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Showdown Fight Night! More Utah MMA
Friday night weigh ins.
My WB setting helpers doing their best to look tough.
These guys were the main event. They were having too much fun. Very cool guys with amazing dedication to the sport.
This is me with Urijah Faber. Team Alpha Male was there supporting one of their fighters Justin Buchholz. Very cool meet Urijah and have such a famous dude in Utah at one of our events. He was very nice and tolerated lots of picture taking with fans.
Fight night!
#1 These guys were the only fight to go to decision out of 12. All others ended in TKOs, stoppage by the ref or Submissions. One dude was even choked unconscious.
#2 I love the way this came out. The logo being fully visible and how big the cage looks does it for me in this one.
#3 This fight lasted something like 35 seconds. This was the pounding before the choke out. Amazingly fast fight for how much action went down.
#4 Nice and tight!
My WB setting helpers doing their best to look tough.
These guys were the main event. They were having too much fun. Very cool guys with amazing dedication to the sport.
This is me with Urijah Faber. Team Alpha Male was there supporting one of their fighters Justin Buchholz. Very cool meet Urijah and have such a famous dude in Utah at one of our events. He was very nice and tolerated lots of picture taking with fans.
Fight night!
#1 These guys were the only fight to go to decision out of 12. All others ended in TKOs, stoppage by the ref or Submissions. One dude was even choked unconscious.
#2 I love the way this came out. The logo being fully visible and how big the cage looks does it for me in this one.
#3 This fight lasted something like 35 seconds. This was the pounding before the choke out. Amazingly fast fight for how much action went down.
#4 Nice and tight!
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Comments
These are really good.
Looks like you have access. What kind of lighting is available? What were your camera settings?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Sam
I am the photographer for the promoter so I have any access I want for this show. I get to stand up on a speaker stand right next to the gate of the cage. This makes life easy. I can relax and lean on the nice padded top of the cage and just hang out. The light for any fight sport is ambient. No flash is allowed and is very frowned upon. For this show the light was awesome. By far the brightest of any event I have ever shot.
Settings for this on the D3s were ISO 5000, 1/1250 - 1/2000 depending on where they were in the ring, and all f4 to get more DOF on the fighters. I should have bumped the ISO to 6400 or even 8000 to push the shutter speed up closer to 3000. Stuff would have been even sharper. I think 2.8 is not enough at all most of the time. Everything is on angles so usually you only get 1 person partially in focus. f4 gives more latitude for this. I used the 80-200 for about half the time then switched out to the 24-70 for the last half. It just seemed to be that way that night.
Settings on my 300s were actually really usable this time. ISO 2500 1/400-1/640 f3.5? I think. I ended up shooting a lot with it, so that is one of the reasons I swapped lenses.
Some nights it is just that way. I really try to force myself to use the 80-200 on the D3s. It is just better and closer. But close can be too close. This night I was a magnet for the fighters and multiple times I was holding the camera over my head and just shooting away straight down. The dude getting choked was almost directly below me. This is the reason I am very drawn to the 24-120 f4 lens. I like f4 and that range would be close to ideal for covering most of a ring. I could reserve the 80-200 for closeup ground action on the 300s. I can get away with slower shutter speeds then.
Those Nikon's are really good at high ISO!
Sam
Yes Sir!
Love the shot w/ Urijah, He always seemed to be a class act & carry himself well with the public.
https://www.flickr.com/people/scardenphoto/