Taekwondo / martial arts shooting advice please

mrgas

mrgas

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Hi

On sunday I will be going to a Taekwondo comp where several of our club members including my daughter will be competing

I'm gonna take the camera and try and get some shots , its not something I've attempted before and would be grateful for any advice , the kit I have is a D90 with 18-105 kit lens , 55-200 lens and a 1.4 50mm prime.

obviously I cant use flash so what lens or approach would be best ? do i use the kit lens and alter the iso accordingly so i can use a quick shutter speed to freeze the action or do I use nifty fifty as its my only fast lens ?

any help would be really appreciated

thanks
 
that depends on the available light you got. Anyway, I would suggest the 50mm prime. That will do the job nicely. All you need is a place to stand/move forward - backward and shoot.

But, I would recommend you bring the other two. Just in case :)
 
thanks for reply

what sort of shutter speeds would be a minimum for freezing this kind of action ?
 
Having spent 3 years shooting karate comps, I wouldnt recommend the 50mm unless you can stand right on the edge of the tatame and that is not normally the case at tournaments unless a very small local one. The 55-200 will probably cover the focal length best if you want frame filling images, the speed will be your issue and the light will be at best poor, and at worst, downright unusuable. Lets assume just poor, you will need high ISO - at least 1600 and I have often used 3200 at f2.8 to get a a shutter speed of 1/250. At that speed you will get motion blur on limbs that might be moving at the time, but should be able to freeze body/face most of the time - if you can get quicker, do. The D90 can cope with higher ISO's, so if you have to push it to get the shots, do. Oh yes, shoot in RAW, because WB is a nightmare in most sports halls, so if you need to correct afterwards, you can.

If you can get right on the mat edge, use the 50mm, keep an eye on the action and be prepared to jump out of the way when they get near you :thumbs:

If you daughter is competing, try and get as many practice shots in as you can before she goes on and most of all, have fun, they are usually great entertainment and a real buzz! :D
 
thanks Yv for that reply , very helpful

looks like it could be a struggle with my lenses , hopefully I'll get close enough to try the 50mm

again thanks
 
A shutter speed of 1/200 or faster would be best for teakwondo shooting.

btw you will need a lens that focuses fast, that may be the most critical point here. The kit or the 55-200 will not be fast enough for this :).
 
I've shot lots of judo competitions (with D40, D80 and D90) and concur with Yv - the light will be poor and you'll have to bump the ISO up to get the shutter speed to freeze motion. I ended up buying a 24-70mm f/2.8 - well, you have to have an excuse for SWMBO :D

Your 18-105 will, most likely, be the best lens unless you can get really close to the action. From my experience it's faster to focus than the 55-200 and better IQ anyway.

Good luck :)
 
Just an update

we never managed to get an entry for this comp , so didn't go

She's competing tomorrow at barnsley , so hopefully i'll have some pics to show
 
Hi, thanks for this information, I am completely new to SLR photography, I have recently bought a Canon 550d and after reading up on lenses I have bought a Canon 85mm f1.8 lens because I want to start taking fast action Taekwondo pictures.

I have collected the following information so far:
1. Take all photographs in RAW (I may choose RAW + JPEG)
2. Use Autofocus
3. Lens 85mm @ F1.8
4. Use a shutter speed of 1/200 or faster
5. Use Multi-shot

Is there any other settings I should be using? Any help would be appreciated, I am thinking about using a tripod?

Many thanks...
 
im not expert but i would say speed is your problem especially with TKD as its all kicks so potentially a lot of out of focus legs.

also might be best to set the focus to continues (servo) rather than single shot.

ps make sure you get some pics up for us to see..
 
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Matttalk said:
Hi, thanks for this information, I am completely new to SLR photography, I have recently bought a Canon 550d and after reading up on lenses I have bought a Canon 85mm f1.8 lens because I want to start taking fast action Taekwondo pictures.

I have collected the following information so far:
1. Take all photographs in RAW (I may choose RAW + JPEG)
2. Use Autofocus
3. Lens 85mm @ F1.8
4. Use a shutter speed of 1/200 or faster
5. Use Multi-shot

Is there any other settings I should be using? Any help would be appreciated, I am thinking about using a tripod?

Many thanks...
Click to expand...

if using your 85mm at 1.8 you will find in hard to get what you need in focus,try if possible to use the biggest aperture you can.
 
Matttalk said:
Hi, thanks for this information, I am completely new to SLR photography, I have recently bought a Canon 550d and after reading up on lenses I have bought a Canon 85mm f1.8 lens because I want to start taking fast action Taekwondo pictures.

