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I went to the Rodeo on Saturday evening for a bit of a shoot and came away bitterly dissapointed at my efforts. So obviously my technique is at fault.

The situation - fast action, distance to subject average about thirty metres, in a floodlit arena with dark areas.

The equipment - D70, SB800 and a flash extender, 70- 200VR, 18 - 70, and also available a pod and a wide angle. The images I wound up with after shooting at ISO from 400 (early in the evening) to 800, shutter priority 1/500 (fast enough to freeze the action) were so grainy due to under exposure that I could have cried.

Your ideas please gentlemen.

This is the domain of the 5D I think. High ISO madness.

Heath there was another photog there whom I guessed as working for either the local press or a mag. Also using a 70-200 on a body that I did not recognise and using either an SB800 or SB600, I tried talking to her but she wasn't interested. Her husband was writing down notes for every shot she took, so again I am guessing, but I feel that her results had to be better than mine.

Common guys - 40 lookers and only one reply!!! Surely someone must have some ideas. How would you have tackled the assignment?

Oneputt wrote:Heath there was another photog there whom I guessed as working for either the local press or a mag. Also using a 70-200 on a body that I did not recognise and using either an SB800 or SB600, I tried talking to her but she wasn't interested. Her husband was writing down notes for every shot she took, so again I am guessing, but I feel that her results had to be better than mine.

probably a fuji body

oneputt if the floodlight lighting and your 30M distance from subject would of negated the use for flash.
shooting at 1/500 would of produced a nice image. The noise is due to your choice of high ISO keep it down to 200 as the floodlights would have provided more than enough lighting to get a nice high contrast pic.

Wendelt I will post an image this evening so you can see what happened to me. Could you have a look then please.

I thought it might have been a Fuji body but it did not seem deep anough and I never got that good a look at it.

Oneputt wrote:Common guys - 40 lookers and only one reply!!! Surely someone must have some ideas. How would you have tackled the assignment?

Without wanting to be facetious, the only remedy for underexposure is ... more exposure. You'll get far worse results by underexposing at 400 and bumping it up in pp than you will get by using 1600. I took a couple of shots yesterday at 1600, I can't post one now* (at work) but I will tonight. The noise is not a problem at all.



And I agree with Wendellt, I don't think flash at 30 metres would help you much.

Cheers

* Edit: Image posted

personally i would have left the sb800 out.... set ap to f2.8 and used an iso of 1000. I use 1000 for all of my night shoots where i can't use a flash for obvious reasons.. and haven't had too many problems with exposure yet...

cheers mate..

Remember with the flash I was using the flash extender. I will try some shot at 2.8 and 1000 ISO this evening.

Hmm.

What's the GN of the SB800?

My 580EX (GN 0f 58 ) has a range of 30m with a 50/1.4 lens (according to Canon's website). I have no idea how that translates to a longer focal length and smaller aperature (except that it makes it worse, of course).

But your beamer should have improved things somewhat, I would have thought? Have you tested it to determine its effective firing range?

The last time I shot something in similar conditions was at Willowbank raceway (drag racing) many years ago at night. I was on the spectator mound, about 40m away. With my 380EX (GN of 38 ), my 100mm lens, and shooting ISO800 film pushed to 1200, I was getting quite reasonable exposures.

Don't worry about restricting yourself to ISO 1000 - I don't think you'll find 1600 a problem. Noise is only visible at large magnifications, and as you can see from the shot above, (which I've managed to post as I decided to take the afternoon off to watch the cricket ) it is quite suitable for web viewing or printing at a reasonable size, (before resizing for web).

Cheers

digitor wrote:Don't worry about restricting yourself to ISO 1000 - I don't think you'll find 1600 a problem. Noise is only visible at large magnifications, and as you can see from the shot above, (which I've managed to post as I decided to take the afternoon off to watch the cricket ) it is quite suitable for web viewing or printing at a reasonable size, (before resizing for web).

Cheers

Digitor,

Did you run the image thru a noise reduction program? There is a fair bit of visible noise in that image to my eyes (JPEG doesn't help though, I admit). Shadow areas are also bad for noise.

Here's an ISO3200 shot, run thru Neat Image on defaults (it makes a big difference). F4 and 1/13th (handheld).



Larger image here:
http://www.fotos-files-forums.net/galle ... ise?full=1

Dion the flash plus extender is definately effective at thirty metres. When I get home I will post a sample of the problem.

Yes, there is some noise in the picture, it's just an example of what 1600 looks like on the D70. Noise reduction software certainly helps, (if it's not overdone) as you can see from your pic!

