# Brazilian Jiu Jitsu C+C



## Ballistics (Jun 11, 2012)

Maxum9 by The Photo Major, on Flickr




Maxum2 by The Photo Major, on Flickr




Maxum12 by The Photo Major, on Flickr

All shot with either 24 or 50mm 1.8 
ISO 1600
Shutter Speed 320
F2 or F2.8

The issue I have is that they are so noisy and soft. Plus the red mat reflecting onto their faces makes it hard to adjust to white balance. I seriously need work and I need to improve. Would like to get a few pointers from you indoor sports photographers, especially if you shoot wrestling.


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## Ballistics (Jun 12, 2012)

Bump for some tips


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## Trever1t (Jun 12, 2012)

Don't let you opponent get a leg under you....

They all look a bit dark. Expose for your subject, let the rest fall where it falls.


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## Ballistics (Jun 12, 2012)

The issue in my gym is that the light ballasts are so far apart and that it is so dim. If I expose for the subject, what do I do about the background if it is overexposed?


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## Jaemie (Jun 12, 2012)

I'd crop out the blue ass in #1.

Sports / martial arts photos always seem to have a lot of extra body parts in the background. I guess there's little to be done about that.


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## Trever1t (Jun 12, 2012)

Unless you are packing lighting gear I wouldn't even worry about the backgrounds and let them blow, it's your subject that needs to be lit properly.

Also, I agree with the above, a crop on the #1 shot would take it to a new dimension.


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## Ballistics (Jun 12, 2012)

Jaemie said:


> Sports / martial arts photos always seem to have a lot of extra body parts in the background. I guess there's little to be done about that.



Indeed


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## spacefuzz (Jun 12, 2012)

Id say shoot in RAW, spot meter, and try a narrow DOF if you can to de clutter the background.  You will most likely have high ISO or a really pricey lens. You could try renting a f/2.8 or 1.8 lens and see if that helps.


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## Ballistics (Jun 12, 2012)

spacefuzz said:


> Id say shoot in RAW, spot meter, and try a narrow DOF if you can to de clutter the background.  You will most likely have high ISO or a really pricey lens. You could try renting a f/2.8 or 1.8 lens and see if that helps.



You didn't look at the Exif data in the OP huh?


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## imagemaker46 (Jun 12, 2012)

The first one, a tighter crop behind the ref would make it work a little better, I think the other two look just fine. As long as you can get a decent background you can make the gym stuff work. The backgrounds in 2-3 are great.  I wouldn't be so concerned about a higher iso, stopping the action is what works, but there are also times when you can drop the iso and shutter speed, then wait for the holds on the floor, you usually end up with some good faces.  Throws in martial arts often end up having the bad backgrounds, and are most times tough to crop.  I like shooting form a higher angle as a good second spot to be, you can get those really clean just the mat background.  Whatever works.


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## Ballistics (Jun 12, 2012)

imagemaker46 said:


> The first one, a tighter crop behind the ref would make it work a little better, I think the other two look just fine. As long as you can get a decent background you can make the gym stuff work. The backgrounds in 2-3 are great.  I wouldn't be so concerned about a higher iso, stopping the action is what works, but there are also times when you can drop the iso and shutter speed, then wait for the holds on the floor, you usually end up with some good faces.  Throws in martial arts often end up having the bad backgrounds, and are most times tough to crop.  I like shooting form a higher angle as a good second spot to be, you can get those really clean just the mat background.  Whatever works.



I'll try a closer crop, I was kind of going for the story of an instructor overseeing his students.


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## Ballistics (Jun 12, 2012)

I was just told that the last 2 shots are snap shots merely snap shots with out any compositional thought put in place, in another forum. Agree or disagree and why?


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## Jaemie (Jun 12, 2012)

Ballistics said:


> I was just told that the last 2 shots are snap shots merely snap shots with out any compositional thought put in place, in another forum. Agree or disagree and why?



I disagree. I see elements of thoughtful composition (given the dynamic circumstances), strong emotional engagement, and fairly good technical work aside from some areas of poor exposure.


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## imagemaker46 (Jun 12, 2012)

Ballistics said:


> I was just told that the last 2 shots are snap shots merely snap shots with out any compositional thought put in place, in another forum. Agree or disagree and why?



Really, I think they are pretty good sports images. Nothing wrong with either one.


