Indoor Swim Meet

jonh68

This was my first swim meet. I found the backstroke and butterfly stroke usually make for the best face shots. By the time I got a good feel for taking swim meet pics, it was over, but I am better prepared for the next one. These were taken with the 85mm.











Started to use flash bounce

gus

Tough light you had there jonh, you did very well. I have never tried photographing any indoor sports. Looks like your use of flash bounce worked well.

jonh68

gus wrote:

Tough light you had there jonh, you did very well. I have never tried photographing any indoor sports. Looks like your use of flash bounce worked well.

Should have used it sooner. I just assumed flash couldn't be allowed, but I started to see swimmers, parents etc using flash so I gave it a go.

I love flash bounce and I am tempted to get something stronger than the sb400. I am suprised at how much the sb400 produces in gyms and high ceilings. Just enough for the 85 to pick up.

Airedrifter

You had some real light -- from this weekend/
I hope I'm not hijacking your thread too much...

I went to my daughter's college meet in DC yesterday. It was like shooting in a cave.

iso1600 and 2.8 and not very good.

This one demonstrates some power.

jonh68

Nah! I don't see too many indoor swim meets pics! It's one of the toughest sports I have shot because it's hard to get a face shot and the lighting is worse than a gym sometimes.

Katie Beth

Nice pics!

I did a summer swim team photo fundraiser this year with my first D-SLR (Rebel XTi) and a 28-105 f/3.5-4.5 lens. Outdoors was no problem but indoors was pretty tough with the aperatures I had to work with:whew. I'm no pro but I learned a lot this summer! I absolutely love the challenge and love to see the interesting images that get captured...cool water patterns, facial expressions...

I've switched to a 40D (mainly for the faster fps rate) and now have a 50 f/1.8 and 100 f/2.0 and it's much easier to get great indoor pics, usually at 800 ISO.

Here's one I did this summer with the f/3.5-4.5 lens indoors:
184746713-S-4.jpg

Katie Beth

jonh68 wrote:

Should have used it sooner. I just assumed flash couldn't be allowed, but I started to see swimmers, parents etc using flash so I gave it a go.

I wasn't able to use flash during our swim meets. They do not allow flash at the starts because the starter systems not only make a noise but also put out a flash of light and they "don't want the swimmers to get confused and have a false start." They also discourage using it the rest of the time. At the time I only had my built-in flash anyway...

Airedrifter

Another meet yesterday, a little better.


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Option1

Some fantastic compositions John and Mike. Some of them are quite different from the usual. Particularly love John's first image of the still water reflecting things, and Mike's backstroker ready to go.

Great stuff under obviously tough lighting.

Neil