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]

Originally Posted by 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

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]

Originally Posted by 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

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]

Originally Posted by manacsa

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.

Originally Posted by manacsa

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 attache/BI/2847/KBID/3790d a hotshoe with cord (Paramount Cords) to connect to my Pocket Wizard.

Originally Posted by manacsa

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]

Originally Posted by dhyravy

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.