1st Taekwondo tournament - pictures

[widowmaker]

These pictures were taken today, after I posted this tread a few days ago: http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=307696

Some thoughts about this first indoor asignment. First of all, the light was very tricky. I had to go with ISO 1600 all the time, to get fast enough shutter speed (1/640 sec). I did a manual white balance reading, using a grey card. This was significally better than both auto mode, and fluorecent mode on the camera.
One of the main issues though, was the fact that the fighters stood on blue and red mats, which reflected the colour up on their white suits. Also, I could forget everything about clean backgrounds and rule of thirds compositions. These athletes were lightning fast, and I had a hard time keeping up with them. I used center focus point only.
Anyway, I took approx 450 pictures, and almost half were consider keepers (at least for a while, due to parents who would like to purchase copies of their youngsters...) Here are some examples:
#1
http://www.pbase.com/mbj006/image/77559441/original.jpg

#2
http://www.pbase.com/mbj006/image/77559558/original.jpg

#3
http://www.pbase.com/mbj006/image/77559562/original.jpg

#4
http://www.pbase.com/mbj006/image/77559600/original.jpg

#5
http://www.pbase.com/mbj006/image/77559634/original.jpg

#6
http://www.pbase.com/mbj006/image/77559640/original.jpg

#7
http://www.pbase.com/mbj006/image/77559657/original.jpg

[grphx]

I love the first shot. The rest are good for the conditions and arn't bad, just that first one sets the bar high! You did a REAL good job removing noise, unless yoru camera handles noise better than mine.

[widowmaker]

Thanks grphx! Actually, I haven't done any noise removing at all to these. They are all as they came out of my 30D, when it comes to the noise issue. If somebody want to purchase a printed copy, I will go ahead and do some tweaking in Noise Ninja before I print.

[S.Horton]

NICE!

Good angles.

[VesselinG]

Nice pictures :)
Looks like you were lucky with the light, you captured some good moments there, not that I get TKD that much :)

[Photodawg1]

That first one is absolutely fantastic!

[amap]

Congrats on your first TKD tourney. Nicely done.

[chrisvl]

Where's the impact shot from that last one. The competitor in the black helmet looks like he is about to get popped really good.
Nice set.

[widowmaker]

Thank you all for your nice comments! I'm quite happy with the way they turned out, except the ugly red colour cast on the white suits in some of the pictures. I will try a black and white conversion on those. I got really suprised to see how well the 30D handles ISO 1600. None of the pictures posted in this tread, has seen the Noise Ninja yet, so the result is pretty good I think.

[widowmaker]

Chrisvl, I'm sorry to say I missed that shot for some reason. You are right, he went down like a sack of potatoes!

[gkwood]

the first one is really good , would like to see it from a lower angle , how close were you too the mats???

[widowmaker]

Gary, thank you for looking. Actually, I was sitting right beside the mats. I moved around as I wanted.

[gkwood]

Thats good glad your were free to take from anywere , did you have any from a lower angle ??

[widowmaker]

Sorry Gary. I was knealing down on the first one, and that's the lowest angel I shot from.

[gkwood]

no thats cool i like the first one and its angle

[bestfromnw]

i like #6

[rockabilly808]

these are great. and comin form a martial artist the form of these blackbelts it outstanding.