PBR Competitions

[Marie Hass]

I have screwed these up and I am not sure exactly what combination of settings I should have used.

I was shooting with my 7D. I used my 24-105 lens. Most images were shot at 105mm. I used my 32G high speed pro card.

I set AI Servo. Setting was indoors, but I did not want to use a flash. I set ISO, for most of these at 2400. Shutter speed was 200. I use f4 so I could get the higher shutter speed. My focus was center. I shot high speed continuous. And still, to me, the focus seems to be beyond the subject. When I magnified the image in the view finder, the image looked ok.

Should I have used my 70-300? Shutter speed was still too slow. I was afraid to jack up the iso - maybe I should have. Should I have used a different focus means?

This was strictly a test night, but worth the struggle.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

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Marie

[Shadowman]

Marie,

I was reading about your camera's focusing system and it appears the camera would have automatically switched you to AI Servo once it recognized that your subject was moving.

Your question about which lens, does that have to do with filling the frame with your subject? If so, having the extra focal length would help but at least for me it makes it harder to follow the subject when fully zoomed out.

[Mark von Kanel]

Id stick with the lens and crop Marie, the 7d is easily good enough to stand a relatively tight crop with full sized raw files. i think most of your problems will be shutter speed related rather than focusing. even with image stabilization 1/200 sec is to slow at 105mm focal length you need it up to 1/300 at least.

i think you need to be shooting at at least 1/500 for the subject matter so try this first and then if you images are still soft look at focusing issues. how far away were you from your focus point?

[Marie Hass]

John, please pardon my half halting way of describing things, sometimes I don't find the words to come easy to explain what I am asking. But, would it be easier for the camera's focusing system if the object was larger in the frame? I wondered, as I explained below, if it would have been better if I was at 150m or 125m rather than at 105m. There was a lot of movement in the image - not just the rider and bull.

Mark, these images were not cropped much-the most about 1/3, but were straightened and then cropped inside the white areas. As far as distance away, since I was at 105m all the time, would that mean I was about that from the closest bull and 125m from the other side of the ring? These are things I had not considered. In order to shoot close to 1/500, I would have had to crank the iso to 6400? I guess I should have tried it.

Marie

[Mark von Kanel]

Marie, yes i know the images were not cropped significantly, i was trying to say (badly) that rather than use a longer lens with a smaller min aperture, that you would be better sticking with the one with the larger aperture and cropping.

Finding out what your camera is capable of is all part of photography and in that situation id have put the camera in manual and selected the aperture and shutter speed i wanted and set it to Auto ISO and see what i ended up with.

At the end of the day if there isnt enough light you either need to add light or risk high ISO. not much other choice really

[Loose Canon]

Hi Marie!

I don’t have an awesome 7D (I wish), but for this shoot I would have set to AI Servo as well. The trick is to keep the center focus point on the subject.

If it is larger in the frame, i.e. a longer available focal length lens, then so much the better, but you are still going to have to have the shutter speed up. Way up.

A lot of times I use a shutter of 200 in a studio setting. Now while this is to kill ambient, I actually consider this to be a slow speed. And certainly to stop action.

You have a difficult situation here if you wanted to totally stop the motion. High ISO, if these are cropped just to appear this close, you are probably not within effective flash range, and not enough available shutter speed. It appears to me that you did all you could shooting wide open. Another stop of aperture (f/2.8) would certainly have helped to a degree, but still probably have not gotten you to optimum.

Your only choice (as I see it) would have been to jack the ISO. Since this was a test run, I would be kicking myself that I didn’t! And believe me, I have a permanent print on my own hiney from my own boots from kicking myself, Marie! Nothing to lose and no harm, no foul. You will never know how much push is too much until you go too far! Then you’ll know! Lost nothing and gained everything! You will know how your Seven will do in these conditions because you pushed it.

But you know what? I’m not so too sure you have “screwed these up”! Maybe you didn’t get it how you wanted it exactly, but they still look pretty good to me. #2 is a definite keeper and the other two are pretty darned close if not keeper close!

[Loose Canon]

Oh, and one other thing I would like to mention!

