Recommendations for books on sports/action photography?

[FlipsidE]

I want to get started on sports/action photography, but I know absolutely nothing about it. I'm finding that I'm learning fairly well through reading. So, I was wondering if anyone could recommend some good sports/action photography books.

Thanks

FlipsidE

[sGu]

Do you want books on techniques or books on photography?

Follow this link (http://www.sportsshooter.com/education/index.html) to a list of books, you can search for "sport" under all book titles, hopefully you'll find something catches your eye.

[FlipsidE]

Sorry...I should have been more specific...books on technique is what i'm looking for. Thanks for the link. I'll definitely look around there.

Thanks

FlipsidE

[sGu]

well, there aren't many books which would teach you much technique on shooting sports, you'll learn more from practice.

End of the day, all photography is the same, a combination of settings for shutter speed, aperture, focal length, film speed to control light coming through the lens to produce a desired image. Based on specific sports, you'll need to set specific value to a certain camera setting, shutter speed is the crucial element in sports/action images.

For instance, to freeze football/hockey/rugby etc. you'll need 1/500 shutter speed; to freeze a racing car while keep wheels blurred to give a sense of motion, 1/300(correct me if I'm wrong, don't have much shooting experience); to freeze diver or gymnasts in air/figure skating, 1/2000 is required, etc.

Once you know which sports you wanna shoot and what results you would want to achieve, adjust settings accordingly, then practice, practice, practice and practice, until you are happy with it.

[BikerFox]

to freeze diver or gymnasts in air/figure skating, 1/2000 is required, etc. .

But how in the world do you get enough light in at a shutter speed like 1/2000?? When I take shots at 300 they're often blurry, even with 800 ISO. Flash doesn't help at long distances like that, so what am I doing wrong? Thanks

P.S. Your gallery is nice, I like the soccer ones.

[sGu]

to freeze diver or gymnasts in air/figure skating, 1/2000 is required, etc. .

But how in the world do you get enough light in at a shutter speed like 1/2000?? When I take shots at 300 they're often blurry, even with 800 ISO. Flash doesn't help at long distances like that, so what am I doing wrong? Thanks

P.S. Your gallery is nice, I like the soccer ones.

Thanks for visiting my gallery :D

In most cases, you won't get enough light unless it's Olympics or world championship games, but in most cases, photographer use high speed sync strobes to light, in order to achieve that speed while keep ISO relatively low.

Check out Dave Black (http://www.daveblackphotography.com)'s site, look under workshop, he did a piece on arena lighting using strobes, hope it'll help, not cheap for sure.

[BikerFox]

In most cases, you won't get enough light

ya, I know, I witnessed that during my seminar shoot this weekend!

So, what do you do then, post-process? Doesn't turning up brightness and contrast using PS hurt the image quality? Thanks

[sGu]

Use strob to light the arena is the only way to go. Post processing won't produce same quality, nowhere near.

Fortunately nobody has assigned me to shoot gymnasts, when it comes, I'll bring up the question of using strobs, no way I can afford them at this moment.