Freeze Motion - Slow Lens and Flash?

Kwenami · Apr 16, 2015

It's driving me nuts that I have less time to spend on learning lately (new job, move) and the thing I would like to improve on most is being able to get a clear picture and freeze motion. Key points: I can a slower camera, slower lenses, and only a yard to use. My dog is reactive so location can't really change, and she's mostly black, so getting good light through the trees (renting or I'd fix that, too) will be challenging. I'm finding it challenging to stay motivated to come home and take photos of ANYTHING after a long day, and the images I would love to work towards only get worse.

I've posted elsewhere before and found advice wasn't particularly helpful.

So-what are your best tips for positioning a single flash/adjusting the power output (does have ttl and hss), using a 55-200mm lens (4-5.6, outdoors, under trees) or 18-55mm (3.5-5.6, indoors, lack of space) to freeze motion? Any other suggestions? Even when it's snowy/bright and overcast out, I can't increase my shutter speed past 1/1000 I feel without getting a bad exposure. Using back button focus on al servo and the lens just isn't fast enough

IS turned off.

Alternatively, if someone is in the same city as me and wants to come tackle a challenge for fun, I can provide tea and cookies

Send me a PM for this.

Kwenami · Apr 16, 2015

By 'tips' I mean procedures on how to go about it. I'm not looking for a quick fix or rule of thumb. Just going to clarify that now

Overread · Apr 16, 2015

Could you show us a few results? 1/1000sec should get a sharp shot in many situations.Sometimes seeing a few results can give us a quicker idea of what might be going wrong or what you might work on to get things to work.

Kwenami · Apr 16, 2015

These are varied-played with the ISO a bit but I find since she's all black anything at 800 is just slightly too noisy and annoying. Different lighting conditions, days, etc, obviously.

dennybeall · Apr 16, 2015

Exposure looks generally good as does focus. The one, 8640, looks like the focus point is a couple feet too close to the camera.

tirediron · Apr 16, 2015

Most of those seem to be a combination of missed focus and/or insufficient DoF.

C. Brian Kerr · Apr 16, 2015

I would have do do a face shot of this puppy. Great eyes

Derrel · Apr 16, 2015

You are sooooo close on a number of these! This shot Freeze Motion - Slow Lens and Flash Photography Forum is pretty good, but the depth of field is just a bit shallow to get full focus...a significantly slower shutter speed + second curtain flash, right on-camera, in the hotshoe, could be pretty good here...the ISO needs to be "high-ish", and the speed needs to be "slow", like 1/8 to 1/20 second or so.

Panning is a great way to convey movement, and one of the very few times where I will actually FAVOR shutter priority, Tv or Time value as Canon calls it, to keep the speed at the right level. You could try that approach, slow-speed panning with second-curtain synch.

The other DOF issue/tip is to shoot at right-angles to the dog, perhaps easier said than done, but maybe if you give the dog a triangle-shaped course, he'll tend to run in a line for one leg of it?

The other option is getting the ISO level UP, high...after work, this time of year, it gets dark pretty fast until July and August roll around. With a longer lens that tops out at f/5.6, at ISO 500 you8 mighty be as slow as 1/50 second in many yards...I was out today, and was getting f/5.6 at 1/50 in the shade here around 4:45 PM.

bratkinson · Apr 16, 2015

As others have noted, it looks more like missed focus or too-small DOF.

I think I'd start out looking at the DOF for each shot. Check the EXIF information for each photo for focal length and aperture, and focus distance information. Plug that into the DOF calculator Online Depth of Field Calculator and see if you are getting at least 3 feet DOF to get the whole dog in focus.

I'd also restrict how many AF points your camera can choose from (menu settings). Unless you are fully aware of how the camera decides which of many AF points to focus at, you'll find that too often it chooses the wrong one...usually whatever is closest.

And, I'd also think about setting the metering to center-weighted. I've found it usually gives the best results when in aperture- or shutter-priority modes.

Kwenami · Apr 16, 2015

I know that I'm missing focus-my question is how to I get there so that I DO get focus, or just have a higher probability of getting focus on more of these shots? It's comforting to know you think I'm close on some of these-I feel like they're just so far away

C. Brian Kerr-just for you, I've attached one of my faves of her. The 'catch lights' from the snow are a bit annoying but I love it anyways

Derrel said:
You are sooooo close on a number of these! This shot Freeze Motion - Slow Lens and Flash Photography Forum is pretty good, but the depth of field is just a bit shallow to get full focus...a significantly slower shutter speed + second curtain flash, right on-camera, in the hotshoe, could be pretty good here...the ISO needs to be "high-ish", and the speed needs to be "slow", like 1/8 to 1/20 second or so.

Panning is a great way to convey movement, and one of the very few times where I will actually FAVOR shutter priority, Tv or Time value as Canon calls it, to keep the speed at the right level. You could try that approach, slow-speed panning with second-curtain synch.

The other DOF issue/tip is to shoot at right-angles to the dog, perhaps easier said than done, but maybe if you give the dog a triangle-shaped course, he'll tend to run in a line for one leg of it?

The other option is getting the ISO level UP, high...after work, this time of year, it gets dark pretty fast until July and August roll around. With a longer lens that tops out at f/5.6, at ISO 500 you8 mighty be as slow as 1/50 second in many yards...I was out today, and was getting f/5.6 at 1/50 in the shade here around 4:45 PM.

ISO at 800 is already too high-I get noise in her fur and it looks awful, and takes away from everything. Higher, and I might as well add another noise filter.

