Indoor Sports Lighting

JSPhotographyJSPhotography Registered Users Posts: 552 Major grins
edited November 10, 2010 in Sports
I put this up on accesories also but I would like sports shooters opinion.

Winter is here and I'm back to shooting indoor events. What kind of set up should I be looking for? Once a month I shoot equestrian, show jumpers, in a pole barn construction, wood rafters but white insulation in the ceiling. I can also shoot some gyms(wrestling and basketball) and a factory building being used for offroad RC car. I saw a guy shootting wrestling with 2 alien bees bounced off the ceiling fired off pocket wizards that seems like a good way to go. He was covering a gym with about 8 mats going. I'm guessing 1600s. Ideas?

Comments

  • JimKarczewskiJimKarczewski Registered Users Posts: 969 Major grins
    edited November 6, 2010
    If you can use flash.. Bouncing is best, but you are going to be limited to 1/200 or 1/250, whatever your max sync is... which should help to freeze the action, but won't be perfect.
  • JSPhotographyJSPhotography Registered Users Posts: 552 Major grins
    edited November 7, 2010
    If you can use flash.. Bouncing is best, but you are going to be limited to 1/200 or 1/250, whatever your max sync is... which should help to freeze the action, but won't be perfect.

    My first thought was "what? your a Canon guy, we have high speed sinc, I shot a full summer of dirt track racing at night with no problems". And then it was duh, the high speed sinc is on the flash unit. Can't i run my exposure below ambient and then use the flash for isolation?

    Either I figure out some lighting or I have to a get a different body to handle high ISO better than my 40D. I don't think I can do better than my 70-200 2.8 for glass. The range is perfect, shorter but faster is not going to work.
  • JimKarczewskiJimKarczewski Registered Users Posts: 969 Major grins
    edited November 9, 2010
    You are still limited to 1/200 or 1/250. Higher ISO will help, but if you cut out too much ambient light, you'll have subjects looking like they are in a cave unless you put 20 lights in there to light things up all over. Hell, sometimes outdoors aren't much better. Just shot football where I couldn't get above 1/250.. flash helped a little (mainly was using to light up under the face mask of the football helmet) and my ISO was 6400 and shooting wide open at 2.8 all night...

    The sports also depend on if you can even use flash... some won't let you.. so, something to consider as well.

    This was a pretty dark indoor shoot. ISO 6400, 2.8, 3.2 sometimes.. but shutter really hovered around 320 or 250
    http://www.jimkarczewski.com/Sports/Wrestling/Middle-school-tourney-Lake/14556923_D9DVW
  • nipprdognipprdog Registered Users Posts: 660 Major grins
    edited November 9, 2010
    This was a pretty dark indoor shoot. ISO 6400, 2.8, 3.2 sometimes.. but shutter really hovered around 320 or 250
    http://www.jimkarczewski.com/Sports/Wrestling/Middle-school-tourney-Lake/14556923_D9DVW

    The photo 'info' says ISO 3200, SS 1/200. headscratch.gif
  • ziggy53ziggy53 Super Moderators Posts: 24,132 moderator
    edited November 9, 2010
    My first thought was "what? your a Canon guy, we have high speed sinc, ...

    This is a repost of my reply to another similar post:

    HSS/FP mode does not necessarily stop action any better than normal flash sync.

    A focal plane shutter travels at the same rate regardless of the shutter speed rating. At faster shutter speeds the leading and trailing edges of the shutter form a slit which travels across the image plane. Since the slit takes the same amount of time to cross the image plane regardless of the width of the slit, any subject motion that occurs during the exposure will record as subject distortion. There is a good description of the cause and effect here:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal-plane_shutter

    http://webs.lanset.com/rcochran/flash/hss.html

    Notice the image distortion that can occur, even with HSS/FP flash.

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-1991-1209-503,_Autorennen_im_Grunewald,_Berlin.jpg

    Stationary target:

    http://webs.lanset.com/rcochran/flash/medres/turnedoff.jpg

    Spinning target with HSS/FP mode flash (1/4000th):

    http://webs.lanset.com/rcochran/flash/medres/s4000.jpg

    Spinning target with normal flash sync, but low power (1/250th):

    http://webs.lanset.com/rcochran/flash/medres/flash.jpg

    Conversely a speedlite used in a single pulse has a typical duration of 1/600th or so, effectively much better at stopping subject motion. At lower power output the flash duration is even shorter. Hummingbird photographers often use multiple, synchronized, low power flashes to produce sufficient light but with extremely short durations.
    ziggy53
    Moderator of the Cameras and Accessories forums
  • JimKarczewskiJimKarczewski Registered Users Posts: 969 Major grins
    edited November 9, 2010
    nipprdog wrote: »
    The photo 'info' says ISO 3200, SS 1/200. headscratch.gif

