swimming!

Elaine

Some recent shots from my son's swim meets, shot with the Canon 7D and the 135 f/2 L, the 70-200 f/4 L IS or the 17-55 2.8 IS.

1 - 135 f/2, 1/1250, ISO 1600


2 - 135 f/2, 1/2000, ISO 1600


3 - 135 f/2, 1/1250, ISO 1600


4 - 135 f/2, 1/1250, ISO 1600


5 - I know I clipped his hand on the left, but this is my 9 year old, so it's still a keeper for me. 135 f/2, 1/2500, ISO 2000


6 - 135 f/2, 1/2500, ISO 2000


7 - This one is softer than I'd like because I accidentally let my shutter speed slip down to 1/400. 70-200 f/4, 1/400, ISO 2000


8 - 17-55 f/2.8, 1/1000, ISO 2000


I shot these in jpeg and added anywhere from +.10 to +.90 exposure in LR3.
Shooting swimming is hard!! Some venues are better than others. I'm still trying to figure this all out.

time2smile

Best I've seen in a long time, lighting is always the worst, unless you do outside meets and then you need to worry about harsh sun.
That 135 F2 must be sweet for this..

Elaine

time2smile wrote: »

Best I've seen in a long time, lighting is always the worst, unless you do outside meets and then you need to worry about harsh sun.
That 135 F2 must be sweet for this..

Hey, thanks! Yes, the lighting is always a challenge. This venue has fairly even lighting due to a greenhouse style design, but I still had to shoot at ISO 1600+ and then adjust some exposures in post. This was my first try at using the 135 f/2. It was tough to get it right because of that super shallow DOF. But when I did, I loved it.

kdog

These look great, Elaine. Did you use servo mode at all on these? It's amazing how good that 135 looks wide open.

Regards,
-joel

Elaine

kdog wrote: »

These look great, Elaine. Did you use servo mode at all on these? It's amazing how good that 135 looks wide open.

Regards,
-joel

Yes, I used AI Servo and rapid-fire for all of these. I added some more specific info for each shot above. The 135 is terrific wide open, but landing the shot focused in the right place with all that movement is hard! I had so many that were just slightly off. For some reason, though, I had much better luck getting focused shots when I was able to focus on just one person and close-up, as many of these are, rather than group shots. The focus seemed to just get lost with groups and nothing would be sharp. This lens is a rental and I have to send it back today, so no more practicing for now!

Cycle11111

Swimming is hard. I take pictures of all my kids sports and due to venues and angles for shots I find it is way tougher than tennis, vball etc. I have shot tons of swimming as my son is a club and high school swimmer. One thing I always do with swimming is shot RAW as post processing can really help on some swimming pictures and you need all the info - it is amazing in LR or Aperture of PSE how you can get the color to really pop if you have all that RAW info. Did you try with the ISO down around 800-1000 some - I find I get better color saturation when I do that for swimming. I may try your 135 F/2 rental idea as those shots I really like and the razor thin DOF did not seem to be an issue. I will be shooting a 50m meet this weekend and will take my 85mm prime and my 70-200 F/2.8 so will try and post some.

donek

They look nice. The exposures are good. I'm always trying to figure out something different and have an idea, although I don't shoot swimming. Could you mount a gopro under the starting block and get someone as they take off for the backstroke. Wide Angle, and interesting image that's likely to be difficult to get otherwise.

FlyNavy

Nice work.

jhefti

Very nice work, Elaine! I bought a 135/f2 a couple of months ago, and love it. I can also relate to the DOF issues shooting wide open.

One habit that has worked well for me when I am shooting in difficult lighting--usually indoor sports--is to shoot in RAW. This will give you much more flexibility on WB setting and color correction. In my experience, shooting under artificial light really whacks out the colors, and it is often not possible to correct them in PP. I know it adds a little to the workflow, but it's worth it--especially for that one great shot!

Elaine

Thanks, all! I will say that the only reason I shot jpeg at this event is because my largest CF card is 8 GB, and raw files from the 7D are large and my cards fill up way too fast when I'm shooting sports on rapid-fire. I shoot raw 99% of the time normally. I'm not a fan of editing white balance on jpeg files.

jimqjr

One question did you shoot in manual mode? Pics look very clear. One thing to remember you need to shoot f18 or more to get even an opportunity to get more swimmers in focus. You are all ready shooting high iso and very high shutter speeds at f2. You could bring the shutter speed down to 1,000 but that will not get you anywhere close to f18. Detail is always an issue when trying to get a great picture of various moving objects when they are not all on the same plain. Grab a sports mag and look for a photo on multiple people in one shot. Typically they will not be your largest picture if you can find one. Then look close at the detail you will find that it is not there. Remember your camera sees one dimensional so if you draw a straight line from eyeball to eyeball of all the people in the picture and you use one point of focus not multiple points that makes an average you will see that all the eyeballs that fall on the line will be in focus. I hope that what I am trying to explain is as clear are night. Landscape is shot with large f stop numbers through a pinhole on a tripod at slow shutterspeeds using a wide angle lens usually. Everything pretty clear but your not looking for detail the size of an eyeball. Sports we try to shot or want the same quality that one would take in a portrait both are tough to do. Your opportunity to get there will be to focus on one person single point of focus and then ask yourself what if anything do the rest of the people add to the picture. Sports people say crop and crop some more why usually everything doesn't tell the story.
Have fun your doing great.
If their your kids those are the pictures you want the win the determination, excitement, disappointment, be careful with that one. The peak of the action is always the most fun just like the full smile the point at which the eyes sparkle. You get the point.

Darrak

Love the look of the water in #1. It looks so "touchable".

SwimShooter

Hi Elaine, I shoot swimming year round indoor and outdoor. Nice shots. Couple of suggestions.

Are you shooting LANDSCAPE mode to get the water as blue as possible?
I would lower the exposure on these just a bit. Colors in #8 are very nice.
If you can squat down lower that will give the "coming right at you" perspective. Never looks as good when you are standing or bent over.

I would suggest staying in Av at f/2.8. SS needs to be at least 1/500 to be good but the higher the better. Keep your ISO as low as you can while maintaining 1/500 or higher SS. You don't want to ever shoot swimming in Manual mode unless you have a camera with auto ISO because the lighting changes too much from one end of the pool to the other as you are shooting a race.

Good Luck.