Swim meet, advice please ?

tony larcombe

Hi, I've just been offered the opportunity to photograph a swim meet, this is a new direction for me, anyone got any helpful advice ?

I'm shooting with a 20D, 70-200L f4.0, not sure if I can use my flash or not.

Thanks,
Tony.

Andy

tony larcombe wrote:

Hi, I've just been offered the opportunity to photograph a swim meet, this is a new direction for me, anyone got any helpful advice ?

I'm shooting with a 20D, 70-200L f4.0, not sure if I can use my flash or not.

Thanks,
Tony.

You're in the Northeast, IIRC, right? So I imagine it's an indoor meet. Flash will most certainly be NOT allowed - distracting! So plan on NO flash. You'll need to get fast enough shutter speed, Tony. I'd like to be at 1/500th but even higher if possible. I don't think you'll get that, not at f/4 - but here are my tips:

* get or rent faster glass. 200L f/2.8, 70-200L f/2.8, etc.
* shoot wide open
* depending on the source of man-made lights, and / or outside sunlight coming in (skylights - windows), you may want to dial in negative ec -1/3, -2/3s.
* shoot in RAW so you can get more exposure latitude in post. Also this will help for the hinky whitebalance that indoor venues like this will give you.
* AI Servo, center focus, evaluative metering.
* scout the location - find out where you'll be shooting from. BEST BET: shoot a practice. Get permission from the coach.

Hope this helps!

tony larcombe

Thanks Andy, yes North East, 30 miles west out of Philly.

I was also thinking of upping the ISO. I'm not sure I'll have the time to rent a 2.8 beforehand, would upping the ISO to 1600 or 3200 give me the speed that I need ?

I like your idea of shooting a practice first, I'll certanily look into it.

Tony.

Andy

tony larcombe wrote:

Thanks Andy, yes North East, 30 miles west out of Philly.

I was also thinking of upping the ISO. I'm not sure I'll have the time to rent a 2.8 beforehand, would upping the ISO to 1600 or 3200 give me the speed that I need ?

I like your idea of shooting a practice first, I'll certanily look into it.

Tony.

1600 probably will be required. Shoot the practice and let us know, share the pics

Andy

Tony - be prepared for so-so results. I know guys who shoot with a 200 f/1.8 ($4-$5K used) Canon L for this purpose - it's a tough nut to crack @ f/4. Can be done though, but I *really* suggest scouting the venue first.

tony larcombe

Andy wrote:

Tony - be prepared for so-so results. I know guys who shoot with a 200 f/1.8 ($4-$5K used) Canon L for this purpose - it's a tough nut to crack @ f/4. Can be done though, but I *really* suggest scouting the venue first.

Andy, this is the advice I wanted, I'll look into renting something a little faster for the venue (may try mine for the practice though !), this is the first time that I've done this, hopefully the results will make it not the last

Andy

tony larcombe wrote:

Andy, this is the advice I wanted, I'll look into renting something a little faster for the venue (may try mine for the practice though !), this is the first time that I've done this, hopefully the results will make it not the last

I'm passing you good karma for lots of skylights at that pool

tony larcombe

Just spoke to someone from the club, no skylights and no windows ! the good karma didn't work Andy

Andy

Canon 200 f/2.8L is about $550 ish.
Canon 85 f/1.8 is only about $330 ish.

You could look into rentals. Keeble & Schuchat do nice rentals. They'll ship, too.

tony larcombe

Andy, thanks for the rental link, unfortunately there's no chance of me buying a new lens at this point in time, my business manager (the wife) said so !

I was wondering, excuse my ignorance, why did you originally say cut down the exposure compensation ? is that for the extra speed, or for the water reflections ?

winger

I LOVE SHOOTING SWIMMING!!!! partly because its such a challenging sport to capture.

But totally scope out the venue and shoot a practice (alot of times you can get better photos at practice than you can at meets) And dont get too fustrated at the timing of shots, with swimming you really have very little windows of "face time"

When scouting the venue think of backgrounds....places where you can stand where you can get nice clean shots of the swimmers without distractiing backgrounds. Even more challenging is diving.

Another thing to look for is reaction shots. Swimmers are great at cheering each other on, look for faces on the crowd trying to cheer a swimmer in a close race, and ALSO look for reaction shots, usually when the swimmers get to the end, they will look up at the time board. This is where you will get the fist pumps and stuff.












And of course the SEA MONSTER!!!


I wish there was more swimming to shoot, cause its challenging and I would love to get more time with it. but have fun and be ready to get your feet wet, literally.

TomaS

I have been shooting indoor swim meets for a couple of months with a D70 and Sigma 70-200 f2.8. Results without flash are not worth mentioning. Artificial lights and no skylights are the pits. And the D70 has LOTS of noise above ASA 400.

After talking with officials, I was allowed to use flash as long as I did not shoot at the start when a strobe flashed for the swimmers. At 1/500 and my very capable SB-800, I can get some decent results. I will post if you want to see samples.

Yes - shooting at practices helped me to dial in my settings.

tony larcombe

Thank you Winger, great shots, if I can come away with anything half as good as that I'll be more than happy.

Can you tell me what your set up is please ? just wondering how you captured those fantastic shots.