Shooting Competitive Cheerleading

Graham Cracker

I am shooting my daughters team in competitive cheerleading meets and I am struggling with what lens and settings. I have a 1DM3 and Canon f/2.8 70-200 and a sigma f2.8 24-70. I am fine with close ups but to do group shots in the gym lighting and now flash I have my ISO up high but still struggle with Depth of field and shutter speed to capture the motion. IF anyone has some tips I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks Patrick

Techv

How high do you have your ISO? Crank it up all the way and see how it turns out.

I've used the 1DmIII with the 70-200 2.8 for indoor sports photography (mostly gymnastics) with no flash. The high ISO means a lot more noise than you would get from ISO 100, of course, but the noise is mostly in the dark areas. Not great for huge blow up posters, but perfectly fine for 8x0 and lower.

I don't have the Sigma, so not sure of it's performance, but you should be able to get similar results with this on your 40D for wider shots.

I don't have the original with me to check the EXIF, but I'm pretty sure this gymnastics shot was 1DmIII, 70-200 f2.8 at 1/1000, ISO 6400.
Will try to get back and confirm tonight.

Graham Cracker

Techv wrote:

How high do you have your ISO? Crank it up all the way and see how it turns out.

I've used the 1DmIII with the 70-200 2.8 for indoor sports photography (mostly gymnastics) with no flash. The high ISO means a lot more noise than you would get from ISO 100, of course, but the noise is mostly in the dark areas. Not great for huge blow up posters, but perfectly fine for 8x0 and lower.

I don't have the Sigma, so not sure of it's performance, but you should be able to get similar results with this on your 40D for wider shots.

I don't have the original with me to check the EXIF, but I'm pretty sure this gymnastics shot was 1DmIII, 70-200 f2.8 at 1/1000, ISO 6400.
Will try to get back and confirm tonight.

I have gone to 6400. Depending upon the lighting. Sometimes I get up in the stands to be able to get the entire group. I tried shooting in .jpeg so I could have more burst to catch the action but of course the high ISO works against me. the routine is only 2.5 minutes and very fast tumbling. HEre are a couple with my 40D. Just not a crisp as I want.

EXIF data is same as other picture except Exposure bias was 2/3EV and taken with Canon 70-200mm at 70 mm focal length

Graham Cracker

Here is a second one. Exp: 1/250 sec at f/4.5, focal length 30mm, Exposure -2/3 EV, ISO 3200 Canon 40D 24-70mm Sigma

mercphoto

Graham Cracker wrote:

I have gone to 6400. Depending upon the lighting. Sometimes I get up in the stands to be able to get the entire group. I tried shooting in .jpeg so I could have more burst to catch the action but of course the high ISO works against me. the routine is only 2.5 minutes and very fast tumbling. HEre are a couple with my 40D. Just not a crisp as I want.

What was your aperture, shutter speed. Your thumbnails were awfully small to judge anything by, please post a larger image. I guess you're trying for a large depth of field in these shots? If so, gonna be tough without strobes.

Graham Cracker

mercphoto wrote:

What was your aperture, shutter speed. Your thumbnails were awfully small to judge anything by, please post a larger image. I guess you're trying for a large depth of field in these shots? If so, gonna be tough without strobes.

I just went back and added EXIF. I am embarrassed to say that I went to Photoshop resized photos to meet upload requirements but obviously don't know the correct settings. Do I change the pixels settings below 72? Does this allow me to have a bigger picture but smaller file size? Thanks and yes I am trying to get depth of field.

mercphoto

Graham Cracker wrote:

I just went back and added EXIF. I am embarrassed to say that I went to Photoshop resized photos to meet upload requirements but obviously don't know the correct settings. Do I change the pixels settings below 72? Does this allow me to have a bigger picture but smaller file size? Thanks and yes I am trying to get depth of field.

I expect 1/250 shutter speed is just not going to stop the motion in the participants to give you the crispness you are wanting. Shooting at f/4.5 in dim light without strobes, don't know what to tell you. Go to maximum ISO and just live with the noise. Having noise in an image is better than not having the image at all.

Regarding the images for posting, dpi is meaningless. Meaningless. Meaningless. All that matters are pixel counts. Resize to 600 by 900 pixels and try again.

Graham Cracker

Regarding the images for posting, dpi is meaningless. Meaningless. Meaningless. All that matters are pixel counts. Resize to 600 by 900 pixels and try again.

I must be stupid. I went into light room and clicked export 900 x 600 and it still is too large to upload. Thanks for the input. I didn't know if someone had used a f/2 or 1.8 lens for something like this and it worked.

cletus

Patrick,

Do you have these pics up on your Smugmug site? If so, you're much better off posting your images this way. Attaching them like you have here places severe size restrictions on you.

Graham Cracker

cletus wrote:

Patrick,

Do you have these pics up on your Smugmug site? If so, you're much better off posting your images this way. Attaching them like you have here places severe size restrictions on you.

