Black Belts

Seems I am going to get a chance to shoot a few masters in action. This is a first for me. It's indoors with good lighting and a full wall of mirrors. I even got permission to shoot on the mats. I can get real close. The gear I use the most is in my sig. I do have flash's also. I'm thinking 24-70 and the 5D mostly. With the 30D and the 10-22 as backup. Any ideas would be helpfull.

You could get some really cool shots with the 10-22 ultrawide, low close in on the action.

don't use flash!

Bobster wrote in post #3889758
don't use flash!

Why not?

Rule #1: Take your shoes off when entering the dojo!

I've shot a couple of karate sessions and the 24-70 and the 70-200 were the only lenses I've ever really needed, mostly the 24-70. But the wider lenses would come in handy to get a picture of the whole dojo, especially if it's not very large.

As long as there's good lighting there, you 're not going to need, nor want, to use a flash. You just have to watch your shutter speed so that you don't get that notorious florescent lighting effect that can easily ruin an otherwise good shot.

With lighting that never changes, you can shoot in manual mode without ever needing to change the settings once you have the best exposure nailed down. Shoot at 1/125, or 1/80 or 1/60 if you want some motion blur. You don't want to be shooting with a faster shutter speed if the dojo is using florescent lighting.

If mats are colored, that's going to put a color cast on portions of the gi, especially on the legs, if they are white or light in color (probably not a problem with black gi though). And no amount of color balancing, in camera or during PP, is going to get rid of that. Just wanted to mention that so you don't waste your time trying too hard to get rid of the color cast although you might be able to subdue the color cast a bit in PP.

Thanks for the info folks. The mats are are mostly blue with red. The gi they wear are, red tops and black bottoms or all red or all black. It is florescent lighting. Pretty bright but there are shadows. I'm going to have to bump the ISO for this one if I don't use flash. I did ask though, and to my surprise they said flash was ok. Still don't think I want too. Good thing is, I can shoot as often as I like. So I should be able to get it right.

I did this yesterday! I used my strobes and soft boxes to do portraits, and for action shots I used my 70-200 and no flash. For the non-flash shots, I bumped the ISO to 1600.

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Space wrote in post #3890167
Thanks for the info folks. The mats are are mostly blue with red. The gi they wear are, red tops and black bottoms or all red or all black. It is florescent lighting. Pretty bright but there are shadows. I'm going to have to bump the ISO for this one if I don't use flash. I did ask though, and to my surprise they said flash was ok. Still don't think I want too. Good thing is, I can shoot as often as I like. So I should be able to get it right.

If you are shooting without flash but in fluorescent lighting, you should be very aware of something. If the lighting is using line-frequency ballasts, the color and intensity of the lighting will change at twice the power line frequency (60Hz in the United States). If you use fast shutter speeds, you can very easily have a series of photos with varying exposure levels and varying colors.

Put your camera into M mode and try a rapid series of shots at 1/320 or something like that (with whatever aperture and ISO you need to get proper exposure). Look carefully at the series of images. If all of them are the same color and intensity, you're OK. If, however, you see changing colors and exposure levels, then you will need to adhere to a very strict rule.

That rule, to overcome the fluorescent lighting problem, is to use shutter speeds that are either twice the line frequency (1/120 second) or that shutter speed divided by 2 a couple of times. In other words, choose from 1/120 second, 1/60 second, 1/30 second, or 1/15 second shutter speeds for your exposures AND NOTHING ELSE FASTER. That's the only way that it's possible to overcome the problem if the lights are using line-frequency ballasts (other than overpowering the fluorescent lights with your own flash).

Space wrote in post #3890167
Thanks for the info folks. The mats are are mostly blue with red. The gi they wear are, red tops and black bottoms or all red or all black. It is florescent lighting. Pretty bright but there are shadows. I'm going to have to bump the ISO for this one if I don't use flash. I did ask though, and to my surprise they said flash was ok. Still don't think I want too. Good thing is, I can shoot as often as I like. So I should be able to get it right.

If you want to give the flash a try, set it up so it is bounced off the ceiling. That way it'll be less distracting for the martial artists compared to having it pointed directly at them. Bounce the flash somewhat more off to one side of the ceiling (either left or right of subject) so that you can get a more natural looking soft shadow on the opposite side of the subject. Just make sure the ceiling isn't showing (or can be cropped off) due to the uneven lighting the ceiling is going to get when the flash is bounced this way.

PacAce wrote in post #3890503
If you want to give the flash a try, set it up so it is bounced off the ceiling. That way it'll be less distracting for the martial artists compared to having it pointed directly at them. Bounce the flash somewhat more off to one side of the ceiling (either left or right of subject) so that you can get a more natural looking soft shadow on the opposite side of the subject. Just make sure the ceiling isn't showing (or can be cropped off) due to the uneven lighting the ceiling is going to get when the flash is bounced this way.

I was thinking the same thing. If I did use flash. Good thing is I will hours, even days, to get it right. Thanks again.

Just curious... which art and who are the masters? Are they from overseas?

LotsToLearn wrote in post #3891374
Just curious... which art and who are the masters? Are they from overseas?

The art is Karate. They are teachers from KIMS. One is an 8th degree BB, one is 3rd, two are 2nd degree. This is what i'm told. Not really sure though.