HS Wrestling Strobed

With Vinny's help and guidance, I purchased a pair of Elinchrom Strobes, 600RX with the skyports. I mounted them on 12 foot manfrotto stands on either side of the scorer's table pointed downward toward the mat. Strobes were set at half power, gave instant recycle times, for 260 pictures over two hour match. Shot at 1/250, f2.8 ISO 200. I've never before gotten such good results lighting-wise, nor have I ever been able to shoot anywhere near this low ISO.

wow - you must be so excited, as are the kids! Strobes add such a great new level to indoor sports. I cannot tell you how impressed I am. I bet you have more keepers from this match than you do from the entire year!

CONGRATS!@!!

Nice shots. The 600RX's are killer lights. I tend to use my Ranger's most of time anymore but still love them for lots of other stuff.

One suggestion. Shoot them at full power. The flash duration at less than full power is not the best and you will end up having problems with ghosting that will drive you crazy. The recycle time at full power is not that bad and you will not really notice much of a difference at all.

Nice work and have fun with the new toys.

PS Did you get the monster Elinchrom Octa or something else?

I'll just add to Kevin's suggestion of shooting at full power with recommending for you to bounce when you can. Also, get low (on your belly!). That will make your subject look larger than life and more heroic, which is especially important for a sport like wrestling.

Great start, don't you just love those colors that you get with strobes!

Turn 'em down or bounce them as they are too hot - couple look like Casper the friendly ghost. Derek, gotta ask why use them at full power if they're too hot to begin with like I think these are? I'm not familiar with these but know if my AB's are too hot and I'm at a low ISO and the settings I want they're going down, not full (1600's though).

Strobes take getting used to but the images seem hot and over because of the strobes, which is common when first starting out with them - actually still happens with many until they get used to a facility and how to shoot there. I can walk into my local gym, set up quick and know the results - but down the road I'm chimping wondering if I got it right and almost as an error will shoot over as rather have that than under. Learning process over and over again. Well worth it though, there's good reason the best still use strobes even though ISO is getting so good. You can't beat it when done correctly.

I very much appreciate all critique, whether good or bad. That's how I learn.

Only problem here is some are saying turn 'em up, other say turn 'em down. That's a real conundrum.

I guess I'll have to try both. The stands were right at the edge of the mat. Not much choice in that as further back is where the wrestlers warm up, and back on the other side is the grandstands.

Is it possible the "ghost" like images are just not warm enough wb wise? Because for the most part the histograms are not showing blowouts, or where it did I recovered most.

Also, should I shoot at F4 or F5.6? Obviously that's what I'd have to do if I turned them up more.

Here's a link to more if you care to take a moment to look.
http://www.pbase.com/m​djak/jaywrestling2010

I would go with full power for the flash duration reasoning. And yes shoot somewhere between 4.0 and 5.6. You will need to adjust this on the fly as the wrestlers move closer to and farther from your light source.

In looking at the shots on your site, I would say a fair amount are underexposed.

MJPhotos24 wrote in post #9341994
gotta ask why use them at full power if they're too hot to begin with like I think these are? I'm not familiar with these but know if my AB's are too hot and I'm at a low ISO and the settings I want they're going down, not full (1600's though).

The reason is flash duration. Very few strobes have a fast enough flash duration even at full power. Cutting the power just makes it worse. This gets compounded when the mindset is everything must be shot at f/2.8 which does not work out too well with most strobed applications. You virtually always see Getty, SI or any of the big players covering strobed sports at f/6.3 or stopped down even lower.

MDJAK wrote in post #9342941
The stands were right at the edge of the mat. Not much choice in that as further back is where the wrestlers warm up, and back on the other side is the grandstands.

Are you sure it is not possible to back them away from the mat a bit? That would really help you out. The further the lights are from your subjects, the less exposure variation you have as they move closer/further from you. This is part of the problem with the shots you posted. The only way to fix this is to either have the lights so far away that the change in distances as the subjects move is irrelevant (Generally not possible) or adjust your aperture on the fly during the match which takes some practice.

MDJAK wrote in post #9342941
Is it possible the "ghost" like images are just not warm enough wb wise? Because for the most part the histograms are not showing blowouts, or where it did I recovered most.

Not really. The problem is that you are blowing out the red channel in most of the images. Strobes are really good at blowing out reds. If you just look at your full histo, it will not show this because it does not register as blown until all the channels are blown. Most of the time it will look like your exposer is pretty solid. Look at the RGB histo and you will see that the reds are much hotter than the greens and blues. Blowing out the reds are what is killing the skin tones.

