Wrestling

[JBPhoto]

Happy New Year Everyone!

Here are a few of the more than 500 shots I took at a high school quad wrestling meet a few days ago. Actually five teams, it was a five hour ordeal!

[jorgemonkey]

Great images! Those are very clean and I can't see any noise in the wrestlers. What was the lighting setup? It looks like you either had an on camera flash, or were triggering some off camera strobes.

[JBPhoto]

Thanks Jorge. The top one was with a single 580EX, full power, on a 13' stand, fired with Pocket Wizards. The flash was about 50' from the subjects. I was positioned about 20' in front and 10' or so left of the flash. The bottom three was after my battery pack went dead. I changed the flash batteries and shot on camera in ETTL with a Sto-Fen Omnibounce. They are all ISO 400, top one is 1/250th at f/4 and the others are 1/250th at f/2.8.

[ciddog91]

What lenses were you using? How far away were you?

Nice pics......Very Nice..

[JBPhoto]

I used my 70-200 f/2.8 IS, about 30 feet from the subjects. These range between 145 and 185mm.

[specradio]

Nice shots, nice and sharp and everything.

I have some wrestling pictures that came out nice and sharp and clear, but I dislike the sport for photography because their faces are always in weird places

[JSPhoto]

Nice job here JB! But how the heck did I miss these the first time around?

The flash really helps doesn't it.....

JS

[JBPhoto]

Thanks JS, and thanks for your endorsement for the featured photo! I was very happy with these results and the flash setup. There were two mats going for this meet which meant I was constantly changing direction of the flash. I'd probably go with the 580EX again vs. strobes since I know it works.

[JSPhoto]

SW put it in POTW, I didn't see the thread til after it was in POTW

Only two mats? Try shooting three or 4 at a time. Two of my recent matches were running three or four mats at a time and then add in that I was trying to keep track of 3 schools. It really helped when two county schools were wrestling each other. And I use the 580EX when I shoot in the poorly lit gyms.

JS

[ciddog91]

JS,
When you shoot do you use the 580EX only or do you use any other light set up?

I am getting ready to shoot a few meets and will be practicing at the gym before hand in practices. I was wondering what your light set up is....

JB..If I read correctly, you were using your 580EX after your lighting set up quite on you?

Thanks..Phil

[JSPhoto]

Phil,
It really depends on the lighting, some gyms I don't use any flash, but when I do I just use the 580EX on fill flash and adjust the ISO and the shutter speed to get a descent background lighting so it looks more natural. And if I am in a big hurry I just set it to fill flash and shoot away and don't worry about the background.

JS

[JBPhoto]

Phil,

These shots were all 580EX. I had the flash on a 13' stand about 15-20 feet behind me and 5-10' left or right of camera. I turned auto sleep off, which after 4 hours of shooting drained the batteries in both my flash and my batter pack. So I changed the batteries in the flash and shot on camera in fill flash mode for the last hour. I had an extra four batteries, but not an extra twelve.

[ciddog91]

Thanks....I will try my setup using my falsh and see what the results are...

I hope they are close to yours JB...

Phil