Gymnastics - Can anyone help with settings, tips etc

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ste1010

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Steve
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Hi

I posted a thread some time back asking for help regarding a lens for shooting Gymnsatics.

I have finally bought a Canon 85mm f1.8 and tried it out this week with some promising results.

The main reason for buying the lens was for my daughters comps, but I have been asked by her coach to try to get as many shots in the gym during training for the gym to use on their website and possibly even sell on to parents to raise funds.

Can anyone please advise on the best settings using a 550d body. I am thinking around focusing, metering etc.

When I was in Gym this week I set the lens wide open and went for the fastest shutter speed possible. I tried both ISO1600 and 3200. Shutter speeds were in the region of 1/500 -1/1200 iirc.

The problem I found was that when I shot multiple frames one or two could come out great, and the other (which was generally the best shot..sods law) had a real loss of brighness across parts of the image. Is there any reason why 3 shots taken within a second of each other could differ so much in terms of lighting/exposure. I will try to post some pics to show this. (not sure it could be the reason, but lighting was flourescent tubes)

The other thing I found was that the 85mm focal length was too long for in the gym, although it will be great when she is competing as I generally get to be pretty close (but not too close).

I was thinking of going for a nifty fifty. Would this work for gymnastics? I have heard the focus can be a bit slow, but I found I was prefocussing most of the time anyway so will this be an issue?

Other options are the sigma 30 f1.4, Canon 50mm f1.4, Canon 28 f1.8 or 35 f2.0. I am going to go back in to gym with my kit lens to see what focal range between 30 and 50mm works best. Are any of the above useful for indoor sports.

any advice is greatly appreciated

Regards

Steve
 
The reason they come out with differnet colour casts in multiple exposures is the lighting that is being used at the venue...I had it the last time I did some gymnastics without the use of flash...
 
Set your white balance for the lighting around you.

Also focus on one area, say just above the horse they are going to jump over and shoot that area only. Don't make the mistake of trying to pan with them as it's a difficult skill to develop. I spent many a weekend going to Motocross events taking photos of the back of the bike or the front before I realized I was making it more difficult for myself than it needed to be.

But I think the reason your having issues is definitely white balance. Do you have the camera set to Auto white balance?
 
Tugster, thanks for your response.

I thought it may have been the case that lighting was the problem. I believe that Flourescent lights flicker very quickly and shooting at fast speeds this may be a probelm. At least I know it is the lighting and not me:-)

Have you any thought on a shorter focal length lens ??
 
ste1010 said:
Tugster, thanks for your response.

I thought it may have been the case that lighting was the problem. I believe that Flourescent lights flicker very quickly and shooting at fast speeds this may be a probelm. At least I know it is the lighting and not me:-)

Have you any thought on a shorter focal length lens ??
Click to expand...

It really does depend on how close you are allowed to get to the action ....Another issue I found was the distracting backgrounds...So a shallow depth of field is quite important.... I use a 70-200 2.8 and a 200 f/2.0 but next time I will be looking at shorter focal lengths....possibly 135 mm and an 85/50mm ...Do your homework and deffo find out your accessabillity to the different areas and also your distances from each of the stances...This will definitely tell you which FL to go for.

When photographing the tumbling routines I had to change settings on the 1D to have the Left and Right focus assist points on and also reduce the AF tracking sensitivity, CF-3-2 set to slower and CF-3-8 to either 1, Left and Right, or 2, Surrounding AF points

This enabled me to keep focus whistlt the gymnast was twisting and turning during the routine. I found it a real pain when using the other settings as the focus kept acquiring the objects behind.
 
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Distance shooting in the Gym is not an issue, I can get as close as I like really.

I think 500mm will be ideal, but I am just concerned the 'nifty fifty' would not be up to the job.
 
ste1010 said:
Distance shooting in the Gym is not an issue, I can get as close as I like really.

I think 500mm will be ideal, but I am just concerned the 'nifty fifty' would not be up to the job.
Click to expand...

I think you mean 50mm not 500 lol....I think the Nifty will do you fine...What are your concerns about using it ? What body are you going to be using...The reason I ask is about the resolution and the crop factor... The lighting in the last one I did was atrocious ...iso 6400 and shooting wide open and getting 1/400th - 1/500th sec shutter speed...
 
yeah, I could probably shoot from home with a 500mm.

My concern with the 50mm 1.8 is I have heard the focussing is a bit hit and miss, especially in low light.

The light isn't too bad to be honest. with the 85mm I was managing to get between 500-1200 sec on ISO 1600/3200 depending on where I was in the Gym.

some of the national comps she has competed in were much worse. She competed at a finals in Birmingham and that was awful. the light was low and all the photo's came out orange/yellow. This was before I got an SLR and learnt about white balance etc.

thanks for your input, most appreciated.
 
Are you shooting manual mode? With constant and consistent lighting I would.. Your inconsistent exposures may be simply due to camera metering?

The 85/1.8 is a much better lens in terms of AF than the nifty fifty or even the 50/1.4. I'd stick with it.

And back-button AF + ai-servo would also be a must for me.
 
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