Digital Sports Photography: Take Winning Shots Every Time

Preface

My friend Martin has a teenaged son who fences competitively. Last year he spent some time with me at the U.S. National Fencing Championship held in Charlotte, North Carolina, while his son competed at his first really big tournament. Martin had purchased a new point-and-shoot camera with lots of bells and whistles, and he had lots of questions for me as he tried his hand at shooting some fencing in the huge convention center venue.

Martin quickly found that the shutter lag, lighting, and fast action of the hall was more than he had anticipated for his camera, which he was learning on-the-fly. He got an occasional good shot mostly due to the fact that he has a pretty good eye for composition and he anticipated the action, but he became frustrated trying to get good images with good exposure taken at the right moment.

So I worked with Martin and explained how to set his camera at least on a partial manual setting optimized for the environment. When he understood a little more about what the light was like, the settings required for the shots, and how to position himself, he found that he was taking very nice shots — better than he had expected to accomplish.

It became clear to me at that point, that the world at-large struggles with technology — whether it's how to burn a disk, how to download photos to their computer, or just how to deal with shutter lag. In addition, the fundamental concepts and principles of photography, which still apply in full force with digital as with ...