Boxing/sports photography.......Low light.....Canon 1DX.....FUBAR !

[gconnoyer]

I'd like to see the images!
People get so wrapped up having noise in their pictures, that an amazing picture with a little bit of noise may get deleted because its "bad"
If its an amazing image, and there is a little noise who cares. You captured an awesome moment. ( I cant imagine that a 1DX is TERRIBLE. My D700 handles 6400 like its nothing, and thats OLD tech)

Its better to have an awesome, slightly noisy, picture than having a "noisy" picture in your recycle bin.

Who cares if there is some noise I guess is my point. We all know that sometimes you have to do what you have to do to get the shot.

 

[gsgary]

1.2, 1.4? I don't know of any zoom lens that shoots that wide open. You can't shoot with a fixed prime lens. Not boxing and kickboxing. It's dealing with the people who will be coming to me and dealing with the images that are mostly my concern right now. Trying to salvage some images in lightroom but it's not that great. I only need two or three good decent images from each fight.

Gosh, I have only been shooting sports for around 35 years now and typically 85% of all my shots are with prime lenses. An even larger proportion of the action shots are with primes. Perhaps that is why my collection of lenses only has 4 zooms total and over twice that are prime lenses. I have nothing slower than F2.8 and those for the most part are my 4 zooms, as well as my 300mm and 400mm. Everything else it faster glass.

As for the 1Dx. I use one as my primary body with a 1D MkIV as my secondary body. Both are more than up to the challange.

I don't know what your trying to say or if it helps me. Your not responding to my original. I don't know what sports you shoot and those 300 and 400 aren't zooms. They are telephoto. If I'm shooting football or basketball or tennis from across the court or field those are great and I have time to switch camera if the action comes my way. Have you shot boxing before? Maybe you can give me tips for the next fight. My post is about dealing with what I have. I couldn't shoot the entire ten fights with my 85 1.8. One side of the ring was darker then the other. My original light reading (with a meter) inside the ring (the brightest part) was 3200 ISO at 1000 speed and I got 1.0. What lens can you shoot with at 1.0 to get a decent exposure?

Leica 50mmF0.95, wrong lens choice i have shot my 1Dmk2's at iso3200 with not too much noise 1DX in the right hands would have had no problem

 

[imagemaker46]

It's always easy to pick out all the useful information from people that have not shot sports before and especially never shot boxing, including the op. I find it very strange that the ring mat was black but know that they use them. The overhead light must have been 40 watt bulbs if you had to shoot at anything over 3200iso. I can't say much about the situation you found yourself in but it sounds like it was difficult to work in. I use a 5Dmklll right now, same guts as the Dx and know that anything over 3200 starts to look like mush, I don't care what anyone says, you can come away with good images, but they don't look as sharp as people have been lead to believe.

Now to the boxing, it is a very tough sport to shoot and get great images, anyone that says all you need is a few from each fight has no clue how tough it is to get a "few" if they are wearing the new style head gear you hardly see a face, it isn't professional no head gear fights.

To the op, if you walked into shooting boxing without previous experience and hoped that a Dx was going to help, you walked into a shoot destined to fail, even if the light was good, there is so much timing involved with shoot boxing, maybe you were hoping a higher fps would help, it doesn't.

I've shot more than a 1000 fights, amateur, Olympic and Professional, it's not easy from ringside, easier with a 300-400mm shooting higher over the ropes. With all this said I come can come away from a fight with maybe 10 good images, depends on the weight class, so are easier than others. It's not like shooting weddings or flowers. If you shoot ringside never wear a white shirt.

 

[Smokeyr67]

If you shoot ringside never wear a white shirt.

If you shoot jelly wrestling they give you a plastic coat, or so I hear

 

[imagemaker46]

If you shoot ringside never wear a white shirt.

If you shoot jelly wrestling they give you a plastic coat, or so I hear

Jelly wouldn't be so bad, but being sprayed by blood and snot is just part of the glamour attached to being a sports photographer. It's one of those things that people just don't understand, all they see is the "fun" side of shooting sports. I haven't shot boxing in a 3 years and really prefer to shoot with a longer lens over the top rope. I get a laugh out of watching the first timers all excited at ringside until a huge nose clearing blast of blood and phlegm hits them.

 

[table1349]

This isn't you at this boxing match is it there Maker46?:mrgreen:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FALdZqN6DRU/TBdtmZziflI/AAAAAAAANYE/9TfnRlZWM2A/s1600/upskirt01.jpg

 

[Steve5D]

I don't want to offend anyone here or get into arguments. I know there are faster lenses, I know there are wider lens's. I am not what one might consider an amateur. I don't typically do NOT shoot sports but I have a lot of knowledge.

You don't typically do not shoot sports?

Does that mean you do?

I had very poor lighting and a lot of dark elements. I was in a fixed position with very fast moving action. Lighting was tiny LED spots. I already mentioned I took a light readings several times with my meter before the event started and couldn't even get to 1.5 or 1.8 and get a good enough shutter speed. Yes, I could have shot with a wider faster fixed lens and got a better exposure but I don't have a 28mm.

There are plenty of places to rent lenses...

I am looking for responses regarding how I can deal with the clients and the images I have. NOT what I could have done better or different. I appreciate all the responses but I don't want there to be confusion.

Define "client".

Were you paid to shoot these images? If so, be prepared to refund the money. If not, don't sweat it. A simple "Sorry, man, it didn't work as I thought it would" will suffice.

Now, with all of that said, this is sort of an exercise in futility if you're not interested in learning what you might be able to do differently in the future.

Good luck with that...

 

[Tony S]

How to deal with the clients now that you have already shot it? That's easy... tell them you F'd up and they aren't what you would have liked to have gotten. **** happens, fess up and deal with it instead of trying to pass it off. Then when you show them what you do have the expectation won't be so high. Who knows? They might be happy with anything you got.

If you didn't shoot them in RAW and only went jpeg, give opening the jpeg files up in the RAW converter a try. It's not all the control you would have over a true RAW file, but it's still a lot more adjustable and more tools are available to pull out of the toolbox.
Then try to find a good noise management program to help reduce the noise. Notice I said reduce, not remove. Sometimes when you try to remove it completely it really gets ugly, so bring it down to a level you can work with.

Good luck. For any more ideas you will most likely have to post up at least one or two examples in a separate post (so they don't get lost in all this mess).

 

[Aakajx]

This isn't you at this boxing match is it there Maker46?:mrgreen:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FALdZqN6DRU/TBdtmZziflI/AAAAAAAANYE/9TfnRlZWM2A/s1600/upskirt01.jpg

haha that's funny as

 

[Aakajx]

Also where's these pics? Don't be scared to post them.

 

[trojancast]

Sorry I came to this post late. So you shot a boxing match in low light conditions with a 1Dx and a 24 - 70/2.8L but were unable to come up with any usable shots? Is this correct? It is a very good thing that you were not paid for this work.

Sent from my iPad using Forum Runner

 

[LShooter]

You could have shot it with a 50 1.4 or an 85 1.4