[panonski]

Hi fellows,

Yesterday I shooted friend of mine in amateur boxing match. I go with my all arround gear - K3, and Sigma 17-50 ...

Match was in semidark (or semilight) sports atrium in one school, and I was set up myself for shooting in corner of the ring itself. because all of other places was too far for my equipment.
Because of that,
I set my camera to M mode, I bumped ISO to 2200, and set my shutter speed to 1/320 or 1/500 s ... I decided to not AutoFocus on every shoot, because it slower, and boxers was fast in duels, and I was ,
too close to the action. So the decision on that was to choose larger dof for sharpness, and I choosed f/8, ( maybe I could go with f16 ) focused mostly on one center spot in the ring...

Decision on that is to not focus at all when shooting, just taking actions without it, with just several times prefocused area, and go for luck with f/8, 1/500, and Iso 2200.

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WELL - I'm not happy with results. I was too close, light was too poor, at least for my choosen technique which not showed ( great ) results in the end...rather crappy, semicrappy, or sometimes acceptable images.

OK, If I was in better shotting spot, results will be better, but that's not excuse ! As a photographeur with experiance - it was unforgiven ( at least for me ) ..

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I post some images which are not processed at all, only little downsized, and with same resolution. These are not my best images, I would say it's a average shoots which clearly shows my unsuccess in this match yestarday

What's your opinions, and your techniques ...
picture 1
picture 2
picture 3

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Last edited by panonski; 04-23-2017 at 03:12 AM.

[Kerrowdown]

opinions on technique

Oh dear, links to images appear to be broken...

[LensBeginner]

Light must have sucked... I think you did ok all the factors considered ;-)
In the three examples you posted focus was ok, and there was no motion blur.
ISO was the greatest detail-robbing factor, and the slight under-exposure prevents the pics from "popping".
If you trust the lens, next time go for at least f/6.7, and make sure you shoot RAW.
my 2c.

Oh dear, links to images appear to be broken...

Dunno... they work for me.

[panonski]

Oh dear, links to images appear to be broken...

I recovered that, thank you

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Last edited by panonski; 04-23-2017 at 03:31 AM.

[Na Horuk]

Ah yes, the problem are the lights. You could use flash, but that might bother the fighters and audience.
Photography is all about light.
I don't know which lens and aperture you used. But maybe you could get more light with faster aperture.

Shooting raw is also good idea. If you shoot raw, you can clean up the image later in Lightroom, Photoshop, RawTherapee, Faststone or some other photo software (the last two are free). you can adjust brightness, contrast, noise reduction..

If you are wondering how the pros do it, just look at official boxing photos and figure out what lens they used, how they took the photo.

[panonski]

Light must have sucked... I think you did ok all the factors considered ;-)
In the three examples you posted focus was ok, and there was no motion blur.
ISO was the greatest detail-robbing factor, and the slight under-exposure prevents the pics from "popping".
If you trust the lens, next time go for at least f/6.7, and make sure you shoot RAW.
my 2c.


Dunno... they work for me.

I tried to shoot to RAW also, but in the end I was just go with highest quality possible JPEGs, because I was shoot mostly in burst mode,and having pretty small and slow SD card

In card 2 slot was another and faster one, but I started with this one

[ohaya]

I think that sometimes, some blur is ok in action photos, so you maybe you could've lowered shutter to something less than 1/500 and gotten better light?

EDIT: I also tried messing with the lighting in Faststone and you can get it better using that.

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Last edited by ohaya; 04-23-2017 at 04:40 AM.

[Larrymc]

You can recover a bit of the photo by merely adjusting the exposure level just a bit and possibly a bit of noise reduction. I did just that and the first shot looks much better. You never mentioned the focal length you had your zoom set at. You may have had room enough to go to f5.6 for more light and still keep everything in good relative focus. All in all not bad shots under the circumstances.

[conniption]

Yes, open the lens up, shoot RAW and get close for boxing. Faces contorted from a hit, etc. Sounds unprofessional but "spray and prey" is required.
Also, embrace the blur! Interesting things will happen! 1/80 second? Maybe a little faster for boxing. An example shot at 1/30 sec., and an extreme example at 1/4 sec. shot with a Tak 135 f2.5.
Lots of shots. Nice work under difficult light though.

[Kerrowdown]

opinions on technique

I would say technique is OK just a few quick tweaks in PP can make a difference.

In each case... an increase to the exposure of about +1.95 stops, boost blacks, whites, shadows a bit and level up the rings horizontally, would be where I'd start from, then a bit of sharpening and noise reduction.

[mikesbike]

Your photos are simply under-exposed. Just open up shadows in photoshop, due to the downward lighting, or do so in another editing device, and also increase overall exposure slightly as well, and they should look fine. It does not matter if they are JPEG. I shoot fast action adult-club roller hockey and use JPEGs, which turn out fine. I am not trying for the most in delicacy of exposure refinement, and not likely to blow out highlights for this subject matter. JPEGs will also write faster and have smaller file sizes. You are right to use manual mode. The back lighting from ceiling lights will fool the camera's meter. I usually take spot meter readings off of mid-tone areas which are under the same lights as the subjects ahead before the action begins to check my exposure, then go for a little more exposure, because the camera's LCD screen can be misleading. Use high ISO maybe 2500-3200. f/8 is not wide enough- check your spot metering and you will probably wind up with f/4 or even less. Since you are close and using more wide angle than telephoto, your depth of field should still be enough.

