HS Wrestling w/Off-camera flash

[harfordSports]

Saturday I had an assignment to shoot the Maryland Private School wrestling championships. They run the championship round on three mats at once. 1st-2nd on the middle mat, with 3rd-4th and 5th-6th on the end mats.

This is an old gym with not a lot of room from the edge of the mat to the bleachers. What I did was used two super-clamps on the closest railings, one on each side of the bleachers with a Canon 580EX attached pointing the flash towards the center of the mat. I set each flash at 1/2 power and 70mm zoom. With the crowd filling the stands, I hoped my settings were good enough. I fired the flashes using Pocket Wizards.

I sat in the corner of the mat and after a few test shots settled on ISO 400; f/4.0; 1/250s. I was pretty happy with the resuts. I did run into some problems when a very exciting match caused the coaches to jump up from their chairs and stand. This blocked one of my flashes in the middle of the mat.

Below are just a couple examples of the typical shots I got with this setup. All with my Mark IIN and 70-200 f/2.8L:

#1:




#2:




#3:

[JSPhoto]

Nice job, the 580's seem OK for there, but I'd prefer strobes if I were going to do that kind of thing. You can get strobes cheaper than one 580EX

JS

[berrywise]

Nice job, the 580's seem OK for there, but I'd prefer strobes if I were going to do that kind of thing. You can get strobes cheaper than one 580EX

JS

but it costs a lot more if you already own 2 580's

I think ya did great. Are you plugging in your flashes or just running off battery?

[poker]

Very nice. How many feet do you think the flashes were away from the mat?

Can you show us a picture of how the 580EX was mated to a super clamp?

And as Berrywise asked, plug in or batteries?

[harfordSports]

Nice job, the 580's seem OK for there, but I'd prefer strobes if I were going to do that kind of thing. You can get strobes cheaper than one 580EX

I prefer to use my AB800's as well, but never being there and knowing it was an old gym, I didn't want to not be able to find electric outlets and had no clue if I had room for my light stands, etc. Also, I was coming in right before the finals were to start, so it's much faster and easier for me to setup the flashes.

So I packed my small bag with 2-super-clamps; 2-580EXs; and my Pocket Wizards. I think I made the right decsion.

[harfordSports]

Very nice. How many feet do you think the flashes were away from the mat?

They were about 30' from the edge of the mat.

Can you show us a picture of how the 580EX was mated to a super clamp?

I don't have a picture, but I used a super-clamp with a Bogen Umbrella adapter attached. To that I attached a hotshoe with cord (Paramount Cords) to connect to my Pocket Wizard.

And as Berrywise asked, plug in or batteries?

I used Black Boxes from Al Jacobs.

[dhyravy]

Could this possibly be a Strobist follower?? The rest of you really need to visit the Strobist blog. Seriously great stuff on off-camera lighting with small flashes. I think you may be surprised what can be done with them.

[harfordSports]

Could this possibly be a Strobist follower??

Bingo! I actually just bought a couple BRAND NEW Vivitar 285HVs ($89 ea), but need to get the proper cables to hook it up to my black boxes. I suspect I would have gotten similar results with those.