Swim Shots

[Down to Earth]

Been putting to good use Finnbay's old Canon 50D during my son's swim season this year. Here are a few shots from recent meets that I'd like to get some feedback on. Everything shot on the "Sports" setting using Canon's 70-200 L-series glass. Thanks.

[reinhard1]

nice pictures. remindes me of my school days. i was on the swim team all of Jr. high at washington jr. high in duluth and all of my high school years at duluth central high school. we didn't have the long trunks, goggles, and skull caps back then. just tight trunks. freestyle and butterfly. good sport. good luck.

[Dbl]

Looks like you are getting some great use of the 50D. You asked for some specific feedback so if I might make a few observations. First shooting indoors will give you a bit of consistency in lighting. You will have some variance from different parts of the pool but this is a great time to get your camera off of the sports mode and get it into manual. I noticed in your EXIF data that shutter speeds ranged from 1/250s to 1/160s.

Why manual? Cameras generally will give you more consistent results when you take the decision making out its hands and put it into yours. The meter won't be fooled by different backgrounds such as the difference between your last shot and the shot just previous to it. Your EXIF showed shot #4 at 1/250s and shot #3 at 1/160s. You can see that inconsistency in your shots. Shooting manual will eliminate that and get you better results.

ISO - You were at 1600 in all of your shots. The reason for that was the camera was set to "sports" mode, the highest ISO available in that automatic mode. Setting the camera to manual mode allows you to get the camera at a much higher ISO setting. Your 50D will shoot at 12,800 ISO in H2. I find 6400 ISO very usable with this camera. That leads us to the next issue.

Shutter Speed - 1/160s or 1/250s is much to slow to capture action and do a good job of eliminated motion blur. The other problem you will have is at these slow shutter speeds you will have to throw a fair amount of shots away due to camera motion. You really need a minimum of 1/320s and preferably 1/500s. You will find your keeper rate of good shots go up a fair amount if you can raise that shutter speed up by increasing your ISO.

White Balance - The 50D does a good job in auto white balance. The sodium lights in most pools wreck havoc with white balance. These are not bad and could be made better with some post processing but experiment with a custom white balance and maybe even a tungsten white balance setting. Some pools have fluorescent lighting so changing to that white balance will get you more correct colors. If you don't know how to set a custom white balance take a look in your manual, it has the simple steps to accomplish that.

Framing - The 70-200/2.8 is my go to swimming lens, it offers a nice range. The most often repeated phrase in sports shooting is to shoot tight and crop even tighter. This proves effective for a few reasons. You eliminate cluttered backgrounds, and you focus in tightly on the subject (swimmer). These shots were taken from the stands which can be effective for eliminating backgrounds but you need to be closer to the action. Front row of the stands or better yet on the pool deck opposite the starting blocks. Don't go down on the floor without permission and if you are granted access make sure you stay out of officials and participants way. Also don't block spectator views.

Peak action - This just comes with practice and shooting thousands of frames. With swimming you want to capture the particular stroke at its peak. With the butterfly as the hands are out to the side with the head up and breathing. With breast stroke as the head pops out of the water with arms moving forward, freestyle with the arm raised and the breathing stroke with the head turned to the camera.

Some other things to keep in mind. Water splashes will wreck havoc with auto focus. Make sure you are on single point focus mode and do your best to keep that on the swimmers head. Take care of the camera when it is cool like it is now. Pools are warm and damp. Keep it in your camera bag zipped up tight when leaving the pool and keep it there until you get home. Don't bring a cold camera into the pool area without slowly warming it up. You will have major condensation issues.

If you have more questions make sure to ask, hopefully there is something I posted that will help you next time out.

[Down to Earth]

Dan, Thanks a lot for the great feedback. My son has a local club meet on Wednesday night and I am going to try an put to practice some of your suggestions. Curious how where you able to pull my EXIF data from the pics I posted? That's a beyond my level, but I'm glad you were able to figure it out cause it provided me with some great feedback. Thanks again, and I'll try and post some follow up shots later in the week.

[finnbay]

Great to see the ol' 50D is getting some miles on it! Well done. And all excellent advice by Dan. For me, shooting swimming is one of the most challenging of sports to get good shots in. Partly because some of the issues that Dan mentioned and partly because your subject is only available to you a small portion of the event. One thing I like to do is to shoot some candids of the swimmers along the edge of the pool. Sometimes as they are preparing for their event or sometimes when they are cheering on team mates. Good luck and would like to see more of your work!

[Dbl]

Down to Earth,

I use a plug in on my browser which will allow it to view the EXIF data. I primarily use Firefox and the plug is called Exif Viewer 1.6. You can also right click the photo and download it and view it in a stand alone program like Opanda IExif. Good luck on Wednesday and make sure you post some follow ups! I think if you get the ISO up to 3200 or higher to 6400 you will get more shots. The noise will be higher but there is a trade off with everything!

[Down to Earth]

Well, experimented around a bit tonight and thought I was getting some pretty good shots when looking on the camera screen, but got home on the computer and things were pretty grainy. I played around during warmups and zeroed in on a setting of f/5, 1/500, and ISO of 12800. Gonna have to start taking the camera to practices as well so I can get some more practice in. All shots are taken at the above mentioned settings except the freestyle stroke which was at f/6.3

Entry:

Breaststroke Turn:

Freestyle:

[Dbl]

Nice improvement! The 1/500s shutter speed is a good one and I would stay at that, but I would get that aperture down to f2.8 or f3.2. That will allow you to get the ISO down off of 12,800 and get you less noise. Take advantage of that expensive f2.8 lens you own!

[beakgeek]

I did similar shots this pas fall for my daughter's high school swim team. I found that ISO 1600 worked great. I was able to get good images at 1/320 @ f/2.8. I used a 100mm f/2.8 and a 300mm f/2.8. I shot at ISO 3200 as well and found it gave me too much noise for my taste. I totally agree with setting the camera to manual.

[Down to Earth]

Here are a few shots from Gabe's practice about a month ago. Got another swim meet next weekend so plan to get some more work in there as well. Little by little, I think I'm getting a bit better.

Freestyle:

At the Bulkhead:

Backstroke: (Wish the hand was clearer.)

Backstroke Face Close Up:

[Dbl]

Those are looking good!