    Haha. I switched later in the match to bump up to 1/320. I think I started (those were all earlier in the 5 hour day) at 3200 just because the Nikon guy was shooting at 6400.
  • JimKarczewskiJimKarczewski Registered Users Posts: 969 Major grins
    edited November 9, 2010
    I'm sure some of those references Ziggy posted explain HSS is not a single pulse of light.. So what you get is multiple (read: LOWER POWER) pulses of light when in HSS mode with your flash. But there is the down side of shooting 1/200 or 1/250 with the blur artifacts. I know them well because I used to shoot REALLY SLOW shots when I did weddings... 1/20, 1/15 exposures in dark caves of reception halls. However, there I would use rear curtain sync to get the flash to pop @ the end of the exposure rather than the beginning. If you use RCS you have a blur trail behind the person. Using normal (at slow, I don't think it matters at 1/200) it's in front of the subject.
  • toragstorags Registered Users Posts: 4,615 Major grins
    edited November 9, 2010
    You are still limited to 1/200 or 1/250. Higher ISO will help, but if you cut out too much ambient light, you'll have subjects looking like they are in a cave unless you put 20 lights in there to light things up all over. Hell, sometimes outdoors aren't much better. Just shot football where I couldn't get above 1/250.. flash helped a little (mainly was using to light up under the face mask of the football helmet) and my ISO was 6400 and shooting wide open at 2.8 all night...

    The sports also depend on if you can even use flash... some won't let you.. so, something to consider as well.

    This was a pretty dark indoor shoot. ISO 6400, 2.8, 3.2 sometimes.. but shutter really hovered around 320 or 250
    http://www.jimkarczewski.com/Sports/Wrestling/Middle-school-tourney-Lake/14556923_D9DVW

    Looks like your iso was 3200-4000 on pg 1. Really good work at that iso, very impressive

    Rags
    Rags
  • JimKarczewskiJimKarczewski Registered Users Posts: 969 Major grins
    edited November 9, 2010
    torags wrote: »
    Looks like your iso was 3200-4000 on pg 1. Really good work at that iso, very impressive

    Rags

    No noise reduction either, if you can believe it. Didn't touch anything.. but did shoot Medium Jpg all day.. thinking that the sizing down in camera reduces the noise, or so it seems based on my use of the 5DII and sports so far....
  • JSPhotographyJSPhotography Registered Users Posts: 552 Major grins
    edited November 10, 2010
    You are still limited to 1/200 or 1/250. Higher ISO will help, but if you cut out too much ambient light, you'll have subjects looking like they are in a cave unless you put 20 lights in there to light things up all over. Hell, sometimes outdoors aren't much better. Just shot football where I couldn't get above 1/250.. flash helped a little (mainly was using to light up under the face mask of the football helmet) and my ISO was 6400 and shooting wide open at 2.8 all night...

    The sports also depend on if you can even use flash... some won't let you.. so, something to consider as well.

    This was a pretty dark indoor shoot. ISO 6400, 2.8, 3.2 sometimes.. but shutter really hovered around 320 or 250
    http://www.jimkarczewski.com/Sports/Wrestling/Middle-school-tourney-Lake/14556923_D9DVW

    I can't go to 6400 on my 40D and 320 or 250 will not cut it for a horse flying over a jump.
  • JSPhotographyJSPhotography Registered Users Posts: 552 Major grins
    edited November 10, 2010
    No noise reduction either, if you can believe it. Didn't touch anything.. but did shoot Medium Jpg all day.. thinking that the sizing down in camera reduces the noise, or so it seems based on my use of the 5DII and sports so far....

    Now this is interesting. I shoot everything in RAW. If I drop to a medium jpeg I can reduce the noise?
  • JimKarczewskiJimKarczewski Registered Users Posts: 969 Major grins
    edited November 10, 2010
    Now this is interesting. I shoot everything in RAW. If I drop to a medium jpeg I can reduce the noise?

    Something you'd have to play with.. I don't know anything but the 5DII. I would think so, because you are halving the number of pixels (at least M Fine on my cam is 11MP.) So you are combining 4 pixels into 1, which should, in theory, reduce noise. This is what some of the new sensors do on the sensor itself, call "binning" where it combines 4 pixels into 1 to give you a lower signal->noise ratio... which I assume is better than sizing down, but still, sizing down works just fine in camera.
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