Help needed with wrestling photos

[deppt]

Thanks everyone for your input! I do have a 70-200 f/2.8 VR lens! Just haven't used it for this venue. I've used it at football games with a lot of luck. I'll try using it next time and see how it goes. It's just so heavy and I move around a lot. Tonight I tried some sample shots on the Shutter priority and they were way to dark. Thanks again!

Terry

[inkista]

Maybe it's time to start lifting weights. But yeah, the 70-200/2.8 VR is going to be a better tool for this kind of shooting than the 18-200.

Just to double-check (forgive me, but 9 times out of 10 when I see a newbie shooting, they get it wrong, so I always ask), look at your handholding technique. The majority of the weight of the lens/camera combination should be resting on the palm of your left hand, cupped beneath either the lens barrel, or the base of the camera body. You operate the zoom ring with your thumb and forefinger curled around the bottom of the lens--not from the top. If your left hand is on top of the lens, all the weight is dangling off the fingers of your right hand, and putting constant torque on your wrist, which makes it really uncomfortable.

I handhold a 400mm f/5.6 lens when I go birding. These little things matter.

[deppt]

I do hold the big lens in the manner you suggest. I just tried it to see what I did naturally. Thanks so much for the comments and suggestions. I'll let you know how the different lens works out!

Terry

[Fletcho]

Jim,

Curious how the 70-200 worked for you. I'm just starting to shoot hs wrestling - who knew it could be so hard? - and eager to hear your experiences with lenses/settings.

I shot my first matches with a 70-200 2.8 no IS. The second match had terrible lighting forcing me to pump the iso up to 6400 just to get at a 500 shutter speed.



A few things I noticed.
* Once I got a good exposure for a particular mat, I switched to manual mode and locked it in. I do that because there's so much extraneous stuff in the background that if the exposure locks on that, you'll blow out the highlights.
* I had real trouble focusing. The kids move very quickly. I resorted to manual focusing some but I'm not sure that's a good solution. I did switch the focus point to lower middle so when they went to the mat, I could lock on there.
* I'm thinking of trying the 85mm 1.8 lens but I'm not sure it has enough reach. The first match I captured about 700 images and most of the keepers were in the 100-130 range it seemed.
* Since I was non-is, I used a monopod from a sitting position on the floor.

Eager to hear your experiences.