American Fighting Organization Debut

[Compact Diss]

New MMA organization in Massachusetts, just some highlights...

1.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3235/3064143335_acafd9f31f.jpg

2.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3212/3064983432_5807c780ee.jpg

3.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3190/3064143889_3f906b9da6.jpg

4.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3038/3064144103_8eba4c046b.jpg

5.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3033/3064144353_0032a6dc8a.jpg

6.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3030/3064001738_5857ac9092.jpg

7.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3011/3064984664_f794c0cefa.jpg

8.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3156/3064984320_38bcfbe996.jpg

This was the worst lighting situation I have had to deal with for fights. We were in a hotel ballroom, there were two chandeliers over the cage, nothing much more than that, no ring lights. I basically shot on a shutter speed of 60, ISO 1600 the entire night. I was using the 24-70, had to switch to the 50mm 1.4 in order to get anything well lit....I have a lot of blurred shots. It was a great night of fights, great debut for a new organization.

[sethmo]

Have some decent action shots, but 1/60th is way to slow for MMA. If I cant shoot at 1/400 or above, I am not happy with my results. On my crop bodies, I use the 35mm f1.4L for close action, or the 85mm f1.8 for further way shots. Usually shoot at 1/300-400 @ ISO 800, 1600 if its really bad lighting, all at f2.0.

Have any pictures of their lighting? Did they have any lights on the cage or were they only using the lights from the facility?

[Compact Diss]

Here is the lighting...no cage lights at all. just what the ballroom provided...
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3011/3064399437_0086bd679b.jpg

[ironbelle]

That looks like some challenging light there. You'd need a lens that could find light where this is no light. I would have brought the shutter speed up a bit to stop the action even if it caused a bit of noise. You can run the images through noiseware or noise ninja.

[Compact Diss]

bringing the shutter speed up caused the pics to become too dark

[sethmo]

Yeah that there is your problem, they need to dim the facilities lighting and get some cage lighting for sure. One of the shows I do, this is their cheap setup, but is pretty effective:

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f39/sethmo38/Sports/IMG_0564.jpg
(Only picture I had of the entire cage)

Definitely something they should look into.