I do, How do I select just the particular photos I want? Select the picture then enter the address in my browser? Like so?
http://patrickgraham.smugmug.com/Brookstone-School-2008-2009/Varsity-Cheerleading/Cheerleading-Competition-1/6058476_x5kEZ#379789915_jWPff Thanks
And the second photo is http://patrickgraham.smugmug.com/Brookstone-School-2008-2009/Varsity-Cheerleading/Cheerleading-State/6515739_8dEQG#414049591_SJSr6

cletus

Patrick,

No, you don't need to provide links into your gallery like that. Type your post, when you want to insert a pic, go to your Smugmug gallery, browse to the pic you want, and then click on Get a Link in the Share dropdown:



On the Get a Link page, click the Copy button for the large size (or which ever size you want):



Then come back to dgrin and click the picture button in the post editor:



In the dialog that opens up, paste in the URL for your picture (which was copied to your clipboard in the previous step):



Click OK and your done!

Give it a try and see if it works for you.

Graham Cracker

Thanks cletus! Much easier!

mercphoto

Motion blur for sure. 1/250 is not fast enough. You either need a faster shutter, or you need strobes.

Techv

Graham Cracker wrote:

I must be stupid. I went into light room and clicked export 900 x 600 and it still is too large to upload. Thanks for the input. I didn't know if someone had used a f/2 or 1.8 lens for something like this and it worked.

I used the 80mm 1.8 at the same gym meet on an 1DmII (only goes to 3200ISO) to shoot beam events. It works well at letting in more light, but your DOF is basically gone. A gymnast with her leg extended in front of her will have her knee-to-toe soft-to-blurred while her face is in focus. You typically won't get more than a single athlete in focus with these wide lenses.

(Even if you're shooting directly at the competition area from front center, the sides of the front row is further from your lens than the center of the same row!)

Techv

Here's another gymnastics photo that shows the DOF of the fast lens even better since you can see the sharpness fall off along the length of the beam.

Graham Cracker

Techv wrote:

Here's another gymnastics photo that shows the DOF of the fast lens even better since you can see the sharpness fall off along the length of the beam.

Nice pictures. I think I am going to give up on group and focus on pyramids and individual stunts and just crank it up to 6400. Thanks for the help and instruction.

austinado16

Graham Cracker wrote:

Nice pictures. I think I am going to give up on group and focus on pyramids and individual stunts and just crank it up to 6400. Thanks for the help and instruction.

I'm shooting gymnastics right now with a 50D and you can check out some of the excellent advice I've received on the thread that I started, "Shooting Gymnastics: Canon vs. Nikon, your choice"

Seems like 1/500th is sort of the minumum for stopping hand and foot motion. Anthing slower and the feet and hands start to blur unless you can catch peak action.

I think it's going to be tough to get good group shots because the DOF is only about 12"-18" it seems. You might be better off doing closer individual shots of action, then as you say, do the pyramids and other stopped action at a slower shutter speed with a higher F stop, maybe on a monopod?

Rocketman766

Since I am still learning and have a long way to go, I don't know what I can contribute that others haven't already said, but I have been reading and re-reading this thread for the past 30 minutes and really wish I could lend some good advice. As Austinado16 said, check out his thread...lots of great info in there.

I shot my daughter's team last year with an Xsi and a couple rented lenses (70-200mm f/2.8L IS and Non-IS and a 17-55 f/2.8 IS USM) and two that I purchased, a Sigma 50-150mm f/2.8 and a EF 100mm f/2.0 USM. As you are well aware, the lighting for the cheer events is normally not good at all. I think I shot every event in Manual so I could set the shutter speed a bit higher. This did result in an underexposed shot (many times too underexposed...not good) many times. I always shot in Raw and relied heavily on Photoshop to rescue me. Sometimes I needed it alot more than others. One event I did use my 100mm f/2.0 and was able to get some decent shots, but missed some shots due to the lack of zoom.
I have since upgraded to a 1DMKIII and purchased an EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM and am currently looking into a few more lenses before the season starts. My first event is in 2 weeks..

Unless you are specifically committed to the wide angle group shots, I would suggest getting a 135mm f/2.0L USM or maybe a 85mm f/1.8 and shoot singles. Are you shooting in AI Servo? I would also shoot in Raw. I would suggest using a monopod, but if you are shooting from the stands, that might not help too much (other people causing the stands to shake, etc.). Are you using a single focal point or autofocus? What button are you using for focus? Once I changed to * for focus, I felt my shots got a bit better. The blue cheer floor doesn't help. If you could make your way to the front of the bleachers, a light background ( if available ) might help lighten things up and maybe even get your shutter speed up some.

Hope this didn't seem like senseless rambling, like I said earlier, I still have a long way to go to consider myself actually good enough to give real usable advice... Good luck and post some of your next shots so we can see the progression.