Amateur Boxing

meehaja

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James
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I recently tried to photograph a number of amateur boxing matches for the club I train with. The venue was fairly dark, and obviously the fighters were moving quite quickly. Added to that, the seats were low down so all pictures were taken through the ropes. All in it was a bit of a photographic nightmare!

I was aiming for gritty, old fashioned looking photos, and the picture below features slightly washed out contrast for that faded snap look, but it's a bit grittier than I hoped for. Given the conditions I had to have the ISO as high as possible, and pictures were still under exposed! Flash wouldn't be appropriate in the venue and I couldn't realistically get up on the ring side for better shots.

Has anyone else any experience of photographing boxing or martial arts in low light? I was using a Nikon D90, with the 18-105 kit lens generally at 105mm with the aperture as open as I could get it (f5.6) ISO was 6400 I think.

6187611253

6187611253_d0c8a3cff7.jpg" width="379" height="500" alt="60 seconds">


http://www.flickr.com/photos/34365259@N07/6187611253/

I can't work out this picture posting and I've just finished a 12 hour night shift!
 
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For this sort of work you need a fast lens. 2.8 minimum.
Last time I shot boxing was with a 50mm 1.4. I was shooting at iso3200,6400 to get a decent shutter speed.
 
I was going to try using my 50mm 1.8 but to be honest I just couldn't get close enough! Looking at other peoples work, grainy, high noise images seem to be the standard (though not as noisy as mine).

I'll just have to see if I can get closer next time!
 
I was ringside so proximity was not a problem.

6188434897_817e02291e_z.jpg

iso6400 1/500th

6188433513_5c2ae77a85_z.jpg

iso6400 1/640th
 
Pity about the WB. Both shots are a bit static and boxing can give some fantatic action. Nice and sharp though and suspect been through noise reduction software? If so its been well done.
 
Well spotted, ran through Neat image. These were just two of several hundred
shot that night.
 
I have done a load of boxing photography amateur and pro and the lighting is always a problem except for shows that are on tv then the lighting is good.

The only time they dont like you using a flash at boxing shows is if it is on tv so if you got a flash use it.You might find the rope get in the way of the flash at times.

I use a Canon 7d now but for a couple of years I used a Sony a200 and got good action shots.

I will post some of my stuff on here soon as i work out how to do it as I am a newie.
 
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