Cheers

Oneputt wrote:Dion the flash plus extender is definately effective at thirty metres. When I get home I will post a sample of the problem.

Hmm.

Maybe excess reflections fooling camera metering?

OK here is a sample. ISO800 f4.8 1/500sec using aperture priority. Nothing done to the image except converting to JPEG and resizing for the web.

Oneputt,

Working at 30m with the SB800 (particularly with the extender) should be comfortable at F2.8 and ISO800. I might think about dropping the shutter speed a tad. I assume that the SB800 is not indicating underexposure after firing the shot.
Most of my rodeo shots were done at 50mm (inside the bull ring), F2.8, 1/250s, ISO200, SB800 zoomed to 50mm and a shooting range of around 10m . Lighting was... well dim. Even some of the shots taken from a stand at a range of 20-30m were easily handled by the SB800 with the above settings. 1/250s will not completely eliminate motion from an animal that is really kicking, so somewhere between 1/250s and 1/500s.

One problem that I did have was dust hanging in the air. At the begining of the night the bull ring is ripped (for a soft landing) and watered to keep the dust down. The downside is that the ripped ground dries out very quickly (there is also dust from the yards) and that dust hangs unless there is a good bit of breeze. This is a recipe for confusing the preflash metering (even if it does not appear particularly dusty) and the result is usually some serious under exposure. It also kills contrast.

If you are going to be shooting from the one vantage point it may be worth slipping the camera into manual and the flash into manual. Select a point in the bull ring where the animal and rider are likely to be when you shoot - I use a clown or official who is roughly at the right distance. At this point you could refer to your flash guide. Set the camera aperture, shutterspeed and ISO of choosing and flash to full power. Fire off some test shots, and adjust camera settings to suite. You may have to drop the flash power, but I doubt it at this distance. When you are in the ballpark, the only adjustments that are made are to aperture. These are your settings for the night. Lighting of the bull ring is usually fairly constant, but is usually more concentrated around the gates and middle, so stick to these areas. The only variable is going to be the distance to the subject which is going to influence flash output required - use aperture to adjust this. As long as the subject is within a few metres (say +/- 5m giving a variation of approx +/- 1/3 stop) of your nominated distance, you should be right. If you are quick you can drive the aperture dial to compensate for distance on the fly.

OK here is a sample. ISO800 f4.8 1/500sec using aperture priority. Nothing done to the image except converting to JPEG and resizing for the web. Focal length 120mm.

Matt thanks for that. I have printed out the advice so that I can memorise it

Oneputt,

That "advice" is really just fudging it with the image review and histogram and ignoring the camera's meter.
The important bit is, when you have some baseline settings to work with, use aperture to adjust your exposure for distance. A little leeway is needed for aperture adjustment - maybe 2/3 stop from wide open for base setting.

Hi Oneputt,

There is nothing wrong with your kit however my toughts are you might get more interesting results if you turn off the flash and have a go at 1600 ISO in available light. These images were shot in difficult conditions (rain) at the Midland Rodeo near Perth. Most of the images were made with either the 50mm f1.4 or the 20-35mm f2.8.

There are two things worth noting about working with flash ... the first is that in low light conditions you are not going to notice a difference between 1/500th of a second or 1/60th of a second.... the flash has an extremely short duration and this will freeze the action rather than the shutter speed.

Another consideration is "the inverse square law"; every time you double the distance between the flash and the subject you quarter the amough of light reaching the subject... this is why flash is never good for photographing a subject against a distant background, it simply goes too dark (unless there are lights on the background).

Antsl - you are quite right about the duration of the flash freeezing the action, and that was something which I had forgotten I could easily have reduced the shutter speed to 1/250 sec.

Next time you are in this same situation try making a few test shots at 1/500, 1/250th, 1/125th, 1/60th and 1/30th. Truth is you are not going to find any difference 1/500th down to 1/125th at night .... you will start to see some differences at the lower speeds though. Have a go!

Oneputt: the image you posted looks like it's been taken in the middle of the night with flash the only source of light. IMO it needs a better balance of natural light and flash, so increase ISO, shoot wide open and/or decrease shutter. HTH.

MCWB - it was the middle of the night

Yup fair enough!

The more non-flash light you can get in that shot the better though, and the less everything has that 'Ooh I've just been blasted with a flash' look.

Oneputt - just do some pp’ing and the shot will be great. A curves adjustment will knock the contrast up so that you have a dark sky plus the colour will shout at you

Thanks Chris I will have a go, but the noise is not about to go away.