Shooting Rodeo with 20D

Hello

 

I recently purchased a 20D and will be shooting an indoor rodeo

tomorrow night. Although I will bring my flash, I hope to be able to

shoot with available light using the iso 3200 setting.

 

My lenses will be 70-200 2.8L; 1.4 tc; 28-70 2.8L and 17-40 4.0L. The

flash is 580ex. I will bring a monopod for stability.

 

I realize I need to experiment, but I am seeking some advice on the

following questions:

 

1) What is the best white balance setting for an indoor rodeo arena

with artifical lights?

 

2) Any thoughts on the minimum shutter speed to stop the action? I

intend to try some different shutter speeds for different effect, but

would like to get some sharp photos, whichs means stopping the action.

 

3) If I use the flash, any advice on the best settings to use for the

camera and the flash. How close will I have to be to benefit from the

use of the flash. (This is the area where I need the most help as I do

not yet have much experience with using the flash).

 

4) I assume that I will need to use the exposure compensation feature

to compensate for what is bound to be a dark background (dirt floor in

the arena -- dark bulls). When in doubt, is it better to under-expose

or to over-expose.

 

Finally, any other thoughts would be appreciated.

 

M

Hi Monty, I've never shot a rodeo -I've been to a few though and I've got the same camera and lenses minus the 28-70 2.8L. Also I have shot a few similar things so I'll throw in my .02 cent's worth.

 

First, unless you can get pretty close your flash might not be of much use - but that's OK because there should be plenty of light with your ISO cranked up. I would try shooting at ISO 1600 as opposed to 3200 if you can; there's a substantial noise increase. A Photoshop plugin like Neatimage or Noise Ninja can help a lot with that though.

 

1) If you'll take a gray card you can make a custom white balance. Failing that, shoot RAW and you can fine-tune color temperature later.

 

2) Some stuff that goes on at a rodeo isn't moving all that quick but obviously some of it is so I'd think you'll want to play with shutter speed. Sometimes a feeling of movement is good so I wouldn't necessarily strive to freeze everything.

 

3) You'll have to be pretty close to benefit from the flash, although the 580EX can throw out some light. It's really impossible to say until you know how close you're able to get. If you're several rows back, forget it. If you feel like you're in range, try using it with your camera in manual or shutter-priority mode. (I'd use the latter if you're not familiar with flash) Set your shutterspeed to what you'd like and the camera will do the rest. I've found that with the 20D the flash white balance setting works best, but if you shoot RAW it won't matter. Review your histogram and don't trust the tiny LCD for proper exposure.

 

4) It's usually best to underexpose simply because if a highlight is severely blown, it's blown and there's nothing there. It's important to understand that you'll get different results from your flash depending on which mode you're shooting in; manual, aperture priority, shutter priority or program. If it's a reasonably well lit arena you will likely be fine at ISO 1600 with those fast lenses. I would think the 70-200 f/2.8L will do great - especially if it's an IS model. Get a handle on your flash exposure compensation to crank it up or throttle it back if necessary and don't forget to look at your histogram for flash shots too.

 

To recap: Shooting RAW is a good idea - it lets you change your mind later on many things like color balance. You'll need to be pretty darn close for flash to be terribly effective but don't sweat it because you'll get good shots without it using that camera and those lenses. Review (and practice if you can) how your flash behaves in the various modes mentioned above in case you are close enough to use it. And at the risk of sounding like a broken record, check your histogram. ;-) Good luck!

Take a look at this guy's gallery here:

 

http://www.pbase.com/drip/1002

 

If you review the EXIF information, you'll get a good idea of how handle things - shoot in M (ambient lighting doesn't change, even if the subject brightness does), (almost) wide open to get motion freezing shutter speeds at 1600 ISO. Leave the 17-40 at home - it's too slow, and leave the TC behind too for the same reason. You probably don't need the 28-70 either. Forget the flash. You only need the monopod if you think your arms would tire otherwise.

One more thing about white balance: setting custom white balance from a grey card at your seat won't give a very good result - lighting for the spectators is much redder than out in the arena. Use a section of white billboard or similar in the arena itself instead.

Hi Monte...I've been wanting to shoot rodeo for while...unfortunately I haven't made the

time yet but I can share some basic indoor sports tips:

 

1. indoors I use tungsten or auto WB. Likely you will be dealing with fluorescent lights,

which change color as they cycle. expect green-magenta variations when shooting at high

ss. I think AWB does a better job compensating for this than fluorescent WB, but

fluorescent works well at low ss. If the event is being lit for TV, there will be plenty of

light and tungsten WB works well for their lights, IMX.

 

2. 1/400 stops basketball...that may be fine for some rodeo events but I'd think for bull

riding you'd need higher...maybe1/640, but like I said, I've never done this either.