I stay with the lowest ISO possible, and typically that's around 400 (a bit lower in the snow, maybe). I'm also just heading into summer-it sounds like you're heading into winter. The days are getting much longer already. The shots I took yesterday are the ones in the yard where it wasn't raining (spring), and the camera was around ISO 400, f/5-5.6, 1/500s.

I would love to learn how to pan better as well, but I think that might be a separate technique to master-and a much harder one to do well.

I mostly get her running in circles-and they spiral in towards me, so I have to 'push' her out and get her moving faster in order to keep her moving without hitting the camera (which is another danger...lol). So the attempt at right angles is there, just not being hit very well. She moves fast enough to make me dizzy just keeping an eye on her. Which is part of the reason I think it'd be so cool to freeze that moment

bratkinson said:
As others have noted, it looks more like missed focus or too-small DOF.

I think I'd start out looking at the DOF for each shot. Check the EXIF information for each photo for focal length and aperture, and focus distance information. Plug that into the DOF calculator Online Depth of Field Calculator and see if you are getting at least 3 feet DOF to get the whole dog in focus.

I'd also restrict how many AF points your camera can choose from (menu settings). Unless you are fully aware of how the camera decides which of many AF points to focus at, you'll find that too often it chooses the wrong one...usually whatever is closest.

And, I'd also think about setting the metering to center-weighted. I've found it usually gives the best results when in aperture- or shutter-priority modes.

Interesting calculator. Using my camera series (t5i), at 20m, approx f=100mm, and 5.6 which was set by the camera (since I was in shutter priority) I should have had 2.59 feet in focus-which is less than 3, but should still be okay. It WOULD explain why it's harder to get her in focus, though, of course my '20 feet' calculation is a guesstimate. She's not a very big dog, either. Right now the camera is set to center, single point focus (using back button) - not weighted, as its only a single point (of 9..., which the camera provides). So I don't think number of focal points gets much lower than that

I will definitely do some more accurate measuring in the yard though, and see how close I am on the guess of 20 feet. I switched to shutter priority (and 'overexpose' by 5 stops) to simplify the math I had to do for a bit because I was getting frustrating, but I could switch back to full manual....

Also, I only have the one speedlight. I know I haven't been using it very effectively outdoors, but I'm not sure how to get it closer to her without her knocking it over sprinting by. Suggestions? Indoors I have found it helps, since I can just bounce off the walls easily while she bounces off the walls.

wfooshee · Apr 16, 2015

Kwenami said:
... Using back button focus on al servo and the lens just isn't fast enough ....

Does that mean it's not focusing fast enough, or are you literally saying the lens is not fast enough, i.e. not a big enough aperture (low f-number)?

I like back-button focus, I'm a total evangelist about it. Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it!

Except in action shooting. If I'm shooting motorsports, an air show, athletics, yada yada yada, I put AF back on the shutter button, and usually go to 3D tracking.

Yeah, back-button proponents will tell you that it's wonderful, if you need a single unchangeable focus, hit the button and then leave it alone. If you need to track, just hold the button. That hasn't been my experience, though. I love it in portraits, most wildlife, studio-type stuff, but not when things are whizzing around all over the place.

Like a hyperactive canine!

Kwenami · Apr 17, 2015

wfooshee said:
Kwenami said:

... Using back button focus on al servo and the lens just isn't fast enough ....

Click to expand...

Does that mean it's not focusing fast enough, or are you literally saying the lens is not fast enough, i.e. not a big enough aperture (low f-number)?

I like back-button focus, I'm a total evangelist about it. Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it! Do it!

Except in action shooting. If I'm shooting motorsports, an air show, athletics, yada yada yada, I put AF back on the shutter button, and usually go to 3D tracking.

Yeah, back-button proponents will tell you that it's wonderful, if you need a single unchangeable focus, hit the button and then leave it alone. If you need to track, just hold the button. That hasn't been my experience, though. I love it in portraits, most wildlife, studio-type stuff, but not when things are whizzing around all over the place.

Like a hyperactive canine!

I'm currently using back button with al servo, and those were the shots I got-so I think my gauge in distance might be wrong, since my DOF isn't big enough. I know my lens is slow to focus-even single shot focusing is annoyingly slow. It's a kit lens, essentially, but I can't afford an upgrade.

Do you find switching back to AF for sports helps? I legitimately forget how to change it back (lol) so maybe I should look that up. I thought just holding it would be fast enough, but if that's not fast enough is autofocus going to have an actual advantage or just be the same speed?

For reference its a Canon t5i...55-250 mm 1:4-5.6. Does anyone have numbers to compare?

Overread · Apr 17, 2015

Backbutton won't change the focusing mode at all - it just controls how its engaged/activated. Some find it a pain in high action situations - especially if your hand doesn't fit the back of the camera perfectly - sometimes it is a pain - in those situations shifting to the shutter button is pretty valid for AF. In general I stick to back-button all the time.

As for the ISO - do not fear ISO 800. In fact I'd say take the ISO higher and expose properly . The next step is learning to deal with noise in editing. Furthermore when you resize for web display or print then a lot of that noise will vanish (unless you crop very heavily). Noise reduction and sharpening are key things to learn in editing that can really make a diference.

Kwenami · Apr 17, 2015

I can do the noise/sharpening edits without major problems and I do use 800 when I need to but its definitely not preferred if I can help it-with OOF photos to start, noise reduction really emphasizes how terrible they are. I know saving for web does help but the shots that tend to be in focus have terrible framing and do tend to require some big crops

Not ideal, in either case.

I took some more today and they're uploading...we'll see how it went. Full sun from 4-5 ish. She definitely was getting awkward bright/dark spots from the trees around-I can't wait to get the go ahead from the landlord to trim them to something normal. Will post again once I have a few looked at.