Need a little help with this please...

My camera is a 30D and i have 3 lenses, niffty 50, 17-55 and sigma 10-22,

I have been trying to take a picture of my daughter bouncing on the trampoline in the garden, trouble is i just can't get a sharp shot. The pictures are always slightly blurry. This is very fustrating as she can jump really high and pull some great poses whilst in the air, and some shots i have taken would of been great (for me) if only they were sharp.
The shot i want is with her way up high in the air with her just on the way back down, so that her hair is blowing above her, with me down level with the trampoline, camera pointing upwards ( to give a better feeling of height ).
I have tried a variety of settings but nothing seems to of helped. I have tried to use a tripod to help stop any camera shake but this is very difficult for this type of shot as the height of thr jump is not always so predictable etc.
Can some kind soul take pity on me and give me a good setting to start at, which of my lens would be best suited, and any other pointers that may help, my daughter is desperate to show her friends how cool she is on the trampoline.
I would post some of my failed efforts for you to chuckle over if i new how to post them, so you could see the sort of effect i have been getting.
thanks for any tips/suggestions..

How about setting the camera on manual, and a very high shutter speed, like 250, 400, or even 500, experiment . . . it's the shutter that stops the action....

It's going to have to be done with shutter speed (or flash). Assuming you have enough light outdoors crank the shutter speed up until you get the desired action/results. This higher shutter speed will probably necessitate a wider f-stop or higher ISO. I'm not familiar with the Sigma 10-22 so I would suggest trying the 50mm.

Then you can play with panning and try to get the background all blurred and your daughter in crisp focus...

And there is a thread around here somewhere on how to post pictures.

Ray is faster and more to the point...

I think a flash, preferably not the built in one, could be your best friend here. Flash is so much shorter in duration and capable of freezing the fastest motion.

If you don't have an external flash, try the built in at f8 or higher.

My recommendations:

WIth either of the two techniques below you will want to make sure you have a high enough shutter speed to stop the action. At least 1/1000 to make sure you have no motion blur, but 1/500 or more may work. You'll probably have to up your ISO to at least ISO 400 to achieve this. The aperture you'll need will depend on how accurate the focus is and how your lenses perform wide open. f/3.5 to f/5.6 is my thinking to keep the shutter speeds up yet allow plenty of DOF for focus inaccuracies and subject depth. You'll probably want to use the 17-55 as the Nifty might be too long and the Sigma too wide. About 28-35mm on a crop will be ideal. The nifty also has slow, sometimes inaccurate AF (Assuming your referring to the 1.8 and not the 1.4).

First Technique: Prefocus

1. Eyeball the expected distance between you and your daughter at the point where you want to take the shot and pre-focus on something at that distance. You can either use the Custom Function 4-3 to assign AF to the * button or AF focus on something at the right distance and switch the lens to MF. I would recommend the Custom Function approach.

2. Wait until your daughter is at the point you want and take the shot - keeping the shutter half pressed. C.Fn 4-3 will ensure that the camera meters at the point you take the picture. Spot metering on the 30D will be most accurate for this as you will have the sky behind her which may cause underexposure.

Second Technique: AI Servo

Let AI Servo handle the focusing as you carefully keep the center focus point positioned on your daughter. This is really tough for two reasons:

1. She is changing velocity before and after the apex, fooling the AI Servo AF into thinking she will continue at the present velocity and probably causing a misfocus.

2. You have a very short time to allow the AF to lock on and start tracking - probably around a half second or less. How well you keep the center point on her will determine how effectively the AI Servo can track focus. This takes practice.


Set the focus to Center point only and AI Servo.

Set the drive mode to continuous, and not SIngle Shot (for reasons which I'll mention later)

You'll want to do the half press (or * if you've set C.Fn 4) right before she reaches the apex and hold the center AF point right in on a contrasty point on her as she goes throuhg the jump.

Start taking shots as she starts coming down and continue taking 2-4 continuous drive shots as she comes down. The first AI Servo continous drive shot is "shutter priority", which means that the camera will take the first shot in a series whether or not the AI Servo processing or lens has achieved focus. All subsequent shots will be "focus priority", which means the camera will predict where she will be when the shutter opens and pre-focus the lens to that distance. The shot will only be taken if and when the camera determines that it can and has achieved focus. I've found that my first shot may be a little off, but the rest are much better.


Final advise... take LOTS of shots and decide what works best.

Good luck, and please post your results. We'll be waiting....

TheSteveMadden wrote in post #2050754
My recommendations:
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Didn't want to post his entire response, but wanted to show eho I am responding to.
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I'm saving this for my own information. Great breakdown of how & WHY! It's frustrating to receive quick answers sometimes, without knowing WHY it works. I, and I'm sure the original poster, appreciate the time and detail that went into your description.

Thank you.

J.Simonian

Many thanks for your suggestions, i think the quality of advice given is incredible, so many thanks to all of you.
I shall try again this weekend weather permitting, and if i can find how to post pictures, i will post them.