Roller Derby

jmtonkin · Apr 19, 2015

Hey all,

This coming weekend, I will be shooting at a roller derby. I'm wondering if any of you have any experience with this! It's all for fun, but I'd like to give it my best effort.

I have an 18-200 f/3.5-5.6 and a 50 f/1.8. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to boost my ISO up pretty high, especially when using my 18-200. My camera is pretty good at handling the ISO, and I'd rather have a crisp photo with a little grain than a blurry one with no grain.

I also have an SB-900, but I'm thinking I shouldn't use that because it could be distracting to the players.

For those of you with experience with roller derbies (or similar), what else should I plan for?

table1349 · Apr 20, 2015

Shoot low.
Shoot wide and crop.
High ISO.
Wide fast aperture to freeze only the action you want to highlight. This is where fast glass is really handy. f2.8 is your friend with action photography.
Shutter speed of 1/500th minimum.
Use a back focus button
Set the camera to continuous focusing.
Keep the camera to your face and follow the action constantly.
Anticipate, roller Derby is like "Professional Wrestling" so you should know when the action is going to occur.
Leave the flash in your bag.

jovince3000 · Apr 21, 2015

Position yourself at the same level as the athletes if possible, top down pictures don't make great sport photo from my opinion. Follow what Gryphon said and you will generally get sharp pictures, but if you want to add a little something, go for some panning shots with a lower shutter speed for crisp subject but blurry background, you may want to try the opposite too ( slight motion blur on the subject but crisp background). And if the action is inside, achieving that lower shutter speed will be very easy by lowering the ISO.

Flash is utterly useless in that scenario because I'm guessing you won't be very close to most of the performers, may also blind/distract them too. Don't even bring it.

Good luck !

jmtonkin · May 5, 2015

Well, I shot my first roller derby event. Let me say, I was a little disappointed because it was a lot less intense than I thought it was going to be. For the most part, everything on my end went alright. I think I got some pretty decent shots! In order to get anything usable, I often had to shoot around ISO1250. My camera does a fairly decent job managing that, but I'd have liked to been able to shoot a little lower. I tried out back button focusing, and man does that take some getting used to! I quickly caught on to it, and it really was more convenient to use!

Alright, now for the things that did NOT go smoothly. First, I was completely under the impression that this was a "just for fun" thing and the team just wanted some fun shots (my fiancee's cousin is on the team, so I thought I was just doing it for the heck of it!). When I got there, however, I was handed a contract to sign. Fine. This contract, however, required me to have 100 shots minimum, within 10 days. The most aggravating part though was that they wanted me to completely sign over all rights to my pictures. They want to be able to edit them as they see fit (they sometimes cut people out to make into silhouettes for advertisements). It's alright though! They aren't going to pay me anything, but they will give me publicity! If it weren't for the fact that it was for my fiancee's cousin and that I really had no idea what I was doing anyway, I'd have walked away in an instant. I can't believe that people wanting free work can be so demanding about the whole thing!

Anyway, that was a long-winded rant. Here's a couple from the event!

IronMaskDuval · May 5, 2015

Roller derby is no where as intense as when I am skating around little kids on trainers every Saturday. Sigh. One day, I'm going to knock one so hard off the rink, it'll make me feel great about smashing a kid going the wrong way.