rodeo photo's - DPChallenge Forums

10/31/2003 12:55:09 PM · #1

I've never taken such "action" shots before.

I'm leaving in 10 hours to go to it, need a bit of sleep first, but need some advice so I could possibly get more successful photo's.

I only have 512M to play with..
154 photo's on large-fine, 256 on large-normal
I'm thinking it might be worth dropping back to normal so I got a few more shots I can play with... anyone else with this camera got much opinon, in my tests I noticed almost no jpeg "junk" on normal.

since where I am going to be I will be using the lens at or around 300mm (480 effective) which means I am stuck on a tripod and will not be handholding at all.

this is a bit of a problem since my tripods a old cheap and nasty, and when done up tightenough to hold the lens, I have no movement available..
would I be best aiming in the rough area where the horses come out and then holding down the shutter hoping for something good???
or would there be a better way?

what shutter should I be looking at using, considering the long zoom and fast action?
if I was able to pugh the 1/500 or better shutter, would hand movement on the tripod be acceptable?

would I be better leaving a reasonable amount of negetive space around the animal, so as it moves I can crop it correctly, or should I zoom in further and "hope" for a better shot and gain the extra quality?

I will have with me.
the lens and camera withh be the Canon eos-300d and the sigma 50-500mm EX lens

any assistance will be appreciated, as I have little knowledge of how to tackle this..

Canon EF 28-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

10/31/2003 01:16:06 PM · #2

also...
Manual or One-shot auto zoom?
(AI focus seems hard to break into AI servo at times, so its best to imagine its one-shop)

Thanks in advance!

justine

Canon EOS-50D

10/31/2003 01:17:05 PM · #3

You will want to use the 'sports' mode. It's fast and you'll get a nice sequence of shots.

kirbic

Canon EOS R5

Canon RF 24-70mm f/2.8 L IS

10/31/2003 01:25:17 PM · #4

I assume you'll be shooting in daylight; is sun expected?

Some general thoughts:

1.) Make sure you use a lens hood to help contrast
2.) Stop down at least one stop from wide open if possible to increase sharpness
3.) If you can get the shutter speed up to 1/500, you might try using the tripod as a monopod, with hand movement. Don't be afraid to use ISO as high as 800.
4.) You also might try hand-held at 1/500, esp. if you can brace the lens against a firm support.
5.) Unless you want some motion blur, you will definitely want 1/250 or faster shutter. If you really want to stop things dead, soot at 1/1000 or higher.
6. Do frame just a little loosely so you don't hack off something. I've done this far too often trying to fill the frame.

coolhar

Canon PowerShot Pro 90 IS

10/31/2003 01:29:04 PM · #5

Sounds to me like you've thought thru a lot of what you are going to encounter. The answer to many of your questions depends on the light conditions- day vs. night, outdoors vs indoors. I'd say try all your options and see which YOU think looks best. If storage capacity is a concern, use playback and dump the lesser shots. You don't have to bring 'em all home if you can tell that some are better than others. But then you have to balance this against battery life. And, most important, post some of the best ones for us to see. GL

mcmurma

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

Nikon MF 180mm f/2.8 ED AIS

10/31/2003 01:52:40 PM · #6

I don't have the 300D, but if I was in your position with only 512 megs to shoot, in addition to the above suggestions I would try the following:

1) Use the large fine.

2) Bring a spare battery or at least make sure you have a full charge.

3) Since you have some awesome zoom power, use it! Try working with lots of tight shots on "behind the scenes" action, like the riders preparing to get out of the gate. There wont be as much movement and you can concentrate more on composition. And besides, these types of images can be just as powerful.

4) If it looks crappy on the review (fuzzy, blown, dark, etc...) delete it! No since using up what space you have with poor shots.

5) While you are shooting the action, don't worry so much about having your tripod locked down. You aren't shooting landscapes at iso 100 with slow shutter speeds here. Using the tripod as more of a monopod is not a bad idea, or you may want to try just propping the lens on a rail for added support. The idea is to steady the camera better than you could by just holding it, but to follow the action you must be able to move. So use what props are available. If you are using a higher iso and getting shutter speeds around 1/500 you should still manage some very sharp results.

Good luck!

soup

Canon EOS-30D

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

10/31/2003 02:20:09 PM · #7

i'm not sure using an iso as high as 800 on that camera will fair well.
i would cap it at iso 400 if it were me

lots of noise you wont notice in the viewfinder at iso800
from what i have noticed so far in using the camera myself
.
get some bull saliva flying around ;}

soup

Flash

Nikon D700

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8D IF-ED

10/31/2003 02:38:29 PM · #8

Had an opportunity about 10 years ago to shoot a Rodeo just outside of Dallas (Fortworth). Used a 75-300 zoom and 400 speed film on a monopod. Shots were very acceptable.

If I were shooting digital, I would try to replicate the 400 ISO and shoot with support. A ball head on a support pod (tri/mono) with a 2 handed hold on the camera and lense, should allow you to use the support and not lock down the head. This would give you the most support with the most freedom to track your subject. Not sure of the effect of write time with digital. I'm seeing flash cards advertised with 40x write speed.

Good luck. Hope to see some posted here.

Message edited by author 2003-10-31 17:32:13.

10/31/2003 08:45:56 PM · #9

Thanks for the help.
I just took some test shots of iso 200/400/800/1600
1600 is too noisy... 800 could be rescued in neatimage and 400 is pretty smooth.
so I'll push 800 if necessary, but I think 400 is the max for this camera.

I've only got the one battery, so hoping it will last the night.
most will be shot in daylight, as it gets darker I think it may be too hard, it will be lit and all, but I think I'd have to push wide open apature (which is only abou f5) and higher iso's, mightn't be worth it.

well, thanks for the help, I got all my gear loaded (except camera which is charging) in the car...
big learning experience.... lets hope I get some nice shots to post up here!

edit: though theres been some bad news...
rain could be here, and I don't really have waterproof gear :'( .... gonna hope it holds off!

Message edited by author 2003-10-31 20:48:00.

10/31/2003 09:47:56 PM · #10

well, this is my setup, I dragged the old dc3400 out for this photo..

notice das uber tripod!

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8D IF-ED

11/01/2003 06:04:56 AM · #11

I ended up getting real close to the ground, so was playing with 80-200mm zoom, so handheld for the whole time.
Got some great shots... but really... 512M was nowhere near enough :(
very glad I decided in the last minuite to get a fast card, otherwise with the small buffer on the 300d I would've missed so much! (already missed a fair bit due to small buffer)

am resizing and so on images now.
couple of my faves will be up in a min!

EDIT:

and here they are!!
theres heaps of good ones, but I'll post these three for now, then slowly work through my collection.
handed out my phonenumber to several people wanting some shots I took, pretty happy for my first time ever !!

Thread dedicated to the one with the guy thrown in the air

another three, good shots, not as much action though.

EDIT2:
well, out of about 190 photo's taken, 21 usable, and 15 of them are excellent.
unfortunately the one everyone came up and asked for copy's of was the worst captured.. I can;t fit it in with propper ratio, and its very harsh cropping :(
this is regarding the guy in the air.
does anyone know of a way of using the image? or is it just bad luck and I lost it for printing/selling :(

Message edited by author 2003-11-01 21:09:41.

ButterflySis

Canon EOS-50D

Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II

11/01/2003 12:08:58 PM · #12

Great shots, cvt. I really like the first one with the guy in the air. You can see he's bracing himself for impact! Nice job.

Flash

Nikon D700

11/01/2003 07:06:55 PM · #13

cvt,

You should feel quite good about your outing. Nice job and thanks for sharing.