The following ramble has been pieced together from my own experience and what I’ve learned from sports photographers. It is by no means comprehensive or suit your style, but hopefully it’ll be helpful to those starting off shooting, what is, due to circumstances, a difficult sport to cover. Once you have been to a couple of bouts you will have a better idea of the game play and where to position yourself to get the best images.

Before I get on to equipment the first thing to do is to contact the home team about covering their bout. Usually they'll have no problems and welcome someone taking an interest. They may have a policy for dealing with the media. This is usually along the lines of free entrance and access to all areas in return for a copy of the images for their records. I know some photographers who have issues of giving out hi-res copies because they can't control their use for copyright issues. A compromise would be to offer the team a set of lo-res web images for their personal use. I personally do not have an issue with it and freely distribute hi-res copies. The sport is still, in most regions, in its infancy. Everyone is an amateur pursuing their interest. Many teams are run on the subs of their members. Any profits made from bouts being ploughed back in to kit and putting on more events. As such they are in no position to afford professional photographic services. There is, in photographic terms no money to be made out of it. I shoot it beacuse I enjoy it and I feel that at present it is how it should be approached. Being helpful and offering copies of the images will usually result in an invite back. The more you get to know the teams the more you'll get back.

Equipment

This may sound like I’m trying to teach your grandmother to suck eggs, but check your equipment before you set off. Are all the right lenses in the bag? Batteries charged? Memory cards wiped? There’s nothing worse than quickly fumbling to change the memory card over to get that next shot you can see coming, only to discover that it’s full and it’ll take you a minute or two to wipe. Shot missed. I’ve done it and I’ll probably do it again.

Most digital slrs should be up to the job of delivering reasonable results. For me it is the lens that counts. A decent lens will save your life and get you that shot. If you’re working commercially it’s a must. When shooting sports you ideally need to be shooting at around 1/500th of a second to freeze the action. A fast lens, f2.8 or greater will also mean that you can blur the background out and allow you isolate the subject.

Over the past year I have learnt a hell of a lot. I used to pack loads of gear but now I travel light. I've got used to the lighting conditions of the venues and am pretty confident of getting decent shots in almost any light. If I get to a venue and there's decent natural light it's a bonus. Lens of choice is the Canon 135mm f2. Sharp at f2 and razor sharp at f2.8 it also focus's quick. It's light for hand holding and as it's black it gets a lot less attention than the larger white Canon lenses. A prime lens means you'll have to use your legs as the zoom. But hey, everyone could do with some exercise. However, if you're sitting on the sidelines and don't have access to move about it can be an issue. Next up is a wide angle zoom for group shots and foreshortened images. To be honest that's now it. I may crack open the 85mm for portraits, but rarely, the 135mmm does the job just as well. I've stopped carting around a flashgun as I seldom used it and the results I got were poor. Too many harsh shadows.

The more you can spend on a lens usually equates to better images. Decent lenses, unlike camera bodies retain their value better on the 2nd hand market. If you have invested and find yourself strapped for cash you can always hock them. If you are thinking of investing in a lens for sports and are umming and arrring over a cheaper and more expensive model, buy the more expensive if you can. You may save a few pennies on buying the cheaper lens but I guarantee that you’ll be back down that camera shop in six months time to buy the lens you really wanted. Again, been there, done that, much to the glee of my local camera store salesman.

If you can afford it I would recommend buying a light meter. It will give you a better reading than your cameras in-built sensor and allow you to take readings around the hall before the bout starts so that you can set your camera up. I always shoot on manual. I just don't trust computers to do the job for me. Once you get your eye bin it is far more reliable than any fancy processor.

What’s in the bag. This is what I would pack.

While the above may be a wish list you can still get good results on a budget. I really like this photograph (left) as it sums up the excitment of a bout. It was shot on an old Pentax K1000 (1976) with a Vivitar 70-200mm f3.5 lens on Ilford Delta 3200. You could probably pick up the gear for less than £40 as manual film cameras are no longer in demand, then add another £5 for the film.

Environment

Check out the location before you arrive. This can be easily done on the internet as most sports centres will post picture of their facilities. While the images may not be good enough to orientate you within the room itself they will give an idea about the lighting. Most sports hall seem to have uniform lighting, this by no means will mean that it is good, but from whatever angle you are shooting your camera setting should remain constant. This is useful if you are shooting in manual mode. I prefer to shoot in this mode as it gives the camera less to think, and ultimately, get confused about. I like to get to the location in good time so that I can take light readings around the room. Generally, I have found most halls to allow me to shoot at ISO 800 at f2.8, no matter what the light source. This extra time will also allow you play around with your camera’s white balance. Shoot a few frames on each setting and then tweak the white balance to get the best result. The more you can get in -camera will mean less processing time in Photoshop later.

