Sunday, December 8, 2013

Photo Set - Swim Meet

The Canon 1D Mark III is usually my camera of choice when it comes to shooting sports, but since I haven't used it for so long, the charger has gone missing and I have no idea where it went. So, the 5D Mark II will have to be used for shooting the kids' swim meet yesterday. Another problem is the lens. The EF 200mm f1.8L was the lens I used to shoot most of the kids' sports events but of course, it is no longer working, so I had a choice of 135mm f2L or the 70-200mm f4L IS. The 135mm is a tad too short, so I ended up using the slow 70-200mm f4 for the whole event.

It wasn't a total write off. If you time it right, you can get some decent captures. The good high ISO performance of the 5D II helped. I set the camera most of the time to Shutter Speed Priority (AT mode) at 1/320s. As with the 5D classic, the 5D II's auto focus is actually quite accurate and most of my pictures were in focus. The slow frame rate and a small buffer (compared to the 1D III), coupled with a slow lens makes it difficult to get actions in sequence.

Megan on Butterfly Style - Canon 5D II & EF 70-200mm f4

Ryan on Butterfly Style - Canon 5D II & EF 70-200mm f4

William on Back Crawl - Canon 5D II & EF 70-200mm f4

Megan after the race - Canon 5D II & EF 70-200mm f4

Coach of Team Tridents -Canon 5D II & EF 70-200mm f4 

Sign of the times - Canon 5D II & EF 70-200mm f4

Life guard - Canon 5D II & EF 70-200mm f4

4 comments:

  1. really interesting 'blur' on the fingers of the first shot ...

    out of interest, why not use an APS-C camera to make the extra out of your focal length? 20D should be good for that ...

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    1. Yeah, 1/320s is not fast enough to stop some of the motion.

      I do not have another aps-c camera. the 20D only shoots infrared; it was internally modified.

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    Replies
    1. Thanks! I am glad you find the blog worth your time reading. I actually don't know as much as you think I do, and my advice is probably not good in any case, so the way it is, is fine :)

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