College Gymnastics- BallState vs NIU

I'll start off by saying this was by far the best lit venue for gymnastics that I've ever been in, which I think was a huge help. While I may have been shooting in Muncie a few hours ago, I'll be shooting Big Ten gymnastics in about 13 more hours, so if you see anything you'd have done differently or that I'm missing please do comment.

Here are the four images that I think are the best from the night:

IMAGE LINK: http://drewcanavanphot​ography.zenfolio.com/p​182956796/e5364fa30

IMAGE LINK: http://drewcanavanphot​ography.zenfolio.com/p​182956796/e5364da22

IMAGE LINK: http://drewcanavanphot​ography.zenfolio.com/p​182956796/e5364f664

IMAGE LINK: http://drewcanavanphot​ography.zenfolio.com/p​182956796/e5364c7d0

you got peak action!

I can't see the EXIF on these but it would be great if you could blur the background more with a longer lens wide open or if you could get into a position where the background would be less cluttered. Also, when you are calculating your exposure you should consider what the face is going to look like. In that place it looks like the light was coming from the top with not a lot bouncing up to light the faces.

I can see the EXIF. That last one was shot at f1.4 and looks fine to me. I imagine you only have so much room to work with, limiting the focal length you can use.

The best I could do in that venue was move back 3 rows and tried to shoot between over heads, but that would have put me looking down and the teams and judges would've gotten in the way. I don't have press access to get closer around the apparatus.

Any tips for the faces? It's a tan floor that reflects some, and gymnastics at this level is strictly no flash.

I shoot gymnastics at 1/640 most times (with my 70-200 2.8 wide open), as that is about the fastest I can shoot for most of the venues to keep me at ISO 3200 and not go higher on my 7D. With my 85/135, I shoot around 1/800 at f/2. Don't be afraid to go with a slower shutter speed and introduce a little more motion blur. It's not necessarily a detraction for these types of events as it might be for some others.

For focus, I usually aim for the chest, as that's the largest part of the body that I can catch for the various motions they do in each event. In portrait mode, I move the focus point up one or two, depending on what I'm shooting so I don't cut off the lower body. I mostly use single point focus, but may change to AF expansion points if I'm in a position where feet/hands extended out aren't going to accidentally catch the focus instead of the chest/face.

This is a great thread. Gymnastics has some amazing similarities, IMHO, with my regular work, which is belly dancers. One key difference, is I think that in a gym, you have a greater quantity of light. This seems commensurate with Tv ~ 1/1250, and bodies possibly in faster motion due to free fall, and greater vertical height with balance beams, etc. But like belly dance clubs, the light source quality often leaves a lot to be desired.

Due to extreme low-light in club shoots for belly dance, at high-ISOs, I tend to to use Tv ~ 1/160 as "hard deck." If there is more light, Tv ~1/250 is possible, and it helps immensely. Belly dance is surprisingly fast, hair flips and en pointe turns can happen in like small dozens to hundreds of milliseconds. Like gymnastics, the hands are often the fastest moving part of the body. It takes extreme Tv to freeze fast moving hands; sometimes, the available light won't support it. Strobes or flash are highly unwelcome at live belly dqmce shows, because it can blind the dancer, and it's highly distracting to restaurant patrons.

The center of body mass is often the best way to keep DoF for the dancer, but since they use props like veils, now and then AF expansion following the veil is useful.

I'm quite happy with the advanced AF performance of the 7D, I have essentially used it to replace the slightly faster 1D III.

Fligi7 wrote in post #15537661
Don't be afraid to go with a slower shutter speed and introduce a little more motion blur. It's not necessarily a detraction for these types of events as it might be for some others.

Hey, Fligi7, I must respectfully disagree with this. I think motion blur is extremely detracting in gymnastics photography. Maybe every once in a great while, for artistic effect, but for most photos? No. Just my two cents

raksphoto wrote in post #15566052
This is a great thread. Gymnastics has some amazing similarities, IMHO, with my regular work, which is belly dancers. One key difference, is I think that in a gym, you have a greater quantity of light. This seems commensurate with Tv ~ 1/1250, and bodies possibly in faster motion due to free fall, and greater vertical height with balance beams, etc. But like belly dance clubs, the light source quality often leaves a lot to be desired.