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## Ballistics (Jun 12, 2012)

I figured that my composition wasn't horrible. Exposure is an issue because of how horribly lit the gym is.


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## Ballistics (Jun 13, 2012)

Not the greatest exposure, but here I got a bit of a decisive moment. I went for pattern,shape, and line here 
and I feel I was pretty successful. 



Maxum1 by The Photo Major, on Flickr

Here I just did ROT and shape.



Maxum3 by The Photo Major, on Flickr


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## mistertee (Jun 13, 2012)

Most gyms use florescent lighing which makes it difficult to achieve a constant color balance.  At my school, for fast action MMA striking shots, I have to shoot at max frame rate and up to 12500 iso with a 2.8 aperture and 500 minimum shutter.  Maybe one in ten pictures will have the correct color because of the florescent lights cycling.

For BJJ, you can use slower shutter speed since the movments are slower and it's easier to anticipate "peak of action".   With our lights, consistant color can be achieved when I stay under 160 shutter speed.


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## Ballistics (Jun 13, 2012)

mistertee said:


> Most gyms use florescent lighing which makes it difficult to achieve a constant color balance.  At my school, for fast action MMA striking shots, I have to shoot at max frame rate and up to 12500 iso with a 2.8 aperture and 500 minimum shutter.  Maybe one in ten pictures will have the correct color because of the florescent lights cycling.
> 
> For BJJ, you can use slower shutter speed since the movments are slower and it's easier to anticipate "peak of action".   With our lights, consistant color can be achieved when I stay under 160 shutter speed.



I wish I could get usable shots at 12,500


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## imagemaker46 (Jun 13, 2012)

Ballistics said:


> mistertee said:
> 
> 
> > Most gyms use florescent lighing which makes it difficult to achieve a constant color balance. At my school, for fast action MMA striking shots, I have to shoot at max frame rate and up to 12500 iso with a 2.8 aperture and 500 minimum shutter. Maybe one in ten pictures will have the correct color because of the florescent lights cycling.
> ...



Nikon D3s or D4


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## imagemaker46 (Jun 13, 2012)

I like the first frame, the way the guys have lined up makes for a good background.  I wouldn't be too overly concerned about the exposures, they really aren't that bad.


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## spacefuzz (Jun 13, 2012)

Ballistics said:


> spacefuzz said:
> 
> 
> > Id say shoot in RAW, spot meter, and try a narrow DOF if you can to de clutter the background. You will most likely have high ISO or a really pricey lens. You could try renting a f/2.8 or 1.8 lens and see if that helps.
> ...



dude, you asked for pointers.  No offense but the shots werent worth digging into exif for while I am at work. But if you insist, you need to change how you shoot. 

JPEG (NOT RAW!)

Compression

1600 (you can push your D7000 way beyond this)

ISO Speed


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## spacefuzz (Jun 13, 2012)

Ballistics said:


> Not the greatest exposure, but here I got a bit of a decisive moment. I went for pattern,shape, and line here
> and I feel I was pretty successful.
> 
> 
> ...



This is nice.


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## Ballistics (Jun 13, 2012)

spacefuzz said:


> Ballistics said:
> 
> 
> > spacefuzz said:
> ...



It's in the OP underneath the pictures. I literally wrote out the Exif so you didn't have to dig lol. These were all also shot in RAW.
In these conditions, Anything above 1600 was wayyy too noisy.

As far as giving me pointers, you told me to use a high ISO and a 1.8 or 2.8 lens and shoot in RAW.... I did all of this. All of this information (minus the fact that these were shot in RAW) is written out, hence my post.

Edit: re-reading your post, are you recommending that I shot in Jpeg and not raw? Or that these pictures are JPEG and not RAW?
If the former, why do you recommend JPEG over RAW?


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## spacefuzz (Jun 13, 2012)

I guess I missed the info under the shots. 

However, I shot a lot of low light with the D7000 and you should be able to get usable images at ISO 3200 in these conditions if you post process them right. 
For lens rental, If you have room to move in the gym I would recommend a 70-200 2.8 so you can get better bokeh at 200mm than at 50mm. 
I went to your flickr site and looked at the file exif, seemed like it was shot with jpeg not RAW.


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## Ballistics (Jun 13, 2012)

spacefuzz said:


> I guess I missed the info under the shots.
> 
> However, I shot a lot of low light with the D7000 and you should be able to get usable images at ISO 3200 in these conditions if you post process them right.
> For lens rental, If you have room to move in the gym I would recommend a 70-200 2.8 so you can get better bokeh at 200mm than at 50mm.
> I went to your flickr site and looked at the file exif, seemed like it was shot with jpeg not RAW.



