Taking action shots

[theflyingkiwi]

Hi,

I only have had the 10d for 2 months so far (and loving it) anyway I was out taking shots of the great race (which is a rowing race between waikato uni and oxford uni on the waikato river in NZ)

just checking out some of my photos and they are not the results that I would have liked. some of the photos that came out where blurry and even if the photo was sharp enought the faces where washed out.

I am interested in what settings people use when trying to capture action shots on water.

see this picture

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~markpc/IMG_2289.jpg

any help would be most helpful

Thanks

[scottbergerphoto]

This is a particularly difficult situation to capture. There is a wide variation (number of f stops) in proper exposure between the shadows and the highlights. If you properly expose for one you lose the other. If you exposed for the tree line and shadows, you blow out the faces. If you expose for the faces you lose shadow detail. There are a few things you can do to reach a reasonable compromise:

1. Put your camera in manual mode and record proper exposure readings off the faces and then off the tree line near the shadows. You can use a hand held reflected spot light meter, or the in-camera meter, by zooming in on the area you want to meter till it fills the viewfinder and take a reading. Once you have recorded the two readings, pick an exposure somewhere in the middle and bracket your exposures. That will give you a compromise exposure preserving detail in shadows and highlights.
2. You can choose to ignore the shadows and take a reading off the faces only and set your exposure based on that and bracket. Bear in mind that caucasian faces are about 1 stop lighter then 18% grey, which all meters are calibrated for, so you will have to add 1 stop above what the meter tells you to get a proper exposure. If the meter says f4.0, use f2.8 and bracket.
This will lose some detail in the shadows but properly expose the skin tones.
3. Use a circular polarizer to reduce glare.
4. Try a Neutral Density filter.
This is a common issue for film cameras as well. Consider reading " The Confused Photographers Guide to Photographic Exposure and the Simplified Zone System" by Bahman Farzad. It's available at Amazon.com.
Good Luck,
Scott

[PacAce]

Set the camera metering mode to Evaluative and set the meter compensation to -2/3 or -1. The shadows will turn out very dark but you'll be able to recover the details with Photoshop. What you don't want to do is blow the highlights in the relatively light colored faces and other parts of the body. It'll be much more difficult, if not impossilble, to recover the details there if it gets washed out.

I offer my suggestion based on many, many photos I've taken of similar images (trees and foliage in partial or full shadows, reflections on water surface and light colored subject relative to background. My initial pictures were similar to yours, good background exposure but blown and washed out details on subject.

[WSpruance]

Scott,
All are great answers.
One question - How about a split density filter inverted so the dark side is in the lower half of the image to darken up the people and the boat?

Best Regards from our newest rainforest in the USA - Fort Lauderdale, FL

[MarkH]

For tricky lighting set the camera for review with info.

If there are blown highlights flashing, dial in 1 stop compensation. If there are still blown highlights then try 2 stops.

Don't delete the blown highlights shots, sometimes when you check them at home you see that the picture looks good despite the bright areas. You can also try combining pics if they were taken from a tripod with no camera movement between.

This is where the digital's review is a valuable tool.

[Vegas Poboy]

SOmething I did'nt see mentioned is with action photos alot of times you must decide what you want before you shoot.
If your looking to stop motion then you should set your speed @ 1/250 or higher depending on distance and speed of subject.
Also If you're looking to put motion into your subject pan your shots the subject should come out in focus and the outer areas blurred. Kodak published a book named a 35mm guide to photography that helps a great deal with all areas of photography. I sometimes go over it before I go shoot.
Also the settings I use is Partial or center wieghted metering
AI focus or Servo and I use full focus selection to help track the subject.
Have Fun

[theflyingkiwi]

Thanks for all the info. I did have the camera set so I could histogram of the photo that I have taken . One of the things that I did forget to do, and that is to figure out what kinda of photo I wanted.

I was looking having the shutter speed at 1/250, I guess I was looking at capture the action, rather than having a motion blur.

The photo should be about the rowers not the background so I would have been happy at a darker background.

I have got a circular polarizer, and I guess that should have been used.

question: what does a ND filter do. the G3 had one in built but I could not see any change in the photos with it turned on or off.

again thanks

[scottbergerphoto]

Neutral Density Filters block light without creating distortion. They decrease the overall brightness of a scene to reduce the chance of blown highlights. They come in different strengths. They just screw on the front of the lens. A split Neutral Density Filter I believe is clear glass on 1/2 and a ND filter on the other half. You must line up the split with a horizon or other similiar break between high and low so that you can't see the split in the filter. I haven't used a split ND filter, but I don't see why you couldn't use it in any orientation you want.
For more information, Kodak has a publication on Filters as part of the Kodak Series. It is available at Amazon.com. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/087985751X/qid=1063023947/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-5151862-5745512?v=glance&s=books
Regards,
Scott