Customer Reviews

Digital Sports Photography

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Digital Sports Photography
G. Newman Lowrance

Being passionate about sports photography (and football) certainly helped me enjoy this book. Which is not to say I got everything I would have liked out of such a book, but it's a good read and not one of the "read four chapters and never pick it up again" variety.

Don't be put off by the author covering a lot of ground regarding what professional editors are looking for. If you are photographing sports for your own use, you really should be just as fussy as any editor out there, so it's nice to know what they look for.

The author also spends a lot of time on positioning; where to stand at what type of sporting event. This is fine, but in my opinion this is something you can learn fairly quickly "on the job" if you have any photo sense at all. My biggest advice there is to watch the sport and hopefully get a chance to play the sport - this is the best way to develop anticipation of where a play might develop. Then practice, practice, practice shooting the sport.

Where to position and what overhead strobe setups to use in an NHL arena for instance, will be useful to few who read this book. Interesting, but not that useful. Any hockey I've covered was pushed to 1600 behind glass that was hardly NHL caliber. Where to stand and what lenses to use for outdoor sports is perhaps more useful, just from the perspective well-lit amateur outdoor sports are more accessible to most.

While I liked the book it falls short in a few areas in my opinion.

The author does spend some time on technical details and to be fair it's difficult when not knowing what equipment/background the reader might possess. However I would have rather seen the book laid out "in reverse", with less time on individual sports positioning and more time on the photography details (including post-processing). Rather than six chapters on individual sports and one on "the basics of sports photography", I would have rather he spent three on "sports photography" and three on the individual sports.

I also would have liked to have seen more discussion on the adjustments required across a wider weather/ambient lighting spectrum. How to handle snow, rain, threatening rain, haze, etc. The author touches on this all too briefly - these are by far the "normal" conditions for me. Other questions remain unanswered. How many frames does the author shoot at a "normal" football game - and how has this changed over the years? It's easy to get carried away with digital - how does the author "slow down, pick and choose" when to shoot? How much time spent "on the field" versus post-processing? What about post-processing details? Examples of what players to crop out of a picture - when and why? How about some discussion on post-processing exposure correction, color correction, etc. Not a word on filters?

The author also mentions it is "easier" covering kids/amateur sports than professional sports due to the speed of the athletes and the ease of positioning for the photographer. My experience says that may be true from a technical "freezing the action" perspective, and certainly from the positioning perspective, but it is far harder to capture an "athletic moment" that looks good on film with children's/amateur sports. My advice there is not to get discouraged if you don't capture many SI moments at the local youth soccer game.

All in all a decent book in my opinion, it provides some technical details and is an interesting "behind the scenes" read. There were things I picked up from this book, and in a category not exactly overflowing with choices, I do recommend it.

This book was highly recommended at [...] which is a respected forum and website of information for people in the sports photography business. (pee-wee to pro) I even paid for overnight shipping as I was very excited to have it. I was very disappointed when after reading it.

The book indicates it will help users learn to shoot sports or to make users already doing it even better. It will do neither.

Let me begin by saying the best chapter in the book is where the author talks about his career in professional sports photography. He works mainly with the NFL and some Division 1 universities. However, the chapter is quick and not very deep in its storyline. There are no great stories about games or being on the road. Instead it sounds like a talk at career day at a High School. I was really left wanting more.

There is a chapter on equipment but it didn't do much more than go over the basics saying you need a camera with interchangeable lenses and it will need to be digital today. He did mention that prosumer cameras like the Canon 20D or Nikon D70 were not adequate to do sports. I strongly disagree with that statement and I think you will find many people doing excellent work with cameras such as that and not just $4,000 and up cameras. He really seemed to be hung up on frame rate which would mean he is more about machine gun style shooting than more careful shooting and anticipation.

Do you really want to come home from a game with 1000 shoots to sort through?

The chapter on digital workflow spends as much time describing what people used to do with film and slides and developing and scanning. I see no value in that information. The digital information is very general and not much use. It basically said that to check with whatever agency or publication you were working for and do whatever they require.

There is a chapter written by an old NFL Photos Editor describing what they like to see in football photos. Again, it really doesn't go very deep and states the basics such as vertical shots make better magazine covers and isolated player shots are better for things like trading cards. He also talked about submitting a portfolio. He said to send your best shots and not to send out of focus shots. (Thanks for the information.)

The rest of the book focuses on individual sports. It covers some sports but not all. For example, it leaves out sports such as volleyball and golf which I think are important. The author said once you learn the feel for the other sports, you will just know what needs done for the sports they don't cover.

The chapters are all very weak and while he the book promises to tell you about shooting positions and lens selections, it is not nearly detailed enough to help anyone wanting to become a professional and is generally obvious to anyone watching sports.

For example in football, it says that the sidelines or end zone are place you can shoot from and some people like to kneel when shooting to make the player look bigger. He also says you need a long lens like 300mm or better plus maybe a second body with a 70-200mm. There also is mention of strobes on professional basketball and hockey arenas but it is too general for pros and useless for people doing kids/school leagues.