I have collected the following information so far:
1. Take all photographs in RAW (I may choose RAW + JPEG)
2. Use Autofocus
3. Lens 85mm @ F1.8
4. Use a shutter speed of 1/200 or faster
5. Use Multi-shot

Is there any other settings I should be using? Any help would be appreciated, I am thinking about using a tripod?

Many thanks...
Click to expand...

The 85/1.8 should be fast enough but unless you can get close to the action it's not going to have enough reach to fill the frame. Be prepared to do a fair bit of cropping to eliminate the stuff you don't want in the photographs.

I generally shoot RAW + jpeg but if these pictures are just for your use then there's no real benefit of doing that. if you're wanting to display your images on a screen at the venue (to sell prints, for example) then the jpeg makes that easier.

I would forget about using a tripod. Aside from the fact that it is too limiting for a rapidly moving sport it's going to be a pain for everyone else. You also won't be popular if some of the contestants crash into it during a bout :)

HTH :)
 
Matttalk said:
Hi and thanks for this information, what sort of ISO should I use?
Click to expand...

As high as you can! I'd say the 550d should handle 1600 iso nicely, and I find processing and converting raws in DPP gives very good results at high iso's so noise should t be a massive issue.
 
The book reads that AI Servo AF is better for continuously auto refocus in multi shooting, also am I best in Manual or CA to ensure that the flash wont go off accidentally?
 
1. Yes AI Servo/continuous is what you want otherwise if you wait for the lens to hit focus, by the time the shutter is released you're subjects have moved.

2. Use a burst frame mode to fire off quick shots in succession - it increases the likelihood that the camera captures the subjects in a good composition.

3. I think you need to be in either full manual or shutter priority mode. To get a good capture shutter speed is the key - otherwise your shots will be too blurry. You might have to experiment to see what speed would be best but I would imagine 1/200s as a minimum. Rake up the ISO as high as you can go before noise becomes an issue for your camera - but a noisy image with good capture of the subjects/focus/sharpness is better than a clean one but with subjects motion blurred and out of focus. Thats where your main compromise will have to be. The final thing to compromise is the aperture but you want to avoid going wide with the aperture as much as possible as it reduces the depth of field (though if you get it right you can get a nice balance between in focus subjects with a blurred background).
 
Thanks everyone, going to try these settings tonight at training so I will let you know how I get on :-)
 
Hi, i am taking some good action pictures, however the biggest problem I have is that although the Canon F1.8 85mm lens provides the speed and the depth to the indoor no flash extremely fast action kicking etc, i have to position myself so far back from the action that other spectators end up obscuring my shots, I need to have a lens which gives the quality of the F1.8 85mm but allows me to get closer, will the Cannon 35mm F2.0 work for me?

Matt
 
Hi mate,

I shot a martial arts comp last weekend using my D90 in Sheffiled. The lighting was average so I had to rely on a fast lens, i used a Sigma 24-70 f2.8, and got some nice results.

Setting wise, I was shooting mainly f2.8 but when i was in the centre of the building where the lights were stronger I was able to get to f3.2 and even some at f4. I had to use an ISO setting of between 1600 and 2500 though but the noise was an acceptable level after post processing with Topaz DeNoise.

Focal length was mainly down the small end and I shot majority of shots at 24mm (which was actually an effective 35ish on my smaller sensor) but I did also go all the way to 70mm when shooting some of the forms.

If your allowed around the mats then i think you'll struggle with the 50mm prime even though its the ideal aperture for you and I think you might struggle with the other 2 lenses too due to focal length and larger minimum apertures. However there was someone shooting with a 55-200 at the event i went too and they have some decent results as they found a good vantage point to use the focal lengths effectively.

Dont discount flash too, i know its largely a no-no but they were happy for flash to be used at the comp i went too. As a person who competes myself I chose not to use it as it can be distracting but the professional photography company who were covering the event WERE using flash!!

Here's a link to the shots I managed to get using my D90: http://www.flickr.com/photos/migcreative/sets/72157626499626899/

Good luck and lets see some of the results you get :thumbs:
 
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I have been shooting quite a bit of Karate recently and agree with Yv.

I find with the younger kids, below about 12, my 85mm is pretty good on FF, so the 50mm on crop should be pretty close. For that though you need to be right at the edge of the mat. High ISO will be the order of the day 1600 min, and no shutterspeeds below 1/250. I use servo focus on either the outermost focus point or one just in from that. White balance is always an issue so shoot RAW. Getting low down also helps as it make the images so much more dramatic.

If there is a pro working though, be sure to allow them access around the mat, there is nothing more frustrating than being asked if you got any shots of little Timmy as there parents pictures haven't come out very well, and having to tell them no as you couldn't get close to the mat.

Some shots from a couple my recent karate events can be found here;
 
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