Notice how not to be afraid of shooting wide open from a good distance?

Still get a very nice depth of field from afar. Your shots prove that theory. Well done, Marie.

[Polar01]

Marie; remember that auto focus works on contrast, in the second image if you were on the rider (black) the bull is black well the contrast is the rider and white banner f/4 at 105mm and the distance from the action you have about say 15ft of DOF and I would say that the distance from the rider to that banner is 10ft or greater so that is probably why everything behind the rider is in focus. Auto focus works well when it does by maybe something like this may need old school, manual focus it is harder but you are doing the focusing.

Cheers:

Allan

[Marie Hass]

id have put the camera in manual and selected the aperture and shutter speed i wanted and set it to Auto ISO and see what i ended up with.

Mark, I did shoot manual, but not Auto ISO. Next time....

Your only choice (as I see it) would have been to jack the ISO. Since this was a test run, I would be kicking myself that I didn’t!

Okay. I am kicking.

remember that auto focus works on contrast

Something so simple to remember, yet so easily forgotten. (sigh) Didn't even cross my mind. (sigh)

you have about say 15ft of DOF

Allan, that much? I had no idea. This would make an interesting discussion. I knew that I could shoot wide open since I was further away, but did not know how to factor that into DoF.

Marie

[Mark von Kanel]

Marie there is a DOF calculator on here but it didnt work when i tried it try this site http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html that is why i asked how far you were away from your focal point, so that i could work it out for you.

so if you were 105 m (should do this in feet for Americans, but youll all catch up with the rest of the world one day) away from the nearest bull and a 125m from the other side of the ring then we could guess at a focal point 110m away from you?

That would give acceptable focus from a near point of 62.6m away from you to a far point of 453.7 m away from you, so from all of the info youve given us, focusing should not be a problem because you have a 390m DOF range.

Now this is not something i play with much so i could be wrong but the calculator seems easy enough to operate so have a go for your self. If you get you shutter speed up im confident youll solve your issues.

[Polar01]

Mark I believe that you need to reread the orginal post Marie states that most of her shots were at 105mm as her lens was a 24-105mm,not as you believe 105m distance from the action (which would be approx 339ft) and as you can see Marie is not 105 meters for her subject. I believe that you have never been to such an event as this, well you are at the 50 to 60ft (17 to 20 meters) from the action.
Marie I just guessed the distance that you may have been from the action which I believed would have been around 50 ft (17m for the English). I used what you stated for f/ stop which was f/4 and the lens at 105mm. I put that in the DOF calculator at CIC and it gave me that DOF.
You can find some good apps for you phone that will hepl calculate the DOF. I use one for my S4 iphone called DOF Master, works really well I find.

Cheers:

Allan

[Mark von Kanel]

HI Allen, you are correct i have never been to one of these events and i did wonder if Marie was getting confused between focal length and distance which is why i referred her to the dof calculator to input her own figures, and from the quote below

Mark, these images were not cropped much-the most about 1/3, but were straightened and then cropped inside the white areas. As far as distance away, since I was at 105m all the time, would that mean I was about that from the closest bull and 125m from the other side of the ring? These are things I had not considered. In order to shoot close to 1/500, I would have had to crank the iso to 6400? I guess I should have tried it.

there are lots of points that are questionable 105 M 125 M ??? yes i know that 105mm lens doesnt equate to 105 m distance but sometimes its best for peeps to do some of their own thinking. Marie will need to learn how to judge distance for herself and im sure if she plays with the calculator she will learn to do so.

having said that i still firmly belive that shutter speed is the issue here not focusing.

[Marie Hass]

Allan,

Here is an uncropped example. You can see the closest fencing on the bottom right. I am shooting here already out at a focal length of 105m.



Here is the furtherest end of the arena, uncropped, still at at focal length of 105m.



Allan, you are probably right in that I am over-estimating how far away I actually am.

Mark may be right in that I should have done some homework before attending. I have no idea how large these arenas actually are, nor do I understand the technicalities of DoF. I have not used the DoF calculator. I do understand the general principles of DoF I need to do some research and go plug in some numbers.......

Marie