Newbie Looking For Gymnastics Pictures Advice...

Hello This is my first post here. I have read quite a bit and am getting a little overwhelmed

My daughter is a level 9 gymnast and I have been trying to take pictures for the last couple years.

I have a Canon 60D with a Canon 70-200 2.8 lens.

I have spent a bit to get the gear I thought I would need, but I am still not having a lot of luck.

I know the light and motion is an issue.

I am trying to learn all I can about the different settings and such, but it's still a little foreign.

My picture are very grainy and not sharp at all!!
I usually take them in Manual, f2.8, speed 500, ISO3200.

Any advice?

Tried to do it with a 7D and 100 f/2 and no luck either. The gym that I went to was a dungeon. Perhaps some hot lights in the corners of the gym or rent a 1Dx.

sburch75 wrote in post #15261041
Hello This is my first post here. I have read quite a bit and am getting a little overwhelmed

My daughter is a level 9 gymnast and I have been trying to take pictures for the last couple years.

I have a Canon 60D with a Canon 70-200 2.8 lens.

I have spent a bit to get the gear I thought I would need, but I am still not having a lot of luck.

I know the light and motion is an issue.

I am trying to learn all I can about the different settings and such, but it's still a little foreign.

My picture are very grainy and not sharp at all!!
I usually take them in Manual, f2.8, speed 500, ISO3200.

Any advice?

No flash? Gonna be hard...
How fast is the action in gymnastics? Can you go to say 1/250 without a lot of blur? Set the camera to AV and set the fstop to 2.8 and the iso as fast as it will go and see what kinda shutter speed it gives you. My 7D with one CF blub in the room will give me 1/100 at 6400. That might be pretty slow for fast action. Maybe shooting in RAW and adding some fill light in post processing.

Until she gets to college it's gonna be real rough, like there's days I wonder if it would be better to advise you to go get a few dozen ofthese before a new lens.

If you want good shots of her, I'd say find a way to get into the gym with nobody else around and pull out the flash. Or wait for meets at bigger event spaces with better lighting, or a gym with some windows that aren't sealed off (last meet I went to in the spring last year had ice big windows all sealed off with brown paper block all the light I was so excited driving up and so annoyed when I got in). Last winter I shot some college gymnastics that are at a similar skill set to level 9, when I got up to 1/450th it was manageable, but still rough, and everything ended up with way too much noise; I've since upgraded camera, some lenses (will likely be adding another fast lens before things get underway) and memory cards. My suggestion for approach would be set your lens wide open, and keep a shutter speed of 1/500 to 1/1000 shoot RAW, try and get the ISO to being one stop over exposed, then pull it back and not be noise blasted, but for the amount of light at those shutter speeds you're more likely looking at RAW, 1/1000 wide open (1250th is ideal as a minimum), max out the ISO and then boosting a stop or two to get a bright enough exposure, then going through some of the more elaborate noise reduction methods to keep that under control.

Other things that helped me were a monopod to keep my arms from getting tired and getting really close to apparatus so that I could go wider focal lengths, depending upon the gym layout this may or may not be an option, but I've found I can get a little more light, a little faster shutter, larger DOF and a little different look.

The problem is that for all but the highest level bodies, even a fast zoom is too slow of a lens.

My nephew is also a level 9 gymnast, and I've shot him in a few venues. Some (such as the photo below which I took at the University of Michigan) have decent light. This shot would be 1/500, f/2.8 and ISO 4000. That's just within the capability of your 60D.

Most places are more like 1/500, f/2.8 and ISO 12800. That's not a realistic ISO level for a 60D.

What I might suggest is a look at using a fast prime such as the 85/1.8. This lens (wide open) gives you another one and 1/3 stops over the zoom. Worth a look.

Please ignore all the folks suggesting flash. as they obviously do not know gymnastics. As every high level gym parent knows, flash use is strictly prohibited from gymnastics and will get you ejected immediately. Go ahead and try it twice in a sneaky manner and see how effectively they can find a way to enforce a permanent ban on you. Simply put, you might get away with flash in 'tumbling' with little kids who are not even level 4, but by L9 there isn't a parent in the place who does not know better.

