Gymnastics: I'm A Sports Photographer Now?

Hikin' Mike · September 18, 2007

First post on this section. I'm a landscape/nature photographer....but I have two little girls. Here's a few snapshots of my daughter's gymnastic tournament Sunday. Shot with Canon 300D, 70-200 f/4L, ISO 1600, 1/60 - 1/125 sec, f/4. We have another tournament this weekend and hopefully I get my new 5D on Friday!

Cuong · September 18, 2007

Mike, nice effort. Gymnastics competition is very challenging to shoot because the indoor lighting is lousy, you can't use flash, and they don't let you move around much. You need fast and long lenses and high ISO. I've found even shutter speed of 1/250 is still not enough to stop the action. My suggestion is to bump up the ISO (try 3200) on your 5D to get even faster shutter speed since your largest aperture is f/4. Also use custom white balance so you don't get color cast from the gym lighting. Good luck with the season.

Cuong

Hikin' Mike · September 18, 2007

yukio wrote:

Mike, nice effort. Gymnastics competition is very challenging to shoot because the indoor lighting is lousy, you can't use flash, and they don't let you move around much. You need fast and long lenses and high ISO. I've found even shutter speed of 1/250 is still not enough to stop the action. My suggestion is to bump up the ISO (try 3200) on your 5D to get even faster shutter speed since your largest aperture is f/4. Also use custom white balance so you don't get color cast from the gym lighting. Good luck with the season.

Cuong

I'm in a wheelchair, so moving around is not going to happen! I did have to use a custom WB after post because of the color cast. Looking forward to trying ISO 3200...:ivar

Thanks for the suggestions!

NewTekBuzz · September 18, 2007

Hi Hikin' mike,
The shots look pretty good for ISO1600. I dont think you will be happy with ISO3200. if you want to get better shots... I think you will need faster glass, still good shots.

Tim

JoeL · September 19, 2007

Mike,

Welcome to the wild world of sports shooting, theres a lot of good photographers on here that will offer up plenty of great advice and positive critique...

A couple suggestions,,, I would not try shooting ISO 3200, the snapshots you posted are really grainy, noisy and all but two are out of focus.

Gymnastics, volleyball, basketball and any other indoor sport is really tough to shoot and without the right equipment you will always get marginal snapshots that are only good to the person that took them.

Trying to use a high ISO to compensate for slow lens or lack of flash is usually a bad choice.

In landscape and nature photography the slow lens are just what you need, trying to use them for indoor sports they are pretty much useless.

If your planning on shooting sports you will need to invest in the right tools for the job like fast glass and a good flash along with a camera body that’s capable of shooting enough FPS to get the peak action as it happens.

Also you have got to shoot much, much tighter than the images you posted and for real sports shots you will need to shoot them vertical not horizontal.

When it comes to sports you also need to shoot super tight unless something’s going on around the action that will help support the image.

One of the most important things about sports/action shooting is the images need to have faces, eyes and expressions so shooting backs or sides will be a waste of time 99.9% of the time..

The snapshots you posted are going to look worse if you crop them tight because the noise and grain will increase to the point where they are no good.

My suggestion would be to borrow or rent a fast lens like a 70-200 f/2.8 and start shooting. With a 2.8 you will be able to keep the shutter speed up high enough (500) to stop most action. Most amateur events along with most high school events will let you use flash so catching the action and freezing it becomes much easier. At the College or Pro level flash is prohibited unless you have strobes in the ceiling/roof.

The f/4 you have may get you fair images with a flash but you will have to shoot really tight and keep the frame filled otherwise your not gonna get clean, crisp, sharp images.

In all my indoor sports where I can use a flash I shoot at ISO 640, if it is a really bad arena or gym with bad lighting I will bump it up to ISO 800 and that’s using the 80-200 f/2.8 set on manual with the flash sync set at a shutter speed of 500 with a custom white balance set with the "Expo Disc". With strobes in the ceiling/roof I shoot at ISO 200.

Hope this helps a little...

Joe

Hikin' Mike · September 19, 2007

Unfortunately they don't allow flash. This was my first time trying to shoot her gymnastic meet. I do wish I had zoomed up a bit more, but there's always next time! I'm in a fiexd income, so money is tight so I have to use with what I have right now.

My daughter has another meet on Saturday and I'm looking forward to trying the suggestions here and trying to learn my new 5D!

Thanks for the suggestions and I'll post some new photos next week... :ivar

ian408 · September 20, 2007

Looks like you grabbed some nice shots! I do like that last one. Action!

Backgrounds are kinda tough to control. Perhaps using DOF might help you
blur them a bit?

Icebear · September 21, 2007

Vertical format
Shooting in a vertical format will allow you to zoom in a bit more. Doing that will devote more of your pixels to your subject, and also tend to reduce your DOF and minimize those annoying backgrounds. Of course zooming in more means more camera shake and blah, blah, blah.

Gymnastics: I'm A Sports Photographer Now?

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