While much of the world considers the Olympics or Soccer's World Cup to be THE major sports event, millions of Americans consider Super Bowl Sunday to be the ultimate sports event of the year. In honor of Super Bowl weekend, we've put together a bunch of sports shooter tips for Football and year-round sports!
Whether you're shooting your kid's PeeWee league games or are trying to break into the big time (not an easy task!), we have plenty of advice to get you started or to keep you going—no matter what the sport. Here a handy-dandy guide to our sports photography articles and videos. Browse, learn, and get out there and start shooting!
Interview: Super Bowl Photographers Damian Strohmeyer and Peter Read Miller
Jena Ardell catches up with legendary Sports Illustrated staff shooters Damian Strohmeyer (that's one of his cover shots at right) and Peter Read Miller about covering the Super Bowl, and the friendly but intense competition to grab the coveted cover shot. An Adorama Exclusive!
Basics and How-To's, By Sport:
How to photograph football games
As a photographer, one of the most challenging events to shoot is the high-intensity action of a football game. Whether it’s the seven year-old flag football league or the New York Giants, shooting football can be an exciting experience that will yield many high quality images—if you approach it with a game plan and a little bit of knowledge.
Picture-taking techniques - Talkin' Baseball Photography
Baseball has been described as a game of hours of boredom punctuated by seconds of terror. Capturing those moments of intense action is the rewarding challenge of baseball photography.
How to photograph basketball games
Basketball is perhaps the easiest sport to shoot. You have a strictly defined area of 100x50 feet, and know exactly where the ball is supposed to end up. You also know where all of the coaches and players who are watching the game are as well. On the other hand...
Shootin’ amateur hoops like a pro
College and pro-level basketball photography is great work if you can get it, but what about shooting your young hoopster's game in the dim light of a high school or elementary school gym? Here's some real-world advice.
Serving winning tennis shots
Whether you’re covering the U.S. Open or snapping a friendly match at the local court, Tennis is a sport that offers plenty of opportunities to capture exciting action while fine-tuning your picture-taking timing. It’s all about knowing the game—and keeping your eyes on the ball.
A day at the races
Photographing horse racing—The Sport of Kings—can be challenging, because you are photographing a fast subject, and not always from as close as you might like.
How to photograph joggers and runners
The nice thing about photographing runners and joggers is that in most cases, you can photograph them from a relatively intimate distance with a wide-angle lens. This kind of accessibility is simply not possible in most other sports.
Winter Sports Action Photography Tips
Skiing and snowboarding are incredibly photogenic sports, but they're fraught with gotchas: extreme weather that can harm both you and your camera, difficult lighting (only for the inexperienced), and of course participants who could be zooming right at you at the speed of a fast car.
General Technique:
Improving Action Shots with Portable Lighting
When you think of sports photography, lighting equipment most likely doesn't enter the picture, does it? After all, most photographers that work with lighting equipment use it to shoot formal portraits or indoor studio work, right? Well, that used to be the case.
Freezing Action at ISO 100, 200 & 400
If you could end up with a razor-sharp, action-stopping image like the one at right by using ISO 100, would you stay away from higher ISOs? Here's how—and why!
Open Wide! Set your lens to maximum aperture to highlight action
What do college football games, a great blue heron in flight, and a dog chasing down her Soft Bite Floppy Disk have in common? It's not a snappy punchline. It's a shooting style.
Interviews from the AdoramaTV vault:
AdoramaTV: Shooting Pro Football, Gene Lower
Mark Wallace talks to Gene Lower, the official photographer of the Arizona Cardinals. Gene shares some of his tips for shooting sports.
AdoramaTV: Sports Photographer, Jon Willey
Mark Wallace talks with Jon Willey who is currently the team photographer and manager of imaging services for the Arizona Diamondbacks. Jon shows Mark the steps he takes to get those great action shots on and off the field.
Sports and Portrait Photographer: Jason Wise—AdoramaTV
Mark talks with Jason, sport photographer at Arizona State University. Jason talks about how he "drags the shutter" in some of his photos as well as how he gets a strong rim light around some of the athletic photos.