Due to extreme low-light in club shoots for belly dance, at high-ISOs, I tend to to use Tv ~ 1/160 as "hard deck." If there is more light, Tv ~1/250 is possible, and it helps immensely. Belly dance is surprisingly fast, hair flips and en pointe turns can happen in like small dozens to hundreds of milliseconds. Like gymnastics, the hands are often the fastest moving part of the body. It takes extreme Tv to freeze fast moving hands; sometimes, the available light won't support it. Strobes or flash are highly unwelcome at live belly dqmce shows, because it can blind the dancer, and it's highly distracting to restaurant patrons.

The center of body mass is often the best way to keep DoF for the dancer, but since they use props like veils, now and then AF expansion following the veil is useful.

I'm quite happy with the advanced AF performance of the 7D, I have essentially used it to replace the slightly faster 1D III.

I usually don't mind if the hair is blurry but at 1/250th I'd be quite tempted to slow way down and try for some longer exposures in a deliberate manner, similar to a few shots I tried at this weeks meet:http://drewcanavanphot​ography.zenfolio.com/p​292440489/e541eb0c8 That may incline me to bring a bean bag or tripod to play around with during the touch period before each event starts up.

And for those interested, since this thread has had a little more discussion in it, here is the link to the thread with my photos from this week's meet in the same gymnasium: https://photography-on-the.net …p?p=15563930#po​st15563930

I made effort to find a better background and all my shots of Ball State were in RAW instead of mRAW to help reduce the relative visibility of noise and I shot almost exclusively with the 85 and I was much stricter on not cropping.

gymdad wrote in post #15567894
Hey, Fligi7, I must respectfully disagree with this. I think motion blur is extremely detracting in gymnastics photography. Maybe every once in a great while, for artistic effect, but for most photos? No. Just my two cents

"A little motion blur" - the kind you get from a shutter speed of 640. I'm not talking about 1/100 speeds here. Any motion blur at 1/640 speeds is only introduced at the edges of extremities as they are traveling the fastest, much faster than the torso and most of the parts of the limbs.

In fact, it's exemplified in your photo here.
http://www.flickr.com …399260518/in/ph​otostream/

The majority of the body is easily frozen at 1/640 for most parts of events, sans tight spins in floor/vault/beam dismount.

Personally, I don't think completely frozen movement in all shots of gymnastics is what you should go for. It simply doesn't convey nor do justice to the speeds at which the gymnasts bodies are moving for certain events. In freezing the main focus of the photo on the torso/face but letting the extremities exhibit some motion blur, you convey a much better picture of what is actually happening in the photo. The same goes for cycling, motorsports, aviation, and all other sorts of photography involving incredibly fast motion/movement. Completely freezing the action just doesn't convey the activity or story happening.

Motor On wrote in post #15568035
I usually don't mind if the hair is blurry but at 1/250th I'd be quite tempted to slow way down and try for some longer exposures in a deliberate manner, similar to a few shots I tried at this weeks meet:http://drewcanavanphot​ography.zenfolio.com/p​292440489/e541eb0c8 That may incline me to bring a bean bag or tripod to play around with during the touch period before each event starts up.

And for those interested, since this thread has had a little more discussion in it, here is the link to the thread with my photos from this week's meet in the same gymnasium: https://photography-on-the.net …p?p=15563930#po​st15563930

I made effort to find a better background and all my shots of Ball State were in RAW instead of mRAW to help reduce the relative visibility of noise and I shot almost exclusively with the 85 and I was much stricter on not cropping.

In terms of critiquing those photos, your position for shooting the vault is really not optimal as it doesn't convey the height the gymnasts are achieving from the vault. You're going to want to shoot that from ground level. In terms of noise, it looks like those photos are underexposed, which greatly increases noise on the 7D. Leverage the histogram to shoot as far to the right as possible in the RGB histogram without clipping. This will net you the least noise in your photos.

You're certainly on your way to great shots. Just keep practicing and searching/learning from all the 7D sports photo threads/tips on the forum here. You'll get the hang.

Fligi7 wrote in post #15568311
"A little motion blur" - the kind you get from a shutter speed of 640. I'm not talking about 1/100 speeds here.

OK, I understand where you're coming from. I thought you were talking about more extreme & artistic examples of motion blur.

I upgraded my body in large part due to my daughter getting more serious about gymnastics. I feel like I'm improving every meet but finding it a very difficult sport to photograph and hard to practice since the meet is the only time I can get on the floor...glad it's not just me! Now that I'm able to actually get "usable" pictures (I shoot at f/2.8 but couldn't really go above 1600 ISO before) I'm getting bothered more by things like background...a nice problem to have.

Agree with much of what has been said and would only add your crops feel just a little tight to me, a touch more breathing room would be good, I think.