Saturday, July 18, 2009

City Swim Meet

I went to the City Championship Swim Meet today, apparently a little too late. While I came away with some nice, clean swim images, I didn't have time to try and get the sort of odd, quite, behind the scenes images I like to play with. This group of girls, hanging onto one another as they go from the staging area to the starting blocks, was the closest I came to something different.



4 comments:

plastanka said...

Like these shots, with your photos they look like professionals even though they are just kids.

Willem Admiraal said...

Hi Michel, my son is a swimmer and I'm having a hard time getting a proper picture in those badly iluminated swimming pools.

Could you comment on the picture of the boy in the water, taken from the front?

Distance, lense, speed, aperture, flash, iso?

It would help me a great deal.

Thanks from a fan in Spain.

Willem

Michael said...

Willem,

I took that photo with a 70-200mm lens zoomed all the way out while lying on the opposite edge of the pool. The camera was set on manual at 1/400sec, f3.2 and ISO 800 with no flash.

I lucked out with decent light, but yes, normally these indoor pools have awful lighting. Are you shooting auto? manual? Bump up your ISO and shutter speed. Cameras on auto tend to greatly reduce the shutter speed in low light situations. That's OK if you are gonna try panning the action, but not so great if you want a clear image. A little fill flash can help stop the action, if you can get away with it. Hope that helps.

Willem Admiraal said...

Michael,

Thanks for the info. I greatly apreciate it.

I'm already saving money for a 70-200. Right now I shoot with 18-200vr and 70-300 (without vr). I usually shoot slow from the side with a flash to freeze the motion. I try to limit raising my iso value (max. 320-400). I have a D200 and it has a lot of noise at high iso.

Here you have an example of my son at a waterpolo game:

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_CLe1lZZRFxI/SZlYH6XtM3I/AAAAAAAABJ0/VdJhel3ps-E/s1600-h/_DSC6200.jpg