colin starks pics

<p>Gary, I also have shot gymnastics for over 15 years (actually over 30 years) and have now gone into digital. I'm now shooting with a Canon 50D and recently purchased a 24-70 f2.8 L series lens to add to my 70-200 f2.8 L lens, which is my workhorse for rhythmic gymnastics since they go from corner to corner of the mat. With artistic gymnastics, at the last meet, I was able to get much better shots but positioning myself in the middle of the gym, thereby getting the vault, beam and the floor quite easily. The exposure varied throughout the gym, having dark edges. I shot at ISO 2500 f2.8 1/500 mostly, which was what my Minolta digital light meter read in ambient mode. However, when working on the pics in Photoshop, I found I had to use levels to lighten the images (which all seemed a bit dark). I'm still shooting jpegs because I made the mistake of shooting at 15M jped + RAW and my 4GB card (Extreme IV) card was full in now time! You're right about getting the peak action. When I can, I like to get there early in time to shoot the gymnasts in warm-up since practice always helps. Cathing the peak moment takes practice, no matter how long I've been doing this! I recently opened a website with photoreflect.com since I live in Canada and I'm able to fill the orders at my local lab, and my customers can pay in CAN currency. All the other labs charged monthly rates or uploading fees or you had to use their lab. My second choice was SmugMug until I realized that customers were charged in US funds and you had to use their lab....sorry for going on so long...I enjoy following this gymnastics thread...never too old to learn (I'm going on 60)</p><div></div>

<p>Gary, I also have shot gymnastics for over 15 years (actually over 30 years) and have now gone into digital. I'm now shooting with a Canon 50D and recently purchased a 24-70 f2.8 L series lens to add to my 70-200 f2.8 L lens, which is my workhorse for rhythmic gymnastics since they go from corner to corner of the mat. With artistic gymnastics, at the last meet, I was able to get much better shots but positioning myself in the middle of the gym, thereby getting the vault, beam and the floor quite easily. The exposure varied throughout the gym, having dark edges. I shot at ISO 2500 f2.8 1/500 mostly, which was what my Minolta digital light meter read in ambient mode. However, when working on the pics in Photoshop, I found I had to use levels to lighten the images (which all seemed a bit dark). I'm still shooting jpegs because I made the mistake of shooting at 15M jped + RAW and my 4GB card (Extreme IV) card was full in now time! You're right about getting the peak action. When I can, I like to get there early in time to shoot the gymnasts in warm-up since practice always helps. Cathing the peak moment takes practice, no matter how long I've been doing this! I recently opened a website with photoreflect.com since I live in Canada and I'm able to fill the orders at my local lab, and my customers can pay in CAN currency. All the other labs charged monthly rates or uploading fees or you had to use their lab. My second choice was SmugMug until I realized that customers were charged in US funds and you had to use their lab....sorry for going on so long...I enjoy following this gymnastics thread...never too old to learn (I'm going on 60)</p>

<p>I just downloaded the Pro Version of Noise Ninja based on what I heard in this forum. It was $79.95 (or $108.50 Canadian)I am very impressed using it with my new Canon 50D and 24-70 f2.8 and 70-200 f 2.8 lens shot at ISO 2500 1/500 f2.8. I've just used it at the automatic setting for now and was wondering when to do the sharpening (Unsharp Mask) before or after using Noise Ninja. I'm submitting a gymnastic shot taken last weekend under terrible lighting...my handheld meter read an incident metering of 1/500 f2.8 at ISO 2500. I was afraid to go higher to ISO 3200 ...what do you think? I'd be happy to receive any advice since I'm also covering larger meets in the near future..</p><div></div>

<p>As a Canadian, I was very interested in Smugmug until I realized that all funds were in US and they had to do the printing at their own lab. Since then, I've switched to Photoreflect.com. Their software seems a bit buggy, but after several calls to their help line (the will use the gotomeeting.com website to guide you through any problems. I like the fact that I can use my local lab here in Winnipeg ("Winterpeg") Canada that I've been using for years (ROES system). Their commission is 15% but goes down to 13% once you reach $2000.00. So far my sales have gone way up compared to when I was trying to do it myself. I don't know but I think Photoreflect.com is the best for any international photographer since you can adjust the currency to US, Canadian, British Pounds, Euros, or whatever. Naturally the wanted me to upgrade for $395.00 to the Core or Pro Edition even though I've only used it for a week. So far I'm impressed but I haven't received a cheque yet...I'll let you know once that happens.</p>

<p>I also live in Canada and was looking for a good website for displaying and selling my sports images...I settled with photoreflect after seeing that they have express digital labs in Toronto (Canada's largest city with about 4 000 000 people) and Vancouver. I really liked smugmug but I found out that they all sales are in U.S. funds and they do the processing. I didn't want the added expense to my customers of shipping from the States to here in Canada which could amount to more than their order! I've just joined today and will keep you "posted" on how it goes from here...wish me luck.</p>

<p>Well, here in Canada, I checked the other day at Henry's and the price for the Canon 50 mm f1.8 is $139.00....well, that's our Canadian dollar for ya! The salesman I was talking to said it was a "great portrait lens" since it wasn't that sharp. I was thinking of buying it for sports but now have second thoughts...yes, I know it's cheap but "not sharp" Is it worth it?</p>