 

3. Be sure the venue allows flash before you use it...nothing will turn event staff against

you faster than an unwelcome stobe pop.

 

4. Use manual mode and check your histogram - get it right once and don't think about it

again. The action will usually be pretty consistetly lit, even if your background varies.

IMO 20D image quality goes to crap about 2/3 under at 1600. I never use 3200 for that

reason. Overexposure will yield a lower noise and therefore higher quality image,

assuming you don't blow you highlights and can still freeze action. Underexposing 1600

gets noisey fast.

Why it's not worth taking the flash: HSS is useless (especially with a lens as slow as f/2.8) since you get 4 x guide number / 3 / f/2.8 at ISO 1600 - or say a maximum of 20 yds to be on the safe side, of which you'll lose at least 5 to not being in the ring, even if you're in the front row. Max X sync is too slow a shutter speed, as ambient light will be significant in the overall exposure. Having 5fps is likely more use than 5 seconds per frame waiting for full pop flash recharges. Flash is probably banned anyway - the riders have enough to contend with trying to stay on a horse.

 

If you plan to shoot this stuff regularly, you should think about your choice of f/1.8-f/2 primes from 85,100,135 and 200 focal lengths. FOr the last one, you WILL need a monopod!

D*mn-left a response and the server lost it in transit....

 

<P>The main thing i wanted to point out is that flash *WILL* give big ugly white eyes to the animals and often does similar to the riders.It's the look that you will tire of VERY quickly.

<P>Use ambient light if you possibly can i suggest.

<P>Another thing is that you'll be abit lucky if your rodeo has bright enough lights.The example gallery linked above shows him using a 1/750th shutter speed (!) but only the best arena lighting will make that possible in my (limited) experience.

<BR>The fastest shutter speeds i have managed at the local rodeos around here is 1/60th (iso1600/f3.5),which just isn't fast enough at all

floating thought: I wonder if Image Stabilization can help if you are the one on the bull....

UNless you plan on shooting from above the pit (you CAN get some cool shots there) the wide-zooms are useless. Also, you DON'T want to be changing lenses in a RODEO arena (dust!).

 

THerefore, use the fastest tele (or tele-zoom) you have and use it a the widest aperture. If you "only" have the 70-200 f/2.8 IS use it, wide open. Take a reading of the room for both light and color temp then set the camera to M and set your K value manually as well.

 

Depending on the speed of the camera you may be able to shoot RAW though, I wouldn't(!). If you take the time to measure light and color temp you can (and should) shoot JPG and be sure NOT to miss any shots (which the longer write times of RAW may well cause).

Hope this is not a totally dumb question but I'm not that familiar with lighting tools so I

was wonder what do you use to measure color temp?

 

Thanks!

Thank you all for your advice. I did attend the rodeo last night. Was able to shoot from right outside of the fence (if I had been any closer I would have been in with the bulls).

 

I thought it might be helpful for others if I posted my thoughts on how things worked out for me.

 

I shot in raw because I was unsure of how to correctly set the white balance. Although it lowered the number of consecutive frames I could quickly shoot, I think it was worth it to be able to easily change the white balance.

 

The civic center's lighting was not sufficient. My 2.8 lenses were not big enough for getting really good shots. Because I was so close, I ended up shooting a lot with my 50mm 1.8 II lens. Shooting at f:2.0 seemed to be about right -- although I think almost all of my shots were under-exposed.

 

If I go again, I will experiment a bit more with a lower shutter speed. I mostly want a sharp stopped-action photo, but some of the photos, because of the fast shutter speed, look like a man sitting on a docile bull -- because the picture has no blur to suggest movement.

 

I set the focus to automatic (Letting the camera pick the focus point). In reviewing the pictures and checking the focus points actually used, it appears that the camera had much difficulty picking the correct focus point. Next time I will probably set the center focus point on the theory that the cowboy or bull will be somewhere in the middle of the frame.

 

Rodeos are very dusty dirty affairs, especially if you are close enought to have dirt sprayed on you from passing horses and bulls. I'm sure my sensor is going to need to be cleaned. On the other hand, I purchsed the camera to take pictures -- so I look at it as being part of the cost of doing business.

 

I took a few pictures using the flash. The previous posters were correct -- for the most part the subject was either too far away, or the bull ended up with "glowing" eyes. I'm glad I played with it a bit, but next time I think I will leave the flash at home.

 

Thanks again to all of you who posted responses -- I really appreciate the advice. I am now longing for summer so I can shoot a few rodeos in natural, evening light.

 

Monte<div></div>

Here is another shot. I am still learning to use the photo editing software and realize the pictures need a bit more tweaking.<div></div>