First swim meet- C&C

[Destin]

Shot swimming tonight for the first time after asking for advice here on how to do it, and I think the advice helped me find angles I wouldn't have thought of for sure. I just wish I had a D7000 so I could have kicked the iso up to 3200 to reallly freeze action. There is just enough motion blur in these shots to piss me off but I was already at 2.8, 1600, and 1/400th - 1/500th so I couldn't do much about it. C&C on these would be great:

1.)

2.)

3.)

 

[Trever1t]

#3 really makes me laugh, great capture!

 

[Derrel]

First time ever? Pretty good!

 

[Destin]

First time ever? Pretty good!

Thanks! It was my first time ever even attending a swim meet, much less shooting one! I definitely need a camera that's better in low light, if I could get iso 3200 to and pull like f/3.5 and 1/800th then I think I would have had ALOT more keepers

 

[imagemaker46]

The third one works better than the others. For freestyle you want to try and tie the arm into the photo, just coming overtop the head, number 3 is tight enough that it works without the arm, number one angle on the swimmer is too early, usually better when the swimmer is beside or just past. The second one of the fly is inbetween "best" angles, either shoot it straight on, or from the side before the arms come forward. Shooting swimming is one of those study, timing and shoot sports. It is easier once you understand all the strokes, and the swimmers are pretty much captives in the lanes, so more predictable than most other sports.

Good start.

 

[Robin Usagani]

These are pretty tight framing Destin. Why? Anyway.. even if you had a D700, you probably still want to use f/2.8 (or even faster lens).

First time ever? Pretty good!

Thanks! It was my first time ever even attending a swim meet, much less shooting one! I definitely need a camera that's better in low light, if I could get iso 3200 to and pull like f/3.5 and 1/800th then I think I would have had ALOT more keepers

 

[Destin]

These are pretty tight framing Destin. Why? Anyway.. even if you had a D700, you probably still want to use f/2.8 (or even faster lens).

They are too tight. Why? Because I had to crop tight to get rid of motion blurred hands on most shots. Why? Because I couldn't pull a shutter speed over 1/400th most of the time? Why? Because I need a camera with better high Iso capabilities.

And if I had a d7k or 700 I'd still use my 70-200. But id be able to stop down to 3.5 to help my AF and get a little better DOF. Either of those cameras is better at 6400 than my d80 is at 1600...

 

[Robin Usagani]

Noisy photos are better than motion blurred photos (unless you want the blur). I say next time, push the ISO higher. As long as you dont crop it, it will look better than using lower ISO and cropped!

Really though man, if you barely have light, DOF is the last thing you need to worry about. Especially if you are shooting from far (farther = more DOF). Keep it at max aperture unless you have plenty of light. Your main goal is good exposure and enough shutter speed.

 

[Destin]

Noisy photos are better than motion blurred photos (unless you want the blur). I say next time, push the ISO higher. As long as you dont crop it, it will look better than using lower ISO and cropped!

Really though man, if you barely have light, DOF is the last thing you need to worry about. Especially if you are shooting from far (farther = more DOF). Keep it at max aperture unless you have plenty of light. Your main goal is good exposure and enough shutter speed.

Next step up is beyond my base range man.... noisy isn't even the word for it.

 

[imagemaker46]

Having some hand motion in swimming isn't all the bad, especially with freestyle, the hand/arm coming over the top of the head looks ok with some motion. If you shoot the breast stroke from the end of the pool, you are dealing with head and chest, and they aren't moving as quickly, you should be able to stop them at 400, even 320 on the slower swimmers. I usually shoot swimmimg at 3.2-4 if I can get away with it, that little extra depth does help, 500th-640th, 1250-1600 works fine, even if the exposure doesn't look a 100%, a very slight tweek in PS with levels is all you would need.

 

[Robin Usagani]

MMMHHH.. I thought i posted this link earlier. Maybe forgot to click reply. These are D80 shots at ISO3200. They dont look bad.

d80 ISO3200 - Flickr: Search

 

[o hey tyler]

I wouldn't be too bothered by some motion blur from swimming shots either. They are swimming, and contextually it would work.

 

[imagemaker46]

As good as autofocus is, when you get into the 3200iso range and shoot at 500 2.8, it will have lots of trouble holding focus on swimmers, there are too many things going on around the swimmer, the autofocus picks up splashes and then takes a while to get back on target, especially if you are shooting loose, if you shoot too tight it takes the autofocus time to grab the subject. Shooting at a lower iso, and working with the shutterspeed and f stop can help put the images together. The idea is to have less grain, not more. I would rather shoot at 1250, 320 2.8 and figure out the timing on the swimmer in order to minimize the motion. In most cases though, pools just aren't very well lit, using any highlights on the water helps. I've shot in some real caves, and sometimes there really isn't much to shoot, that's when I switch to swimmers on the blocks, concentrating, etc, it may be all you can do.