I only shoot in RAW. I converted them all to Jpeg in photoshop to post online. @ ISO 3200 the noise is really horrible. I did just order a 70-200mm and it will be coming in a week or 2. These were all brought up as well. Some of these images are underexposed by almost a full stop and I had to go heavy in the noise reduction.


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## imagemaker46 (Jun 13, 2012)

I wouldn't sweat any of this, the images you posted are all acceptable. The biggest problem with so many people is that they out think themselves, they believe that every image has to be perfect, no noise, no movement, in low light this doesn't happen all the time. You do what you can, with what you have, from where you are.  I shoot sports, they aren't all perfect poster pictures, but sometimes having a good solid image that isn't perfect is all that you need to get the job done.  

It's easy for people that aren't shooting under the same conditions to tell you how they would do it, but unless you are there using the same light, sitting in the same room, it's tough to dump on someone for the images posted.  I know that I do it at times, but I've also shot sports in a lot of different places around the world, most likely more than anyone else on this forum, so it has given me the advantage of experience.  No two places are the same.


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## Ballistics (Jun 13, 2012)

imagemaker46 said:


> I wouldn't sweat any of this, the images you posted are all acceptable. The biggest problem with so many people is that they out think themselves, they believe that every image has to be perfect, no noise, no movement, in low light this doesn't happen all the time. You do what you can, with what you have, from where you are.  I shoot sports, they aren't all perfect poster pictures, but sometimes having a good solid image that isn't perfect is all that you need to get the job done.
> 
> It's easy for people that aren't shooting under the same conditions to tell you how they would do it, but unless you are there using the same light, sitting in the same room, it's tough to dump on someone for the images posted.  I know that I do it at times, but I've also shot sports in a lot of different places around the world, most likely more than anyone else on this forum, so it has given me the advantage of experience.  No two places are the same.



Hey you know what, thanks man. I appreciate that. These pictures literally were torn apart and I was beginning to scratch my head why they were so poorly received.


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## mistertee (Jun 14, 2012)

I agree 100% with what imagemaker46 said. 

You could use flash if the students and instructor don't find it distracting.


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## imagemaker46 (Jun 14, 2012)

Flash is an option but to be honest I hate any sports that are shot with it.  What I find is that it changes the feeling of the sport, almost makes it all look artificial.  I've shot a lot of hocky over the years and when I had the opportunity of using strobes to shoot pro hockey, I jumped at it, and then I jumped away from it after seeing the results. I really don't like the shadows it creates.  Something about having just a little bit of grain or noise in the images that I really like.


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## Ballistics (Jun 15, 2012)

imagemaker46 said:


> Flash is an option but to be honest I hate any sports that are shot with it.  What I find is that it changes the feeling of the sport, almost makes it all look artificial.  I've shot a lot of hocky over the years and when I had the opportunity of using strobes to shoot pro hockey, I jumped at it, and then I jumped away from it after seeing the results. I really don't like the shadows it creates.  Something about having just a little bit of grain or noise in the images that I really like.



I was able to bounce flash, but in a tournament setting flash is not allowed, I am therefore practicing for tournament photography.
I posted these in a third forum to get more opinions. The poor reception came from a BJJ forum from photography "experts". Not that I don't respect anyone's opinions here or there, I just would like to get as much input as possible. I honestly thought that, for what they were, they weren't bad. Even with my lack of equipment and knowledge, they came out pretty good. Not press worthy, but definitely not mindless snap shots.


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## ChristianGrattan (Jun 15, 2012)

What about custom white balancing with a grey card right above the mat before they start and then shooting that.  It could be a baseline.


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## Ballistics (Jun 15, 2012)

ChristianGrattan said:


> What about custom white balancing with a grey card right above the mat before they start and then shooting that.  It could be a baseline.



I have multiple issues in terms of white balance. First, there is a combination of window light and fluorescent light. Second, The red mats reflect very hard onto the people. I only really have an issue with white balance in the last image, imo


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## imagemaker46 (Jun 15, 2012)

Better off just going with an auto WB.  Like I said over thinking how to shoot.


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## Ballistics (Jun 15, 2012)

Yeah I went with Auto for all these shots.


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