Photographing Cheerleaders

[Brad M]

I get good results using my top mount sb-600 flash at basketball games. The flash stops the action and doesn't require the grainy high ISO settings. However Mickey88 makes a good point regarding venues that restrict flash.

 

[MICKEY88]

Another option is a manual-focus prime. 135mm F2.8 lenses are widely available used and many are excellent. If you pick up an M42 adapter (about $30 or so), you can choose from dozens and dozens of fast 135mm lenses, many for very cheap. You could easily get set up for under $100, or less if you find a K-mount fast 135mm or similar focal length lens.

I suspect that the cheerleaders aren't moving too much in terms of distance from you, so manual focusing should be fairly easy, and there's consistent lighting so you only have to adjust the exposure settings once (the camera can do it for you but you need to press a button and it takes an quarter of a second or so to do it.)

As for flash, you probably won't be able to get nearly close enough to have your flash be effective at all. This is one of the great oddities you seen in stadiums and sporting events, flashbulbs going off all over the stands, which are completely ineffective (onboard flashes are rarely any good past 12 feet or so), and the resulting quality is usually poor (lots of redeye, black backgrounds, etc.)

seeing as the best vantage point for HS cheerleaders would be the front row, 135 is too much lens,

the shots I posted were shot at 35mm and 55 mm,

as for flash, built in flash yes... a good external flash will easily provide enough light in the average HS gym

 

[DisneydaveCT]

I have located a used A 50mm F1.7 for a reasonable price, which I have added to my kit.

Now I am just mulling over a couple of used mid-range zooms that I have found for a reasonable price. There are three

Tamron 28-75 F2.8
Sigma 28-70 F2.8
Pentax FA 28-105 F3.2-4.5

I am leaning towards the Pentax since it would give me additional range when I am WDW. Although I do like the speed of the other two. They are all in the same price range.

Any thoughts out there?

 

[ukcatfan]

I have located a used A 50mm F1.7 for a reasonable price, which I have added to my kit.

Now I am just mulling over a couple of used mid-range zooms that I have found for a reasonable price. There are three

Tamron 28-75 F2.8
Sigma 28-70 F2.8
Pentax FA 28-105 F3.2-4.5

I am leaning towards the Pentax since it would give me additional range when I am WDW. Although I do like the speed of the other two. They are all in the same price range.

Any thoughts out there?

Go with a faster lens instead of that little bit of extra reach.

 

[Experiment_626]

a lot of venues prohibit flash, especially HS sports

Do they? I used to use flash back in the mid-'90s when I was a journalist. I had a Nikon N6006 (mine) and I used a pretty big Sunpak flash on a bracket (belonged to the paper) that attached to the hot shoe with an adapter. We shot Tri-X 400 and routinely pushed it one stop, but I didn't have any lenses that were fast enough to go without a flash. I tried -- I bought some T-MAX 3200 once, but I had to push it to 6400 to get a shutter speed that was fast enough -- and the result was a grainy mess -- not really good enough for even newspaper reproduction. Add to that the fact that the paper paid for Tri-X; they weren't going to pay for 3200 T-MAX just for me for sports photos. Some of those gyms are really dim, to say nothing of football fields at the high-school level.

Today, of course, things would be different. I'm about to get a Nikon D300 -- I expect I could go back to those same gyms today with my 50 mm f1.8 prime, boost the ISO to 1600 or thereabouts, and be totally fine. I used to get behind and just to one side of the goal and wait for the action to come to me -- I shot with a cheap 70-210 at the short end (it was slightly faster than my 35-80 zoomed all the way out) and got tons of good shots -- it was a great angle of view for capturing the action at that distance (even if I did have the front of my lens take a hit from a blocked shot once). On the D300, I'd be shooting with the equivalent of a 75 mm lens -- perfect.

I really enjoyed shooting high school basketball and football games -- it was my favorite part of the job, bar none. I wonder if any of the small local papers would be willing to pay a little bit to have someone with experience photograph some HS basketball games .... I miss it. And that's the only part of the job (I was the managing editor at a really small paper) I do miss.

Qapla'

SSB

 

[Brad M]

If your venue does allow flash, here is an interesting article on what looks like a great option with a 2 flash setup...

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/04/on-assignment-prep-basketball.html

It's written more with the game/players in mind rather than the cheerleaders, but I expect it will work for both. I've not tried this setup yet but I plan to in January.

 

[rtphokie]

If your venue does allow flash, here is an interesting article on what looks like a great option...

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/04/on-assignment-prep-basketball.html

It's written more with the game/players in mind rather than the cheerleaders, but I expect it will work for both. I've not tried this setup yet but I plan to in January.

Strobes are fascinating little devices that can light up a huge area and be far less annoying to spectators than on camera flashes.

I Had a long chat with an AP photographer at an NHL game who showed me the strobe remote mounted on on his camera-worth-more-than-my-2-cars-combined. I think it was a Skyport made by a Swiss company.

The strobes are permanently mounted in the ceiling, at least 10-12 stories up and photogs use these remotes to trigger them. They produce really pleasant white light with a minimum of shadows.

It varies from arena to arena. Some have them mounted and offer them to photographers to use for free (publicity is good), others charge a fee, some newspapers install their own in the catwalks and set them up the way they want.

The Salt Lake paper had a nice article about use of these strobes for NBA games

http://166.70.44.68/blogs/trent/2006/11/jazz-up-in-the-ceiling/

You also have to have a number of strobes to get good fill
http://www.daveblackphotography.com/workshop/arena-lighting.htm

 

[dr_zero]

Strobes are fascinating little devices that can light up a huge area and be far less annoying to spectators than on camera flashes.

I Had a long chat with an AP photographer at an NHL game who showed me the strobe remote mounted on on his camera-worth-more-than-my-2-cars-combined. I think it was a Skyport made by a Swiss company.

The strobes are permanently mounted in the ceiling, at least 10-12 stories up and photogs use these remotes to trigger them. They produce really pleasant white light with a minimum of shadows.

It varies from arena to arena. Some have them mounted and offer them to photographers to use for free (publicity is good), others charge a fee, some newspapers install their own in the catwalks and set them up the way they want.

The Salt Lake paper had a nice article about use of these strobes for NBA games

http://166.70.44.68/blogs/trent/2006/11/jazz-up-in-the-ceiling/

You also have to have a number of strobes to get good fill
http://www.daveblackphotography.com/workshop/arena-lighting.htm

I saw a TV show where they showed the strobes for some NBA game it was very cool! It was setup as not to interfere with other lighting options via a computer very neat!

 

[seashoreCM]

If lots of people are allowed to use the strobes, don't you get bad pictures from time to time because someone else just fired the strobes and they are recharging when you take your picture?

 

[rtphokie]

If lots of people are allowed to use the strobes, don't you get bad pictures from time to time because someone else just fired the strobes and they are recharging when you take your picture?

There is about a 4 second recycle time so the number of photographers who can share them is really limited.

 

[Brad M]

Not cheerleaders, but similar challenges... Here are a couple of shots with flash bounced off the ceiling. This is a dimly lit gym so it's no good without flash (with my 3.5-5.6 lens). It's about all my SB600 can do off the high ceiling...ISO 1600, shutter priority at 1/100.