If your camera will allow it I would also shoot in RAW rather than Jpeg. RAW gives you more leeway in tweaking the image in post-production, which you will usually need due to the lighting. You should be able to adjust the exposure by +/- one stop without losing any image quality. It will also allow finer tuning of the white balance. The Photoshop RAW plugin supports most digital cameras but if you do not have Photoshop the software supplied with your camera should do the same job.

The latest digital cameras allow you to crank up the ISO to ridiculous speeds. While this may seem a solution to the bad light, terrible lighting plus high ISO equals noise. If your shots are for screen use only this isn’t too much of a problem, by the time you reduce the image size, sharpen it and tweak the colour even an out of focus shot can become useable. However for prints a shot must be crisp, in focus, have a good colour balance with as little noise as possible. A good quality printer will pick up any flaws in a shot. My rule of thumb is that if an image can’t withstand being reproduced at A3 size, it’s a dud. I would advise not to crank the ISO over 800 if possible, maybe to 1600 or 3200 on the latest high end cameras, but no more.

Subject

Shooting in an environment with bad light will restrict the shots you’ll get. Having a shutter speed that’ll allow you to freeze the action is difficult in these circumstances unless the ISO is cranked all the way up, which in turn will add considerable noise. If you need to get something out of the afternoon go initially for safety shots. These are the shots you know you’ll get. A good one is the players lining up for a jam. The subject will be reasonably still and you can get some great expressions on the players faces as they work out tactics. Similarly the bench is also a good starting point. With these in the bag you can feel confident that if nothing else comes out you’ve got something. To get great shots will require time and luck. Ultimately, the more time spent shooting the luckier you will get. I tend to find that if one in ten shots is in focus I’m doing well, one in a hundred will be good, one in a thousand a cracker. To get that one ultimate shot, whatever sport you’re shooting, may take a lifetime so don’t give up if your results aren’t up to expectations. The more events you cover the better your results, it’s all just practice.

Photographers like many herding animals feel safety in numbers. Joining the huddle means you’ll get similar shots to everyone else. Move away and you’ll get a different shooting angle. Make a recce of the arena early to stake out the best spots and make adjustments to your plans if all the action seems to be happening elsewhere. Of course you can always try more drastic steps to get a different perspective on things. Shoot with a different camera, use film, drill a hole in the wall to make the hall in to one massive pinhole camera, go to the bar early and shoot drunk. If it isn’t just happening, give up and try another day. Creativity leaves us all at sometime or another.

Public liability insurance

Shooting trackside has the potential to be dangerous. A speeding rollergirl flying off the track could hit you before you have the chance to react. While your nice new lens may get damaged in the ensuing chaos the rollergirl will probably come off worse. A circular lens print in her forehead. While the chance of this happening is small it is worth investing in public liability insurance to cover for these eventualities. This can be purchased for a small extra cost through your camera insurance company if your gear is covered. Lighting stands, tripods, miscellaneous bits of gear left trackside could all cause injury so it’s worth getting covered.

Final Shots

Don’t forget to have your wide-angle lens handy for the end of bout group photo. Having to run across the sports hall and back to fetch it from your camera bag could mean missing that shot. Spectators also generally gather round to get their own photos at this point so standing further back to get everyone in frame with that telephoto lens just wont happen.

Faking it.

If all else fails and you need that shot, faking it is a way out. We’ve all done it on shoots, tweaked images in photoshop etc… so if the teams have time you could always set the shot up you need, it’s not ideal but who’s to know. I’m not telling.

Editing

Once you’ve got back home and processed your shots it’s tempting to dump them all on to your website or flickr etc... just because you can. But do viewers really want to see the same shot over and over again? I am as guilty as the next person but I’m trying to become more ruthless on my edit. Anything over/under exposed or blurred gets cut, bad composition gets cut, multiples, cut. If I could sum up the bout in one picture I’d be more than happy. Bad pictures will drag your best down with them. As the saying goes, less is more.

I have used photoshop for many years for editing photos. However I have just been converted to Capure One by Phase One. It is excellent for batching files, especially RAW files and gives you the ability to fine tune images better than the RAW plugin for Photoshop. Highly recommended and I'm not on commission!

Other Resources
How to produce a bout programme - The basics of Desktop Publishing (DTP) and print.