Sports Photography is not easy

You just show up at the sporting event of your choice and take some pictures - right? No, not really! Sports photography is challenging, as much and perhaps more so than any other kind of photography.  The great shots people have come to expect where the athlete is seen sharp & clear at his peak moment against the blurry background requires not only a great deal of skill but some significant investment in equipment as well.

The photo above showing the lineman drills of my son’s high school football team was taken with the Nikon P300 set on auto and later cropped in Picasa. It’s not a great shot but it was the only one of several taken at the time that was even worth showing.

The good thing about using digital cameras for sports photography is that it’s easy and cheap to take a lot of photos and of course there’s the instant feedback that let you know whether you have a winner or not. With film every shot costs and you don’t know what you have until later when you process the film.

That said, this football season I will shoot some digital but I will still be shooting some film too!