Inside sport shooting tecnique

[mjd525]

I will be shooting an inside rowing competition this weekend. Facility has fair lighting. With my Nikon D-7000; my initial thoughts and plan to use aperture priority, kick up ISO, and use a flash attachment angled up so not in competitors eyes. I plan on being close to the competitors. Will most likley use 18-105 lens. Just wanted to confirm this process with forum feedback and/or other suggestions. Thanks all for your valued input.

 

[SCraig]

Unless you have a relatively low ceiling to bound the flash off of I'd recommend using a bounce card or something. Angling a flash up when there is nothing to bounce from doesn't work, and if the ceiling is very high then it might as well not be there.

 

[runnah]

I will be interested to see photos of an indoor rowing event.

 

[ceeboy14]

I also shoot the D7000 and I use shutter priority for sports action shots. Aperture, while you may think 5.6, 8 or 11 is going to give you great depth of field, the camera is going to assess a shutter value commiserate to said number and you are going to have more blurs than tight, clean shots. If you are really-really-really good at panning, you might get away with aperture priority. Flash in an indoor arena big enough to accomodate a rowing competition, I suspect is going to be a moot accessory....then again, not knowing what the facility looks like, I cannot really judge this as an absoute. The 18-105 is a not a terribly slow lens on the wide open side of lens, but a dog on the other end. Do you have a faster lens?

By the by, you can adequately shoot the D7000 at ISO 2500-3200 with reasonable noise and that noise can be pretty reasonably compensated for in your Camera Raw editor. There are others on here who have far more experience in shooting this type of venue, and I would give their answers far more credence than mine, but that said, I have been shooting the D7000 since it first came out as I was one of the fortunate first few to get one straight away. I know the camera and I know the lens and I know from the getgo, you are probably going to have to get a faster one, or use shutter priority set to 1/1250 or thereabouts to get as close to the results you want as you can get.

 

[Propsguy]

I would likely swap out the flash for a fast prime. Your flash may be annoying / ineffective / creating color temperature issues, while a fast prime has no drawbacks and solves the problems you will likely need to address.

 

[curtyoungblood]

If you are really-really-really good at panning, you might get away with aperture priority.

I highly doubt that panning a rowing event is going to work. Rowing a boat creates bursts of energy that move the vehicle, so it doesn't move at a constant speed. So you'd have to adjust for how fast the boat's acceleration is changing, which would be VERY difficult.

I also second not using the flash. It is probably just going to cause more problems than it helps, unless you absolutely can't get enough light to shoot. Don't shoot aperture priority either, for the reasons listed above, or shoot it with the lens wide open.

 

[Bluejs75]

I also like the suggestion of a fast lens.

 

[SCraig]

I highly doubt that panning a rowing event is going to work. Rowing a boat creates bursts of energy that move the vehicle, so it doesn't move at a constant speed. So you'd have to adjust for how fast the boat's acceleration is changing, which would be VERY difficult.

True, however the boat doesn't immediately stop when the rowers are not stroking either, it continues to move forward albeit at a SLIGHTLY slower speed for a second or two. I've shot rowing events outdoors with no problems whatsoever. In fact I never even noticed when they stopped stroking.

I also second not using the flash. It is probably just going to cause more problems than it helps, unless you absolutely can't get enough light to shoot. Don't shoot aperture priority either, for the reasons listed above, or shoot it with the lens wide open.

If you shoot with the lens wide open then your depth of field is going to be very limited. Additionally shooting with a lens wide open is not the best way to get sharp images. My recommendation would be to shoot wide open only if it is absolutely necessary to get a decent shutter speed.

Being inside everything is going to be a trade-off and you, and only you, will have to decide what is least important and what you have to have to get the shots you want. You can use a relatively slow shutter speed and allow the motion to blur to get more dynamic shots and more depth of field, or you can use a relatively fast shutter speed and accept less depth of field to try and stop the action. Keep the exposure to the right side of the histogram and you can use relatively high ISO on a D7000. Let it get into the dark side of the histogram and you're going to have some noise.

 

[ph0enix]

What's an indoor rowing competition? I just can't picture it. How long would the pool have to be? ...or are we talking about a bunch of rowing machines in a gym?

 

[imagemaker46]

I had to do a search to find out what indoor rowing is, and there are no boats involved. The competitors use rowing machines. Basically it's a bunch of people lined up sitting on machines in a gym. The only advice I can give you is when you walk in do your light check, bump the iso to a point that allows you to shoot between 320th-500th sec 3.2-3.5 and shoot both tight and wide. It doesn't look like it's a very difficult event to shoot.

 

[mjd525]

Hi all,
Thank you very much for your insight. The inside rowing competition are on ERG's (rowing machines). Rowers sit on these in a row (usually about 10 down a line), and in front of them they are connected to a video screen showing their progress as if they are in a race. The race is 2000 meters, and will last anywhere between 6 minutes to 8 minutes depending on the classification. Rigth behind the rower and slighlyt to one side is another rower coaching/cheering them on. It is quite intense. The ceiling is high and thus understand that flash shooting up will go only up, and now will not use. I am going to attempt to be in sevearl areas, one of which will be right in front of them about 5 feet away straight on. Other angles are from above, shooting down as an option. Looks like best bet is to go Shutter priority and bump up ISO for best results. Will certainly go trial and error to see what works best.
Thanks all