As to the nature of your photos, I am also boxing fan. Boxers in a clinch do not make an interesting photo. You want to capture the action. Especially when one fighter is winning and landing blows on his opponent. Use AF, maybe AF-C if doing a lot of burst shots, to keep focus adjusted as the action requires. You will need a high enough shutter speed to freeze action when a punch lands. I would say at least 1/250-1/500 sec. maybe even higher. It takes a good eye and a quick finger to get good action shots, so practice will make you better. When you improve, you will need less burst shooting. I also shoot HS and college wrestling. At the end of the fight, be sure to get a shot of the winner's hand being raised.

[Larrymc]

Here are two of you boxing photos after a bit of editing. I didn't raise the exposure as much as Kerrdown did, I only went up 1.4ev Whites aren't quite white but nothing is blown out) and did a bit of slider work on the lights, shadows, black point and white point. I added a bit of sharpening as well as noise reduction with a lower ISO the noise would be somewhat less. I'm not sure what focal length you were using (it looked to be approx. 20-30mm and at that F/L at say a distance of around 3-6 meters you could have opened up the aperture to f5.6 and had an acceptable DOF of from 1.63m to 19.1m for a total DOF of 17.5m.

[ccc_]

post processing in the manner mentioned above yielded useable images

noise reduction often softens your shot a bit

if I have a shot that gets worse by reducing noise I often try converting it to black and white
the noise becomes grain (which seems to be expected) and the monochromatic image often has more drama

[wildman]

opinions on technique

My immediate reaction is to hell with technique - this is about what you feel not what you see...

[panonski]

Hi all,

Thank you for your compliments, and suggestions !

First of all, I tried to research high ISO capabilities of my K-3 , and found out this facts.

Try to not use L mode for ISO over 1600. Switch to M*** at 3200 , or 1600 depending on how picky you are

M*** mode is enough for me, and you will get less noise. ( depends on camera - I just decide 1600 is top limit for me - so on 3200 I change L*** file size, to M*** )
Never underexposed ( not matter on what ISO )
- of course, try to not get into that field by just bump ISO, try to fast appertures, and lower speed shutter, to usable one.
--
This means - if you use 3200, and you're still little underexposed, later in LR. or else, you'll must increase exposure to get things right.
But in this case you will get , picture with more visible noise, almost like you use 6400 .

So it's better to use higher ISO, and get things right. In this case 6400, is more friendly then 3200 or 1600, because you can raise shutter speed for capture movements.
Blury and noisy is always worst, then just noisy .

If you shoot dark stage, people, singers,etc... the best advice is to shoot almost overexpose ( when highlights are turning into white ) ...
In that scenario, you will get proper exposure in shadows, and almost non visible noise in almost overexposed areas... This technique is waaay batter then underexposed.

--- Shooting in RAW- Well, I dislike shooting in RAW, but if necessary I can do that too... / here on boxers I shoot RAW in 15 photos, results are not much better /

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Also I tried to save my images in different JPEG files ( S, M, L ) to find out is compressing algorithm do the better job, and save in final JPEG better pixels instead of false color ones, because in M, and S files, it can reuse all sensor information, to do that...
I find out, this is very good technique also...

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hIGH ISO in darker condition VS high ISO in light

I'm sure, more experienced users, know the difference in visible noise, when you shoot for example ISO 6400 in some darker room and using same ISO 6400 for some sport action like tennis or car races in daylight ... It's obvious, when you have plenty of light, high iso camera capabilities are significantly raised .

And if you know that, you will decide, will you, or will you not try to lower your highest JPEG size, ( because this technique is a little suspicious - you must convince yourself by trying )

If I have a plenty of light, and I want to bump my ISO, because I want less shallower depth of field, and more speed for shutter, I will just go to 3200. or even 6400 - to get things right, and photos in bright, will have a very little noise, because sensor had much light to decide which colors are right,
which it can't in darker conditions. When is dark, it's dark, no matter how you bump your ISO, or put the camera on tripod, and shoot for 5 sec, at iso 100, sensor would not read colors.

Light conditions are very different for your decision for your highest usable ISO.
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So, my final conclusion is to use smaller file size- when I'm on limits with light - always try to bump exposure almost over limit with ALL ( appertures, ISO, and shutter speed )
( but not over the limit! ) and this way you will get better results...
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Reducing noise from RAW, after and turn it into original maximum (L***) file size is not so superb option, over just saving JPEG - if you miss to technique this details ,

remember, you will always get much more noise in shadows... and RAW will not help you much on that... because sensor can not read colors from dark so good.
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Also, shake reduction OFF, Noise reduction OFF... every time you can.

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Also, in output mode, when you shoot M***. or L*** try to lower your sharpness... Adding sharpening, you know that, for sure already, is adding noise also. So avoid to increase sharpnnes , or even lower it a little. Saturation and Contrast also must not be raised. Try to do that in post proccess.
If you have very sharp lens, you will not notice so much less sharpness, and contrast, but you will get less noise.

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I'm planning to do some more sports images in darker conditions, to see my results again. I'm sure positive it would be much more clear then this one.

Cheers !