Help with quick-motion photos

[D-Eastey]

I'm expecting to be taking photos at the Globe World Cup practice sessions this friday and I wanted to ask for those of you who know your stuff for a hint or two. When you're shooting motion photography like skateboarding (which is what it is) is it better to have a quicker shutter speed so as to reduce or eliminate the blurring that can occasionally occur near or around their hands or heads (etc) given how fast they're moving or should I bump up the aperture values so that I can take more light in (and drop the shutter speed?) It'll be indoors but they may/may not have the roof open?

I've been reading through the manual for the camera - 300D (which I've only had for a fortnight) and tried to work it out in my head how it should work best, but it can get a little bit confusing and overwhelming. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Duncan.

[mbze430]

It hard to say. Are you allow to use flash? How close can you get to your subject? How fast is your lens?

[Medic1]

I'm having the same debate for aviation photography.....anyone more knowledgable feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

Faster shutter speed will freeze the action....the faster the shutter speed the less chance of blur, especially if you do not have an IS lens. For example, for photographing airplanes, I am using a 70-200 f4L at f8 with a shutter speed of around 1/1000.....and this is in daylight conditions.

If your lens is not fast (wide aperture) than the more light you have to let in via your shutter (due to indoor conditions) means the slower it will have to be to compensate for that loss of light. Depending on your lens, if you have to use your slower shutter to compensate for that light, you may have trouble capturing the motion adequately without blur.

But hey, I am relatively new to SLR photography myself, so take what I am saying with a grain of salt......good luck to you!

[mbze430]

In Aviation photography it is much easier to deal with. You are in an open area with the sun providing you the main source of light.

Faster the shutter speed, the more motion it will stop. The larger the apeture (smaller f/#) the more light it is allow to hit the film/sensor. Since Aviation is usually done during daylight, you can use smaller apeture(larger f/#) to get to your lens' sweetspot (usually f/8 to f/16).

Skateboarding and being indoor will require a different approach. If you are allow to use flash, and can get to your subject within the GN, you can stop the action with that. But if no flash is allow or your subject is too far, than you will need a fast lens to stop motion.

[Volatile]

crank up the ISO too

As I love to remind myself, bumping ISO from 100 to 200 just made my f4 lens into an expensive f2.8. Go to 400 and we're talking f1.8. You get the idea.

[MattSG]

Flash also drowns out color, I personally hate flash 99 times of a 100 I think it ruins an image.

Iso around 400, fstop around 4, and 1/30 to 1/15 shutter and you'll be good. If you have more light drop the iso and move the fstop up, if you have less, up the iso.

Higher iso gives you more grain and noise, so be cautious of that. I think grain and noise are nice in B&W but look like crap in color photos. A little bit of blur can give a sense of dynamic motion, which if the lighting sucks, you have to embrace.

Of course buying a new lens will help, but I'm giving you the info for doing best with what you have.

[Mark Kemp]

Basically a fast shutter freezes everything skateboarder, background and camera shake. This can be a good picture if you capture the right moment. You will need a wide aperture, but that is OK it will just reduce the depth of field and make the background out of focus which is usually a good thing. You don't normally want lots of detail in the crowd behind or whatever its just distracting.

Indoors however to get a fast shutter sped you may need flash. Flash gives pictures a distinct look and as some people have said its not always popular. Some events also don't like you using flash as it can put the competitors off and it also depends how far away you are, more than about 30m and you need not bother the flash won't make enough difference anyway.

All is not lost however, the alternative to fast shutter speeds is to pan. Set a slow speed, you will need a bit of trial and error with the first few shots but 1/30 to 1/125 is about the usual range. Now follow the moving skateboarder smoothly and evenly. Press the shutter and keep following until well after the shutter has fired. Try a few shots at once with motorwind if you like and at least at first rely on AI servo to track the focus for you. This will give a fairly still image of the boarder, but the background will blur into motion streaks. Parts of the boarder that move in another direction will still blur a bit i.e. hands and maybe head, but the main part of the target will seem still and the background streaked. A lot will be duds, but you can usually get one or two decent ones this way.

The three options, fast shutter speed with and without flash and panning shots are the basic techniques for nearly all moving subjects cars, planes, horse racing etc. etc.

[DaveG]

I'm expecting to be taking photos at the Globe World Cup practice sessions this friday and I wanted to ask for those of you who know your stuff for a hint or two. When you're shooting motion photography like skateboarding (which is what it is) is it better to have a quicker shutter speed so as to reduce or eliminate the blurring that can occasionally occur near or around their hands or heads (etc) given how fast they're moving or should I bump up the aperture values so that I can take more light in (and drop the shutter speed?) It'll be indoors but they may/may not have the roof open?

I've been reading through the manual for the camera - 300D (which I've only had for a fortnight) and tried to work it out in my head how it should work best, but it can get a little bit confusing and overwhelming. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,

Duncan.


Normally with sports, you want to freeze the action. This requires quick (short) shutterspeeds of 1/500 of a second or quicker. Now even with 1/500 or 1/1000 you often get what I call extremity blur. An example would be of a tennis player hitting the ball. The player is frozen and is nice and sharp, while their racquet is a blur since it is going much more quickly than they are. I don't think that this is all that bad, as it creates a sense of action within the photograph.

For the person who mentioned shooting aircraft you have to keep something else in mind besides fast shutterspeeds. The problem is that if you use 1/500 of a second not only will the airplane be frozen so will its propellers. The props won't be perfectly sharp but it won't be the blur we are used to seeing in real life. Then you're between a rock and a hard place. You need enough shutterspeed to freeze the aurcraft while keeping the props looking "real", and this will require some experimentation and probably panning. Of course if they're jets it doesn't matter at all.

[robertwgross]

If I were using a 550EX flash indoors, if the camera permitted it, I would set for second-curtain sync. You might get an interesting speed blur.

---Bob Gross---

[blackviolet]

i use 2 flashes on a flash bracket for all of my skateboard photography, even for bright daylight events. generally, the flash is for fill so you can see their faces. often the sun is directly i use 2 (sigma ef 500 dg super - master & sunpak pz5000 - slaved) so i can get a wider area of coverage and use less power (so i can do sequences). if it's darker, i bump up the flash power and sometimes move 1 flash off camera for interesting shadow effects. i also use a fisheye often, for that 'sk8 magazine' look :cool:

you can see some of my skateboard & blade pics in the sports section (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=54422)