<p>I've also thought of using the 85 1.8 and it would probably work on the beam, the vault and the bars but definitely not on the floor since they move from corner to corner a lot. Your shot was great..you stoppped the action well. I use the 70-200 f2.8 at 1/500 f 2.8 at ISO 3200 and it seems to work... a bit of grain but nothing much.</p>

<p>I've also thought of using the 85 1.8 and it would probably work on the beam, the vault and the bars but definitely not on the floor since they move from corner to corner a lot. Your shot was great..you stoppped the action well. I use the 70-200 f2.8 at 1/500 f 2.8 at ISO 3200 and it seems to work... a bit of grain but nothing much.</p>

<p>I've also thought of using the 85 1.8 and it would probably work on the beam, the vault and the bars but definitely not on the floor since they move from corner to corner a lot. Your shot was great..you stoppped the action well. I use the 70-200 f2.8 at 1/500 f 2.8 at ISO 3200 and it seems to work... a bit of grain but nothing much.</p>

<p>I know this may sound silly but I still haven't found a good autofocus camera even though I was using a Canon 10D until recently when I purchased the 50D. For many years, (about 25) I shot sports (mostly gymnastic in dimly lit gyms with no flash allowed) and used a 100mm f2.5 lens on my trusty Minolta X-700 film camera. I was doing my own enlarging and since the camera wasn't autofocus, I got very good at manually focusing. Anticipating the action really helped because once you saw it, (the peak moment) it was gone so you had to shoot before you actually saw it. Back in those days, I shot 5 rolls of 36 exposures Tri-X 400 (boosted to 800). I made 8x10's for the local newspapers but never made a pile of money, since I was the official photographer for the gymnastic association and just got an honarium. Hopefully, the 50D will focus better but I used my 10D on manual focus and got better results...hope this helps...good luck.</p>

<p>I would just take a professional camera like the new Canon G10 which I recently purchased. I traded in my 10D for the 50D and love it..I would be too nervous about the larger bulkier camera and lenses and as mentioned before, it might distract you from having fun on your cruise. Have fun!</p>

I've been using the 4180 scanner for the past several days and you're right...4800 dpi is overkill. The problem I have is that I have misplaced (lost?) my medium format film adapter...I tried phoning Epson with no results...I spent half an hour at Best Buy and they couldn't find a replacement..just suggested I buy a new scanner. I have many of my wedding negatives that I'd love to scan...If I can't get the adapter, I'll try your suggestion of placing a sheet of glass over the neg...thanks for that suggestion... Overall, I think it's a great little scanner for the price... I've been making all my adjustments in Photoshop CS3 with the levels/curves and that really helps...

I've had many of the Canon G series cameras beginning -- would you believe -- the G1, which felt like a brick and heated up quickly...As it turned out, the G2 came out a week after I bought the G1 and they let me trade it in. I loved that camera especially the rotating viewfinder...Since then, I've bought the G3, the G6, and the G9 (my current camera). I use them with studio lights to photograph large groups (mostly gymnastic and dance groups). The quality has been excellent and the camera is easy to use...Originally, I was looking at a Nikon but I found the Canon more intuitive and easy to figure out...even without looking at the manual...As well, in the summer of 2003, I bought the 10D for around $2400.00 Canadian as well as the motor drive grip...I still use that camera but it only has 6.3 megapixels... I'm now looking seriously at purchasing the G10, since the price has come down so much... I remember paying about $1175.00 Canadian for the G6!

Hi, I'm using the Canon 10D with the 70-200 f2.8 zoom lens. I recently shot an indoor hockey game. I used a monopod to steady the camera. I used AWB and it worked out great. I shot some in RAW and used Photoshop CS2 to process them. They turned out great. I shot at ISO 1600 on the Action mode. Most shots were 1/500 and f2.8 but that would vary according to the arena. Hope this helps. Colin in Canada<div></div>

Thanks. Yes, the flash did fire. The hockey players were about 15-20 feet away. I guess the lighting was ambient and the flash only served as fill flash. Canon advised me to use RAW but I wasn't sure how to do that on the G6. How do you process the RAW files later? I'm getting Photo Elements 4 and I think it says it can process RAW files. Does anyone have any experience with this. I tried using Canon's Zoom Browser EX version 5.5 but had no success. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Sorry the file size was too large.<div></div>

I had a problem with indoor lighting recently. I used my Canon G6 on

T for fast shutter speed, 400 ISO, and my newly aquired 580EX flash.

Naturally, I set the White Balance to Flash. The photos of the

hockey players were in focus but too much on the yellowish side. I

emailed Canon Canada and they said I should have used the RAW image.

I don't know how to do that. I tried using it yesterday on my Canon

10D and used the latest ZoomBrowser 5.5 but couldn't. I went to the

Custom Functions and tried to use it but I don't think it worked. I

think it was number 5 or 6 on the custom list. I found that just

using AWB on my Canon 10D looked pretty good. What do you think?

Any suggestions? Any help would be greatly appreciated? Thanks.<div></div>

I found my Canon G6 stayed in sharp focus in T mode. Shutter speed was about 1/250. Unfortunately, the images were a bit yellow even with my Canon 580EX flash attached. I should have used my 10D instead I guess. I'm leaning toward purchasing a 70-200 f.28L series lens but the price is a bit high.

Colin Stark<div></div>