Gymnastics - Like Cave Shooting

[JeffreyG]

Sorry, this is not a photo posting thread, but I had my second foray into shooting small time gymnastics today and I have to say this is tough. Very dark venues plus I was very limited in where I could stand.

My nephew had a meet today (He is level 5 about to go 6) and I had a ball and got some OK shots.

So I was shooting primarly with my 135 and occasionally with my 50 all at ISO3200, f/2 and about 1/250 or 1/320 with the histogram pushed to the right.

Meanwhile there was a guy who must have been the associated photog wandering where he wanted but shooting with a 70-200 f/4 zoom. I can't imagine how he could get anything with an f/4 lens....it was so dim in there!

There were a few other parents and such shooting with SLR cameras, but they all seemed to have slower zoom lenses. I thought it a little strange that nobody brought primes.

Does anybody shoot gymnastics with slower lenses, and how do you make that work?

Thanks!

[bwolford]

I think you've pointed out why I can still sell photos to these people even though they have an SLR and a big zoom. Most of these folks can't grasp the concept of F stop and how it will positively effect their results.