The best part of the book would be the pictures. However, the pictures are not presented with any type of technical information to help you learn about your camera and lens settings. At best there might be a quick mention if the written text glossing over the information.

I usually like to think I can find something redeeming in any (technical) book but not in this one. The information presented is available for free and is better on several photography forums on the Internet. At least in those forums, you can find other sports shooters (and other kinds too) and share information and interact including presenting your own work for critiquing.

If you would like to see excellent example of sports images, then subscribe to the sports magazines and/or buy some of the coffee table type of book full of sports photos.

This book is not worth the money.

I have 15 years experience as professional wedding photographer, and recently started taking photographs at high school and NCAA College Cross Country and Track & Field meets. I purchased this book to get some insight on how to photograph sports events, since there is a night and day difference between sports photography and wedding photography.

Having read numerous wedding photography "how to" books, I am familiar with good, logical layouts that are easy to follow, and I am also familiar with poorly written books that are difficult to understand. Digital Sports Photography is an OUTSTANDING resource for sports photography. This book is well organized, and gives the reader the need-to-know information on the desired equipment, use of equipment, and the desired techniques on approaching sports photography. G. Newman Lowrance also had specific chapters that focused on each of the major sports.

I give this book a five star rating - it is an excellant resource for ANYONE who desires to improve their sports photography images.

I gave this book to my husband after we bought another sports book with the same title for Christmas (Digital Sports Photography-Timacheff) for our studio. We also saw this book at the bookstore and we found it very interesting and, since my husband is shoots quite a bit of sports photogrpahy professionally, thought it would be a great addition to our photography library.

So now we have two books on sports photography, and he's read both of them basically cover-to-cover -- and I have too! (although I primarily shoot portraits and commercial, and only some sports) He thinks they are both excellent and great companion books -- with these two books, you have essentially all you need to shoot nearly any type of sport effectively and successfully.

We totallly disagree with some of the reveiwers, such as the one saying the book lacks in every possible way. This just isn't true -- if you're doing this at all seriously, this book has excellent information and obviously comes from a wealth of experience.

We also think that understanding the personal experience of photographers who have "made it" is very important -- especially as many of us go through the shift to digital. This book helped with that. We rcommend it!

I'm one of those parent/coaches who started taking digital pics of his kids in soccer, cross-country and track a few years ago with a Coolpix 5700. My pictures starting getting good and I got more interested in getting better.

Switched to a D70 a few months back with some good lenses and want to improve in all the sports. Buying this book was a no-brainer for me and I'm glad I did. I read the whole book yesterday. It was an easy read and fun. A lot of great pics that I spent some time studying.

I learned a few things but not as much as I'd hoped. I especially liked the section on what an editor looks for as that had the kind of detail I was looking for. The tips on positioning in the different sports were helpful. I just kept having the feeling that the chapters were like summaries. I wanted more meat.

It's a good book, but it could have been better.

The author really lays out some simple, easy to follow guidelines for shooting, editing and submitting photos. From camera settings to editing. I couldn't put this book down. I read it in 2 days and am reading it again. This book isn't from a teacher, its from someone who is in the trenches as a photographer and photo editor.

UPDATE 05/20/2007: After reading this book and putting some of the pointers to work, I now have sports images published all over the world, including a book cover for Danica Patrick. It wasn't only this book that got me there, but the basics he teaches really helped.

Not only is G. Newman Lowrance's photos in this book, but those from my favorite, Peter Read Miller, and a number of others. The book covers most sports, and is beautifully illustrated with their work.

Like I said, great reference for those in the industry. I use it to give me ideas for improving my photography. I gave a copy of this away recently, so I replaced mine!

A friend of mine suggested this book to me and I have to admitt it's one of the best purchases I've ever made! I shoot sports for the fun - not exactly for profit, and if it wasn't for reading this book, I still wouldn't be able to get it right. Anyone out there that wants to try shooting sports - read the book!

While this book claims to be for a broad variety of photographers, it seems more oriented towards those career-oriented people who want to shoot pro sports and make money at it. I am an amateur photographer who wants to learn to learn morea about digital photography and take pictures of sports, but I found it hard with this book to figure out how to best take photos with my camera, which isn't professional equipment, and then what to do with the photos. The author has some good experience, although it would have been nice to have a wider perspective of both photography as well as various types of sports--not just the big, typical ones. It's interesting to read about this kind of photography, but isn't that practical, at least for me. I have a reasonably good but simple digital camera, and I'd like to know best how to use it to take sports photos and then do something with them ... but I didn't get that from this book.

Good tips abound. Lowrance has a friendly and engaging writing style -- a lot of "digital" photography books can be dull and I often end up just flipping through and critiquing the pix -- not this one. Photographs are great and his own story is very interesting -- his enthusiasm for sports photography is infectious. I think this will be a well-thumbed reference. Would have liked to see more sports covered, however, the advice provided is very applicable to others.