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 enlarge | Author: G. Newman Lowrance
Publisher: Course Technology PTR
Category: Book
List Price: $34.99
Buy New: $19.95
You Save: $15.04 (43%)
New (15) Used (7) from $13.33
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 553164
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 280
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 10.8 x 8.5 x 0.9
ISBN: 1592006485
Dewey Decimal Number: 775
UPC: 082039506487
EAN: 9781592006489
ASIN: 1592006485
Publication Date: April 1, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Good reference September 1, 2005
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
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.
Good but left me wanting more. July 20, 2005
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
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.
Pretty good, but missing in parts July 4, 2005
25 out of 25 found this review helpful
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.
THE PERFECT PRIMER FOR SPORTS PHOTOGRAPHY June 19, 2005
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
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.
 Too High End June 6, 2005
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.
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