Shooting in a Dungeon

[ciddog91]

These were from the Windy City Invite on Fri. Kids from around the midwest and further for a gymnastics meet. These boys are 10-11 years old.

The conditions were some of the best I have seen for gymnastics as it was at the Univ of Ill Chicago gym, but still no flash is allowed and lighting was hit and miss.

Most were shot at 1000 to 1600 ISO and shutters of 1/200 or 1/250.

Venue was better than a cave, but still a dungeon...

Critique is appreciated... Especially about PS.. I am still learning CS3 .

Thanks..
Phil

[retroactiv]

very good looking for such a high ISO, I'm not much for gymnastics, top and bottom shots are the best in my book I really like the guy flipping in the top one. Photoshop looks good, how dark where the originals?

[dhyravy]

They look pretty good to me. The only PP comment I would have is to run them through a Unsharp Mask to sharpen up the edges a bit and they should look good. I find that (un)available light shots usually benefit from a bit of sharpening.

[livin4lax09]

ci,

they are out of focus. I'm not attempting to be mean about it, just pointing out that with the exception of the first one, the focus is not on the subject. the second one is backfocused, you can tell by the sharpness of the coach's pants behind, and the third one is a little unclear where the focus is since you cant really see the ground under the gymnast. My guess is that it's probably front focused.

That's the problem about these gyms, they are always SO dark that it's hard to nail the focus with the AF. I am assuming you used AF? If you did, try MF next time. You'll find that a lot of the events involve a gymnast not moving from a certain spot, or the action happening at one spot, so manual focusing should be easier and actually faster than the AF.

As far as cs3, it looks good. How did you edit these?

Just to give you perspective, gymnastics photographers usually use VERY fast glass. They usually have both an 85mm f/1.2 and a 200mm f/1.8 in their arsenal, because of the exact reason you stated...the gyms are always dark.

[ciddog91]

Thanks all...

The originals were a little darker. I changed them with about .5 to .7 exposure.

I will try the USM.. I did that on some of my other pics I edited for my wife. I sometimes forget. I will have to put a sticky note on my computer ...

Livin.... I will DEFINITELY try manual focus next time. I have been using AF Al Servo with (0) settting (center weighted ?) I don't know if that has anything to do with it, but I can pick a spot to prefocus on and garb pics when they hit the mark and move. These boys at this level have all compulsory routines so they are all the same and I can "get my set up" before our gymnasts go on the event.

Thanks again.. Good stuff to look out for...

Phil

[ciddog91]

Just to show how the lighting is in the gym..... You an see they are bright, but somewhat "covered" and blocked. This was right under a cluster of 4 lights so the highlights are a bit harsh and shadows are dark....

This is unedited other than size...

[JSPhoto]

I like shooting gymnastics, here it's girls only though, but the lighting is almost always lousy! The best lighting is at the gym where the local girls train at. I haven't shot a meet in almost two years now as last year the team got it's season cut short thanks to some brilliant (sarcasticly speaking) descisions by the coach and most of the team. New coach this year, but the paper hasn't covered them at all.

JS