Division 3 swimming

[pyrojim]

Some shots from UCSC's conference meet.
two flyers, two freestylers, and a breaststroker are featured.

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q222/pyrojim/IMG_1048.jpg

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q222/pyrojim/DPP_0996.jpg

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q222/pyrojim/DPP_0392.jpg

http://i137.photobucket.com/albums/q222/pyrojim/DPP_0880.jpg

[Cadwell]

Welcome to the forum.

You've caught some nice action with these but a few technical observations if I may.

In 1, 3 & 4 your subjects are a bit under-exposed. Swimming pools are difficult places to shoot as reflections and water splashes tend to create bright spots. Your subject is the important thing and you need to let the highlights blow if necessary to get the subjects exposed right.

Most are a little motion blurred and the last one appears front focused with AF on the near lane rope. Shutter speeds need to be at least 1/500th and sometimes higher to eliminate subject motion blur.

Which lens did you use for these?

[pyrojim]

The lightning at the longbeach pool at night is....TERRIBLE.

I used my 7D with kit lens, I was somewhat zoomed in, so was working at f5.0 -5.6...ISO over 1250

I just batched them in DPP, and cant figure out how to get DPP to auto correct thing yet...if it can at all...

[Cadwell]

You have my sympathy there, most swimming pools are. In this thread

http://www.photozo.com/forum/showthread.php?t=15957

there's a shot I took indoors at 1/1000th, ISO 5000 and f/2.0 so I share your pain.

if you're going to be doing much indoor swimming photography you probably need to look at a fast prime lens. Something like the 85mm f/1.8 gives you the reach and speed you need without being too hard on the bank balance. Not cheap but not as mad as some.

[pyrojim]

I was AGONIZING over renting a 70-200mm F2.8 lens(either canon or sigma) for the meet, in doing so I spent too much time thinking about what to do that I missed the opportunity to rent a fast lens.

I took over 1000 shots: A-relay starts and exchanges, some B-relays aswell, the divers who made it to finals, as many good starts as I could find. The lightning was just awful in that pool.

next year, I hope to at least rent a fast lens.

I did manage(I think) a decently exposed candid shot of a friend...I'll post it appropriately so.

[arezai85]

I like the first one more and think the problem about lighting could be solved with some edit, give it try and see what happen.

Ali

[Skippy]

I like the first and last one. Ali is right a simple curves edit would do a lot for your difficult lighting. There is a way to do that in DPP, but I haven't played with it much.

Welcome to the forum in case, I never said that before. :-)

Skippy