Thank you all for your advice.
I have taken some notes and put them in my camera bag. I need to play a little bit at our home gym and see what I can do

I looked a little further just to check the settings. As I suggested, most youth gymnastics facilities are terrible for light. This first shot is just my daughter in a low level event, but the facility is all to typical. This is a very normal shot for a zoom user at f/2.8, 1/500 and ISO 12800.

ISO 12800 is a killer high level for most cameras, 1/500 is scraping the barrel to stop motion in gymnastics and f/2.8 is wide open for the fastest zoom lenses. That's why I suggest that zooms are really only plausible if you have a body that is usable to the range of ISO 12800.

Otherwise, you are flying without a net, like in the second image.

Here are a couple pictures I took this weekend.

Taken with Canon 60D, 70-200 2.8 lens,Manual, f2.8, speed 500, ISO3200.

Should I switch to AV?
Raise the ISO?

The shots are a little underexposed, probably about one stop worth. This will make them look noisier. Try going to ISO 6400 to get a correct exposure. The only other option (shutter speed to 1/250) will yield blur in most shots.

The light in gyms tends to be constant, so using Av isn't going to help.

JeffreyG wrote in post #15263984
The shots are a little underexposed, probably about one stop worth. This will make them look noisier. Try going to ISO 6400 to get a correct exposure. The only other option (shutter speed to 1/250) will yield blur in most shots.

The light in gyms tends to be constant, so using Av isn't going to help.

Excuse my ignorance. When you say "one stop" that means go up a "stop" higher on the ISO? (sorry, this is all new to me).

sburch75 wrote in post #15264070
Excuse my ignorance. When you say "one stop" that means go up a "stop" higher on the ISO? (sorry, this is all new to me).

Yes raising your ISO from 3200 to 6400 would be a one stop increase in exposure.

joeblack2022 wrote in post #15264131
Yes raising your ISO from 3200 to 6400 would be a one stop increase in exposure.

Thanks! I appreciate all the help! I can not wait to "play" around with the settings. Dd hurt herself this weekend and hopefully she'll be back in the gym soon!

sburch75 wrote in post #15264070
Excuse my ignorance. When you say "one stop" that means go up a "stop" higher on the ISO? (sorry, this is all new to me).

One stop is a doubling or a halving of the light that forms the exposure. This way you can adjust the parameters easily and predict what will happen.

Most of the full stops are easy....

ISO for example runs 100 - 200 - 400 - 800 - 1600 - 3200 etc etc for full stops.

Shutter speed is just as easy 1/125 - 1/250 - 1/500 - 1/1000 - 1/2000. See the pattern?

Aperture is harder to grasp intuitively as the full stops are expressed as a function of diameter but the light is a function of area. So the stops move as a progression of the square of the aperture (f/1.4 - f/2 - f/2.8 - f/4 - f/5.6 - f/8) etc.

And then your camera allows fractional stops in between the full stops for finer adjustment. Look for a basic book on photography at your library for this info and I think you will find that it is easier to control the exposure in difficult conditions like a gymnastics meet.

Hello, SBurch75, I'm violating a rule by doing this. For any of us to edit your image as an example requires that you allow image editing on your profile. But I do not save the image I pulled from above. This is just an example that can deleted if you desire.

Probably many of your shots are salvageable. This was done by Shadow/Highlight tool in PhotoShop CS5. You can compare that to a 7D shot with a 135mm L lens from the halfway point of the room. This was in that awful fluorescent light that changes color, throwing off the auto white balance. My shot was cropped slightly and edited for noise . This was on AV setting at f2, ISO 3200, AWB, 1/750s.

Since you were on manual, you were forcing the under exposure, by selecting either of P, AV or TV you allow the camera to calculate the exposure based on the light at that moment--and it does change, especially with the fluorescents. I wouldn't go with P because the camera doesn't necessarily understand your exact needs, but the other two allow you to choose the criteria.

You didn't say if your 70-200 had IS or not, however, it is a good lens without the IS and should give you great results if you change to AV setting.