Lighting dilemma...grappling tournament

So I've been shooting indoor sports for a short time. Had been going to my son's wrestling matches and shooting with a 50mm f1.8. Got enough light with it (usually) depending on the gym of course. However, I'd like to shoot with flash for a grappling tournament I'm going to tomorrow. I have a 580EX II. I can trigger it wirelessly as I have the AlienBee wireless setup. I also have a bracket.

My problem is this, I'm totally new to trying to do REAL flash photography. I've been reading everything I can find on the subject and it just adds to my confusion. So I'm not even sure what I don't know.

As you know, gym lighting is hit or miss. I won't know what this gym is like until I get there. I only have one flash so I'm not sure if triggering it remotely will be much of an advantage although I was thinking of either holding the flash in my hand or maybe putting the flash down beside me. Both ways to get the flash farther from the camera. I just don't think sticking it in a corner will get me much. Besides, a grappling tournament is PANDEMONIUM. 16-32 matches going on at once depending on the size of the tournament. So I'm not comfortable leaving my flash unattended.

Thought about bouncing the flash off the mat but the mats are usually colored (red for this tournament usually) so I'll get a red tint on everything. Not a good thing either.

If the lighting is good enough I'll just use my new (used) 28-70mm f2.8 L but I doubt it'll be quite THAT good to shoot sans flash unless I crank the ISO WAY up.

Anyway, looking for suggestions on how I can best utilize my single flash. Sorry if I'm not asking the right questions. As I said, I'm really just learning about flash photography--especially off-camera flash.

Thanks.

what about using it on the hotshoe? why do u want it off camera?

With only one flash, I'd just use it on-camera. Manual settings on the camera and manual settings on the flash -- say 1/8 to 1/16 power. Expose for the middle of the mat. Then when the action moves closer, close your aperture on the camera, when they move farther away, open it up. You'll definitely want to use the 70-200.

With wrestling, if you depend on E-TTL, it can get easily fooled with many of the headgear kids wear today. They have a reflective material on them, and your camera will get fooled and you'll have many underexposed images.

If you have a flash bracket, that will improve things, for you'll get less (not totally eliminated) red-eye.

Eventually, you'll want two off-camera flashes coming in from each corner of the mat, but for now, I'd go with what I suggest. With it being a tournament, there will be several mats, so you'll want to be able to run from mat-to-mat easily.

Gatorboy wrote in post #9830062
With only one flash, I'd just use it on-camera. Manual settings on the camera and manual settings on the flash -- say 1/8 to 1/16 power. Expose for the middle of the mat. Then when the action moves closer, close your aperture on the camera, when they move farther away, open it up. You'll definitely want to use the 70-200.

With wrestling, if you depend on E-TTL, it can get easily fooled with many of the headgear kids wear today. They have a reflective material on them, and your camera will get fooled and you'll have many underexposed images.

If you have a flash bracket, that will improve things, for you'll get less (not totally eliminated) red-eye.

Eventually, you'll want two off-camera flashes coming in from each corner of the mat, but for now, I'd go with what I suggest. With it being a tournament, there will be several mats, so you'll want to be able to run from mat-to-mat easily.

Thanks. I don't have a 70-200 lens yet so I shot with the 28-70. I also tried the flash off camera but it didn't work so well. Just as you mentioned--and I sorta thought--I need at least 2 flashes for this to make sense. I used a diffuser on-camera and got acceptable results but not as good as I'd like. I'm thinking I'll need to set up multiple flashes to get what I'm after.

I shot at like 1/8th power on the flash and f2.8. Got very nicely-exposed shots. Good thing is, the rings they roll in aren't as large as wrestling rings so 28-70 is adequate.

Just trying to learn more about flash photography. It's totally foreign to me but I'm slowly starting to understand some things.

Thanks!

HoRnYTuRbO wrote in post #9829477
what about using it on the hotshoe? why do u want it off camera?

Want to get it off-camera because I believe I'll get better results (all things being equal) but I don't really know as I'm just learning. A bit confused about flash...

Oh, another question...

I thought, when using flash, ss isn't as important for freezing action as the flash would freeze the action. However, I got motion blur when shooting the tournament. I was at 1/60 but I was using flash. It was powered down and diffused but I wasn't expecting motion blur.

What am I missing?

Thanks.

The flash will freeze the action as long as your shutter speed is high enough to not let ambient light affect the exposure. At that low of a shutter speed, ambient light is definitely affecting the exposure. Unless you are wanting to use the ambient light, crank up your shutter speed to your max sync speed (probably 1/200) and motion blur won't be an issue.

munzzzzzzz wrote in post #9849122
The flash will freeze the action as long as your shutter speed is high enough to not let ambient light affect the exposure. At that low of a shutter speed, ambient light is definitely affecting the exposure. Unless you are wanting to use the ambient light, crank up your shutter speed to your max sync speed (probably 1/200) and motion blur won't be an issue.

Ah...ok, had just read the primer here on flash and what you said makes PERFECT sense now. So I'd have to bump the ISO if I raised the shutter speed if I wanted to keep the same amount of ambient light and still freeze the action (was already wide open on aperture)? Or will I always get motion blur if I want ambient light balanced with my subject lighting?

Just trying to nail this down as I tend to do a lot of sports photography.

Thanks.