Indoor arena settings

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Katie
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I was wondering if anyone could give me some tips as to what settings to use without using the flash. I have a Canon 7D with a 70-200 f4 IS lens.

There is a horse jumping competition coming up with some large jumping classes in the indoor arena and I would love to get some good pictures. The indoor arena is undercover but open on three sides and the lighting is fairly average.

I would love to know what IOS, shutter speed, focus technique, etc. that others use so that I am a bit prepared. Thanks so much in advance :)
 
Assuming the lighting in the arena is fairly even, then put the camera into manual mode.

As it'll no doubt be quite dark, you're going to have to juggle shutter speed, ISO and aperture.

The first thing you'll need to set is your shutter speed. You want it fast enough to freeze the action as much as possible. Too fast though and you'll run out of aperture and/or ISO. So start of at 1/500th.

Set the aperture to the widest setting of f/4.

Now you need to adjust the ISO to get the correct exposure. If you can stay under 3200, so much the better. As you increase the ISO, the image quality degrades as I'm sure you know, so use the lowest possible ISO you can.

If you find the ISO you need is getting v high (say 6400), then you can trade off ISO for shutter speed, and drop the shutter speed a bit. Note that this will result in movement being evident in your pictures so you need to decide if you want that, or you are happy with noisy pictures.

If you've run out of ISO, and aperture, you then need adjust the only thing you have left is shutter speed. You can minimise the effects of movement by adjusting your positioning to be head-on to the horses rather than side-on. You should be able to get away with 1/320th just.

Also, you can be arty and have a v-low shutter speed and pan from the side.

Because the arena is open on 3 sides, you'll be best shooting towards the dark background with the light behind you.

If part of the arena is brightly lit and the other part is in dark shadow, decide which you want to shoot, and set up your exposure accordingly.

Camera in AI Servo. Use centre-point only focusing and keep the point on the subject. Shutter set to rapid fire mode. Shoot bursts of 3-4 shots at the key moment. Turn the focus confirm beep off. Turn the screen auto-review off so it doesn't distract you while you are shooting a burst.
 
Word for Word what Tobers said ...

But I would probably stay away from the arty and pan... just crank up the iso... but thats just me :)
 
Thanks so much Tobers, that was exactly the advice I needed. I'll give it a go and hopefully will come back with some decent shots
:)
 
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