Shooting Judo ... (martial art)

Just curious ...

Cracked ribs in practice last night so I am gonna sit out 1 practice to let them heal. I was thinking of bringing my camera and taking pics.

My question is ...
I have a Rebel XS and 18-55mm ... will I be able to catch nice photos of people getting thrown without all the blur?

Which settings should I read up on? I just don't wanna go and take like 50-100 blurry photos.

copenhagen69 wrote in post #10667180
Just curious ...

Cracked ribs in practice last night so I am gonna sit out 1 practice to let them heal. I was thinking of bringing my camera and taking pics.

My question is ...
I have a Rebel XS and 18-55mm ... will I be able to catch nice photos of people getting thrown without all the blur?

Which settings should I read up on? I just don't wanna go and take like 50-100 blurry photos.

What is the light condition in the room? To shoot without blur you need a decent shutter speed. Shoot wide open with a high iso and possibly a flash to bounce off of the ceiling.

Chet wrote in post #10667197
What is the light condition in the room? To shoot without blur you need a decent shutter speed. Shoot wide open with a high iso and possibly a flash to bounce off of the ceiling.

Well it is not a traditional dojo we train out of. We are in a rec center for now. So we have, what I think, is decent lighting. The big lights you would find in a gym. So the lighting is now awful, but not the best.

ok, I will look into the high shutter speed to minimize the blur and high iso to help with lighting.

Anything else I should be aware of?

copenhagen69 wrote in post #10667222
Well it is not a traditional dojo we train out of. We are in a rec center for now. So we have, what I think, is decent lighting. The big lights you would find in a gym. So the lighting is now awful, but not the best.

ok, I will look into the high shutter speed to minimize the blur and high iso to help with lighting.

Anything else I should be aware of?

You would be surprised at what you consider decent indoor lighting is very poor lighting to a camera. White balance will most likely be an issue, so you may have to play or do custom white balance to get rid of the yellow cast from the lights. Shoot wide open, the widest your lenses are capable which I think is f3.5 on yours to get the most available light.

I say aim for 1/200-1/300 shutter speed. Boost the ISO to max, and you might be able to get that shutter speed. If you don't have a hot shoe flash, you a tissue to diffuse your pop-up flash.

I've shot tae kwon do in well lit gyms and still had to boost iso to 1600-3200 w/out flash. I was able to keep the shutter around 1/640-800. Anything below that, then you'll going to get motion blur. However, a little bit of motion blur helps bring out some character in the pictures.

asysin2leads wrote in post #10671762
I've shot tae kwon do in well lit gyms and still had to boost iso to 1600-3200 w/out flash. I was able to keep the shutter around 1/640-800. Anything below that, then you'll going to get motion blur. However, a little bit of motion blur helps bring out some character in the pictures.

true ... I dont mind a little when I am meaning to have it. I will play with both. I just dont want them all to have it. I want some to be nice and crisp when they are in the middle of the throw.

Also, talk to your instructor about how he/she would feel about you taking some pictures with flash. I study Kuk Sool Won, and I often took pictures of training and testing. For testing, I'd never use flash, as the students had enough to worry about without a bunch of flashes going off in their faces. For practice, I took most of my shots without flash, but also some select shots with flash as I felt appropriate.

But just as Chet said, the lighting in most gyms is much worse than it usually appears. We had some pretty decent lighting in the gym where I trained, plus some windows that let in natural light, but I still ended up shooting at ISO 1600 and f/1.4-2.0. Speaking of which, if you're consider doing this more in the future, a 50mm prime lens is great for indoor martial arts, and not very expensive.

For shutter speed, it depended on the shot, but I actually liked a little motion blur in many instances. We do a good amount of throws and take-downs, and I used 1/125-1/250 quite a bit. . .probably closer to 1/250 for throws, as it will keep the person throwing pretty clear (especially the lower body), while the person being thrown has some good motion blur, which adds some impact to the photo. If you really want to freeze the motion, 1/400 - 1/500 should work fine for throws, especially at the beginning of the throw before the person really starts picking up momentum. I seldom went higher than that and just accepted a tiny bit of blur with really fast motion, but to freeze a really fast punch, kick or even throw, you may certainly need a slightly higher shutter speed, which is probably going to necessitate bumping the ISO up to 1/3200. . .which in the newer cameras is certainly feasible, especially with some good noise reduction software.

With flash, you can of course go with a much slower shutter speed, depending on your ISO setting and f-stop. A low ISO/high f-stop won't let in much ambient light and will freeze the action very well. A higher ISO/lower f-stop will allow more ambient light in and add some ghosting from the motion, which can actually be desireable to once again show the motion.

That's probably more than you really wanted to know. . .

heh, actually ... that is exactly what I wanted to know Thank you!!

I just gotta remember these ... I keep getting them mixed up. I guess with time it will become 2nd nature, but for now it is not haha