Tried my hand at fencing today

[mattbikeboy]

My daughter is a fencer (not quite old enough to compete though) and the local clubs are sponsoring a fairly big fencing event this weekend called "Duel in the Desert". Of course her coach wanted the club members to come and see what it is like at one of these larger events. I, of course, wasn't going to miss a chance to shoot something new. It was very dark and there is no flash photography allowed so I cranked up the old ISO on my D80 to 1600 and prayed. I'm fairly happy with the results (after some serious noise reduction).

Saturday night we're supposed to have a very well lit and elevated strip for the exhibition bouts so I'm even more excited for day two.

Here are a few of my results from today's action:











mbb

[Byron Lentz]

Great shots, can you tell me about exposure times and f stops? Noise reduction?

[mattbikeboy]

I was alternating between my 50 f1.8 and my 80-200 f2.8 so...

on the 50mm I was shooting 1/200 sec at f2.2
80-200 is was shooting 1/125sec at f2.8

for noise reduction I use Topaz Labs Denoise -- I do a few custom settings to keep the images as sharp as I can while still getting rid of as much noise as possible.♦

Here is a shot that I only resized (no color tweaking or noise reduction). I can't wait to try a full framed D700 or D3.


mbb

[dhyravy]

That's really a dark place! Fencing would be a tough sport to shoot in any venue, but this looks like a hotel conference room and those usually have marginal lighting for meetings much less any kind of sport. I think I'd be inclined to strobe in there. The combination of lack of light and the lights cycling would be a WB nightmare. I'm not sure a D700 or D3 would be a significant improvement since a SS of 1/500 or so would be needed for clean shots. That would put you in the ISO 5000 range.

[mattbikeboy]

That's really a dark place! Fencing would be a tough sport to shoot in any venue, but this looks like a hotel conference room and those usually have marginal lighting for meetings much less any kind of sport. I think I'd be inclined to strobe in there. The combination of lack of light and the lights cycling would be a WB nightmare. I'm not sure a D700 or D3 would be a significant improvement since a SS of 1/500 or so would be needed for clean shots. That would put you in the ISO 5000 range.

It was very dark, unfortunately there is a no flash rule in photographing fencing events. Overall I was surprised at what I got. With some work I can salvage quite a few shots.

mbb