MMA Western PA

MMAshooter

I see so many great photos out there so I thought I would post from the dungeon where I do my work. The challenges are, poor lighting, (here's a good one) mixed lighting: tungsten, florescent and halogen all lighting the same areas, arrg! Then there is (usually) the need to shoot through the cage. My biggest challenge is white balance, it seems to change depending on the position in the cage. Thoughts?

Qarik

you captured a great moment in time, but it is soft and colors are everywhere (perhaps due to the poor lighting as you described). I'd maybe go BW on this

AceCo55

Excellent timing - not a place to be if you are feeling on top of your game.
Agree about the softness.
Look forward to seeing more.

Zerodog

Great action! Bad color, focus and composition.

MMA can be very challenging to shoot. Lots of factors are not in your favor. #1 is light. #2 is the fence. #3 is really fast unpredictable action.

Here is my basic setup for MMA

I either use Kelvin for WB or use an Expodisk. Shoot RAW, Full Manual. If shooting through cage use f2.8 and get as close to fence as possible. I try to keep shutter speed above 1/800. But this can mean ISO of 12,800 or even as high as 20,000 for some shows.

Color and light can shift bigtime near the edges of a ring with most light setups. I might shoot 1/1200 in the center of a ring and 1/800 or less on the edges. Know your locations and adjust your exposure for it when the action goes there.

In the end you could have everything as good as it will get and you still are not happy with color, focus or some other non fixable problem. The answer is B&W. It makes an otherwise crappy picture cool! I believe this is why photojournalists use it so much! For this image, it is out of focus, too far away and has weird color. But, it has great action. This is a perfect candidate for B&W. Crank up the blacks and the whites get some contrast really pumping add lots of clarity to it. BOOOM!!! It will look about 300% cooler!