Volunteer work at Fair

I have volunteered to take photos at the Last Chance Stampede & Fair here in town. I will be taking photos for the Equine Exhibit and some of the displays. Come to find out the Equine event will be indoors. If it is a sunny day and the doors are open there should be enough light. I could really use some tips on the best settings to use for an indoor arena. My equipment consists of a Canon 60D, 28-135mm lens, a 70-300mm USM lens and a nifty fifty. I don't own a off camera flash at this time. Which lens would you use for this event? What I've found so far is to open up my aperture as far as possible, then increase the ISO if necessary to get a fast shutter speed. When I volunteered I didn't realize the event would be indoors and I don't want to back out now. Please help me get some good photos for these people.

For the displays you should be able to use your 50mm which will give you an aperture advantage and help hold down your iso. Any arena shots will most like require one of your zooms. You pretty much summed up what you need for exposure. Wide aperture and high iso to achieve the desired shutter speed. Remember that IS wont help you with moving subjects.

crn3371 wrote in post #14603623
For the displays you should be able to use your 50mm which will give you an aperture advantage and help hold down your iso. Any arena shots will most like require one of your zooms. You pretty much summed up what you need for exposure. Wide aperture and high iso to achieve the desired shutter speed. Remember that IS wont help you with moving subjects.

Thanks so much for your help with this. I hope to be able to use a tripod and move as needed to get different views. I'm not the best at hand held.

Lonestarlady61 wrote in post #14603220
I have volunteered to take photos at the Last Chance Stampede & Fair here in town. I will be taking photos for the Equine Exhibit and some of the displays. Come to find out the Equine event will be indoors. If it is a sunny day and the doors are open there should be enough light. I could really use some tips on the best settings to use for an indoor arena. My equipment consists of a Canon 60D, 28-135mm lens, a 70-300mm USM lens and a nifty fifty. I don't own a off camera flash at this time. Which lens would you use for this event? What I've found so far is to open up my aperture as far as possible, then increase the ISO if necessary to get a fast shutter speed. When I volunteered I didn't realize the event would be indoors and I don't want to back out now. Please help me get some good photos for these people.

if your largest aperture on the 70-300 is f4 then you will definitely need to crank up the ISO to get a high shutter speed. The 50mm should be fine but I would also use the 28-135 on displays

rent a flash won't cost much and you will be happy you did...

I would strongly suggest you ask if direct flash is ok with the riders before firing away at horses...

Somewhere on POTN, there's another thread where a gentleman showed some indirect flash work at an indoor jumping event and he got very good results. He was limited to being setup on one jump near the crowd rail however.

If you're going to be inside the typical covered arena with open sides, you're going to face some very tricky lighting. You'll have to find places where the background is as dark as it can be and let light coming in around you do the work. You're going to probably have to find camera settings that work and lock them in in Manual mode. If you let the meter take control and you have very bright backgrounds, you'll end up with nothing but silhouettes as the camera will try to expose for outside the arena. You could spot meter (if your camera supports it), but you will have to keep the spot exactly on the riders faces. Manual would be the best bet I think.

If it turns out that flash is ok, that will probably be your saving grace...

nice that you volunteered, i think it's important to give back to the communities we live in.

can you get into where this venue will be held before the event happens? try some practice shots and see what works best.

watt100 wrote in post #14604744
if your largest aperture on the 70-300 is f4 then you will definitely need to crank up the ISO to get a high shutter speed. The 50mm should be fine but I would also use the 28-135 on displays

Thanks for your help with this Watt. The largest aperture on my 28-135mm is 3.5 and 4.0 on the 70-300mm lens. I think I'll practice on my pets inside the house till I feel confident about working in low light.

stanclark wrote in post #14604779
rent a flash won't cost much and you will be happy you did...

I live in a fairly small town Stan and we don't have a rental store for camera equipment. I sure wish we had something like that.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #14604801
I would strongly suggest you ask if direct flash is ok with the riders before firing away at horses...

Somewhere on POTN, there's another thread where a gentleman showed some indirect flash work at an indoor jumping event and he got very good results. He was limited to being setup on one jump near the crowd rail however.

If you're going to be inside the typical covered arena with open sides, you're going to face some very tricky lighting. You'll have to find places where the background is as dark as it can be and let light coming in around you do the work. You're going to probably have to find camera settings that work and lock them in in Manual mode. If you let the meter take control and you have very bright backgrounds, you'll end up with nothing but silhouettes as the camera will try to expose for outside the arena. You could spot meter (if your camera supports it), but you will have to keep the spot exactly on the riders faces. Manual would be the best bet I think.

If it turns out that flash is ok, that will probably be your saving grace...

Thanks for all the great info. Flyingphotog. I don't think there will be riders involved so I'll just be working with the horses. So in this case should I spot meter for the horses face? I do have a flash diffuser that might come in handy if I'm allowed to use flash.

rick_reno wrote in post #14606042
nice that you volunteered, i think it's important to give back to the communities we live in.

can you get into where this venue will be held before the event happens? try some practice shots and see what works best.

Thanks Rick, I can't say that my volunteering is entirely selfless. It would be nice to have one of my photos selected for the newspaper etc... A way to maybe get my name out there. Even if that doesn't happen this will be a nice way to give back to our community and a learning experience for me. That's a great idea Rick and I'll call the lady I'm working with about getting in to take some practice shots.