MDJAK wrote in post #9342941
Also, should I shoot at F4 or F5.6? Obviously that's what I'd have to do if I turned them up more.

Yes. People get too consumed sometimes in the mindset that all sports have to be shot at f/2.8 because of the backgrounds. While this is a good thing many times, it is not a carved in stone requirement. With your D3 and 70-200 set at 160mm, your DOF behind a subject 25 feet away is still only 4 feet even when shot at f/16. More than enough to keep the backgrounds nice and blurry.

Here is a link to some wrestling I did recently. The first four images are shot with (2) 600RX's on 13' stands virtually in the same setup you did. The only difference was I had the lights about 30 feet behind the edge of the mat. They all were shot at f/8-f/9 and I intentionally shot at ISO 400 so I could use a more stopped down aperture because with wrestling I like a wider DOF so both subjects are in focus.

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=804244

Strobes change everything and you have to consider all settings.

If DOF control is a critical value or you can't get the lights back far enough to not have to shoot at f/22, you can fix this with simple ND gels over the flash heads which still let you use higher power (Faster flash durations) and knock down the light intensity.

MDJAK wrote in post #9343033
I got the box for portraiture. Do you think it would work for wrestling?

It would work fine but I would definitely not recommend it.

It would help knock down the intensity of the flash similar to the ND filter idea I mentioned above but will do very little to soften the light because the distance to the subject is still too far to really gain the softening benefits of light modifiers. Not to mention, it will make your stands considerably less stable and apt to be knocked over. No since running the risk of destroying a very expensive light mod just to knock down the light intensity when you can get the same result from a $5 ND gel and some gaffers tape.

Big K wrote in post #9343651
The reason is flash duration. Very few strobes have a fast enough flash duration even at full power. Cutting the power just makes it worse. This gets compounded when the mindset is everything must be shot at f/2.8 which does not work out too well with most strobed applications. You virtually always see Getty, SI or any of the big players covering strobed sports at f/6.3 or stopped down even lower.

There is that mind set among many, but most often do shoot strobed at f/4 and above. There has been instances when needing to turn them down, but talking different lights (Four AB 1600's). Last game I shot I got the settings I wanted - ISO and believe f/5.6 or so and they were still blasting too hot so had to go down to a little under 3/4th, so guess it depends.

Ghosting has a lot to do with how close your ambient light is to your strobes, I try to be about 2.5 stops above ambient. It depends on the light in your gym wether you can turn the strobes down or not. If the gym has good or decent lighting you will have to shoot with more power to overcome the ambient. If the gym is poorly lit you can actually turn your strobes down and stay far enough above ambient.

The gym I usually shoot in is pretty dark, I use a set of Norman ML600's at half power and never have a problem with ghosting.

MJPhotos24 wrote in post #9345475
There is that mind set among many, but most often do shoot strobed at f/4 and above. There has been instances when needing to turn them down, but talking different lights (Four AB 1600's). Last game I shot I got the settings I wanted - ISO and believe f/5.6 or so and they were still blasting too hot so had to go down to a little under 3/4th, so guess it depends.

Those 1600's are some big blasters thats for sure. I would still suggest using ND filters to bring down the intensity but do realize that is not always a viable solution and sometimes you just have to cut the power.

Sledhed wrote in post #9345689
Ghosting has a lot to do with how close your ambient light is to your strobes, I try to be about 2.5 stops above ambient. It depends on the light in your gym wether you can turn the strobes down or not. If the gym has good or decent lighting you will have to shoot with more power to overcome the ambient. If the gym is poorly lit you can actually turn your strobes down and stay far enough above ambient.

The gym I usually shoot in is pretty dark, I use a set of Norman ML600's at half power and never have a problem with ghosting.

I need to correct my statement from my earlier post. The problem from the slow duration is actually regular old motion blur, not ghosting. I was not fully awake when I wrote it and used the wrong term. Thanks for adding the clarification.

MDJAK wrote in post #9343033

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I got the box for portraiture. Do you think it would work for wrestling?

Sure as long as they stayed in the same spot:p

I want to truly thank everyone here for your comments. What a great group of guys. I don't hang out in the sports section enough. I've learned more from this post than I could have hoped for. I will read your posts again and again. I think the next match is on the 12th. I'll definitely change settings and see what happens.

mark