Wrestling season

[Oneeyeross]

With wrestling season fast approaching, I am hoping to get better shots of the guys this year than in the past.

This is a shot of my nephew, in the black singlet (who did win this match, although it wouldn't seem so from this shot!)

Any idea how to sharpen the focus given the dim lighting conditions in most gyms? I'm using an old Albinor flash right now on an Olympus E410.


Shooting Mode: Manual
Focal Length: 79.0 mm
Shutter 1/160 F 5.6
Flash On
Manual White Balance
Spot Metering
1600 ISO


Thanks.

[Oneeyeross]

Another pic from last year....

Exif:

Manual 40 mm, 1/160, F4.0, manual white balance, flash,

[Sterling]

First thing I notice is the white balance problem. Eliminating that green cast would improve the shot (compare it with your second shot). Based on the focal lengths for both shots, it looks like you were farther from the action for the first shot. Were you getting out of your flash's range? Maybe open up your lens to f/4 like you did for the second shot.

[Jim Bryant]

One thing I noticed as well. You need to crop in tighter to the wrestlers and rid yourself of the background.

[daviskarenr]

the white balance is definitely an issue on the greenish picture. i would have tried different modes of white balance, such as florescent, tungsten, etc. i know from experience that playing around with the settings while trying to take sports pics can cause you to miss a good shot, but i usually "test" my settings on people i don't know so that when the perfect shot comes along, i have the settings all ready. good luck!

[Hartzler]

My thoughts echo those who’ve already spoken. I shoot high school wrestling as an amateur-dad, so I have an idea of the difficult dim-lighting shooting conditions. The first thing I see is a lot of noise in the first image and the white balance issue.

Since you’re using flash, do you need an ISO of 1600? You didn’t mention the ISO in the second shot, which was head and shoulders above your first in my opinion. As others mention, try a different white balance setting to get rid of that green cast. It’ll make everything look better.

Playing with your image, I used the white of the wrestler’s shoes to set the white balance and it immediately looked 100% better. Since I shoot in RAW, I usually can find something white to get an initial white balance setting and then I play around, maybe warming it a bit until it matches the colors in my memory.

One of the issues is shutter speed. With flash, you seem to be freezing the action reasonably well, but I suspect you were a bit farther away in the first shot and so not quite as much light from the flash was hitting (and if you compare the background of the two, I think there simply wasn’t enough light so the first shot’s background wrestlers all look pretty washed out in the face and eyes).

So my second tip after making sure the white balance is right, move closer. You’ll find it easier to freeze the wrestlers with your flash and you’ll be sure and get sufficient light to expose them properly. In my experience, depending on what gym the match is at, sometimes I can get right up next to the mats and other times, I end up shooting from the bleachers.

But I noticed in the second shot, your lens was at 40mm and F 4.0. If you can shoot at 40mm, consider trying out a 50mm 1.8 lens. You’ll have a lot more light to play around with if you can open up to around F 2.8.

Finally, if you’re the type to enjoy post-image processing, you can remove a lot of the noise, fix the white balance and sharpen the image after.

Good luck shooting. I spent six and a half hours at a match on Friday and then three this last Saturday. I had a lot of fun even if my back did ache from sitting on those bleachers too long. And as I indicated, I'm an amateur at this, so take what I say with a grain of salt.