, and are likely to do a lot of cropping. having many megapixels does make a difference - a point too often underestimated.

We own a full-service photography studio in the Midwest. Each holiday season, we give ourselves a book or books on photography. This year, we decided to get two books by the same author(s): Total Digital Photography and Digital Sports Photography. We bought these after reading the reviews and looking at them at a local bookstore. We converted from film to digital about three years ago, and workflow has been an issue for us as we've expanded and grown our studio, and dealt with all the factors involved with adding computers, archiving, etc. We do commercial, sports, and portrait photography so these books were right in-line with what we were doing. Normally we have not written reviews on books in the past, but we felt it only fair to give these books a synopsis that we think more accurately matches the audience for which they are intended - and not all the reviews do that. Reading the other reviews of these books, most of the complaints seemed nit-picky and not very substantial, and the overall impression was positive. A few of the technical points are well-taken, but seem a bit out of proportion to the overall spirit and gist of the books - which aren't intended to be deep technical works. We've used the books now for a bit more than a month, and we've found them both to be, for the most part, technically accurate, well-written, and very helpful for our work. A few of the reviewers questioned the authors' use of fencing images, but we found these to be an interesting way to take an unusual and interesting subject, describe personal experience, and apply it to a variety of sports. And the images of all types were well done - good examples, well-composed, and applicable to a variety of photographers. We liked the use of a wide variety of sports photogrpahers' images in the sports book. We must point out that these books aren't meant to be coffee-table books. One reviewer said many images are like snapshots. We disagree - they are like standard, everyday professional shots we might take, and aren't meant to be "haute" art photos. A few are of this caliber, but it's clear the authors' are attempting to reach ordinary photography enthusiasts and working professionals, not gallery artists. One of the things we liked most was how personal and readable the books are - way more than just a reference where you'd read a snippet or two from various pages. These books have helped us understand digital photography much more deeply, and put into place a workflow and method for managing our studio more efficiently and profitably. We recommend the book to anyone seriously interested in photography as a regular pursuit-whether you're in it for the money or just as an active pursuit.

I recently upgraded to a Canon Rebel to photograph my children's gymnastics and soccer events. I had this book on order before it was available, and just got it a few days ago. It has opened my eyes to what I need to actually take photos and not just use the automatic settings -- and it even contains information on these two sports! It explains a lot about digital photography in simple terms, which filled in several gaps for me about digital photography. Plus, my son is into skateboarding and my wife is a skier, so now I can figure out how to take photos of that as well. I also liked the information about what to do with the photos to process them, print them, and get them online. The method shown is easy and seems like it's not jsut meant for professionals; it includes point-and-shoot as well as big-camera info. It's great that there are so many photos and advice from many photographers, not just one. I've already recommended this book to my kids' coaches. Highly recommended!