Roller Derby!

I shot a co-ed Roller Derby bout this past weekend, and got some OK shots, nothing great. It's an extremely hard sport to shoot, especially with the terrible rink lighting. I shot with my 580EX on camera at between +1/3 and +1, with my 30D and 17-40 0r 70-200 f/4

Please let me know what you think


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I know they are not pro level, but I was hoping they would evoke some type of response from someone...

Oh well, guess its just time to go get better.

I know shooting in these types of lighting conditions is very rough. I struggle with it, too. More important, though—since you can always lighten in photoshop—is the facial expressions. The best shots, in my opinion, are the ones with great reactions or intensity in the face.

One thing that will help you, too, is to crop in much tighter on a lot of these shots. You don't need much of the dark rink in the background. Come in closer either in camera or crop tight afterwards.

What shleiken said ... you need to get rid of a lot dead space. Also, a lot of your shots are before or after the actual action and therefore aren't really visually interesting. It's like boxing ... the pictures where the two guys are staring at each other are useless ... ya' gotta' get that face being deformed!

DwightMcCann wrote in post #5013950
What shleiken said ... you need to get rid of a lot dead space. Also, a lot of your shots are before or after the actual action and therefore aren't really visually interesting. It's like boxing ... the pictures where the two guys are staring at each other are useless ... ya' gotta' get that face being deformed!

Cool, thanks for the feedback! I'll take that to heart, and try it out next time

I shoot indoor flat track derby for website content. Technically, it is one of the more difficult sports to shoot because of the usually poor lighting, contrasty uniforms, and lots of non-constant motion where the velocity vector relative to the camera is changing as the skaters move around the track. I think these are pretty good for a first effort. You'll find you can get more contact shots by choosing your shooting position. Say the start line is at the 3 o'clock position. Standing at the 9-12 position or the 4-6 oclock positions will let you capture the contact that happens going into the corners. Use servo focus, and start tracking focus while they're on the straightaway so you get instant shutter release when you take the shot. Setting up a custom function to put the AF on a separate button works best for this. I hope you post more derby in the future.

bsmotril wrote in post #5019964
I shoot indoor flat track derby for website content. Technically, it is one of the more difficult sports to shoot because of the usually poor lighting, contrasty uniforms, and lots of non-constant motion where the velocity vector relative to the camera is changing as the skaters move around the track. I think these are pretty good for a first effort. You'll find you can get more contact shots by choosing your shooting position. Say the start line is at the 3 o'clock position. Standing at the 9-12 position or the 4-6 oclock positions will let you capture the contact that happens going into the corners. Use servo focus, and start tracking focus while they're on the straightaway so you get instant shutter release when you take the shot. Setting up a custom function to put the AF on a separate button works best for this. I hope you post more derby in the future.

Cool, thanks for the info. Do you have any links to your work or posts of it you have made here? This is not my "first" effort, but I am relitively new. I have been doing it for I guess just under a year, but I don't get a chance to shoot much. They have only had 3 bouts that I have been to, and practice is very slow paced, and they don't do many scrimmages.

My derby stuff is on my flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/​photos/smopho/
Check out the collection for the 2007 WFTDA championship and there's a best of set inside.

You can also see the www.txrollergirls.com website scrapebook page.

What lens do you usually use? I'm going to be shooting Saturday and I'll probably go with a 135 mm F/2 as it is my fastest lens.

The 9-12 and 4-6 position is good to know too.

And BSMotril, are you using a flash when you shoot these?

I'm usually sitting right on the safety barrier which is 5 foot from the track edge. The lens I've been using the last year is the 24-70L F2.8. I've also used the 85mm 1.8, and 50mm 1.4 with good success. But, if you are trackside, you'll find the 85 too tight and it will cut off their feet as they go by, even in portrait orientation. For my home venue, I shoot in manual mode, ISO 1250-1600, F4 for a little DOF, and shutter around 160-200. You can also get some cool motion blur going down to 1/50 shutter speed and panning with second curtain sync on the flash. I use the flash exposure comp on the 580ex to control the highlights on the foreground subjects to prevent clipping. which you'll tend to get on faces if the uniforms are dark colored. I've gotten my best keeper rates with the center AF point.

Check out THIS thread for some other RD shots and possible future positioning that allows you to capture good action on turns. It is these group action shots, with clear facial emotions showing, that will result in good captures of this sport. Most of your shots are skaters zipping across frame which causes more blur. Get them coming at you and you can freeze the action better. Flash or PP also needs to be brighter. Images are dark and "yellowy" on my monitor.

Cheers!

Chris

Thanks dudes, I'll cross my fingers and see what I can do.

http://weeklyvolcano.t​ypepad.com …8/03/how-the-throwdo.html

For how they turned out. I had a cold and was not at my best. It was extremely dark, so I went with iso 3200 1/200 second on most of them.

OK, did it three times. First time just the camera. 2nd time on camera flash. 3rd time with a pair of speedotron lights bouncing off the cealing.

http://www.idonthaveon​e.org/sports/rd/