> I like taking pictures at skating shows, but have not
> been overly successful...I need help to figure out what
> is the best film, settings and lenses for low light situations (without a
> flash), that will catch and stop movement clearly. My 75-300 lens doesn't
> seem to focus fast enough to catch movement...what lens would be better
> suited for my figure skating photography???
If the arena lighting is sufficiently bright, a 300/4 should do the trick. With
TV-quality lighting in an ice arena, you should be able to get 1/500 sec. @ f/4
with ISO 800 film (I recommend Fuji NHG II). I have found the best way to meter
is to take an incident-meter reading from ice-side using a hand-held meter, and
then set your camera manually (in a pinch you can meter a gray card placed in
the light that's shining on the ice, using your in-camera meter). Assuming that
the lighting in the arena will not change during the event, there's nothing to
be gained from autoexposure as long as you take an accurate reading before you
start. However, if the ice show will involve a lot of fancy light effects, you
may need to use autoexposure, in which case you'll probably want to use a
spot-meter function if your camera has it, or at least dial in one stop of
additional exposure to compensate for the high reflectivity of the white-painted
ice. If the lighting is less satisfactory (a common situation, unfortunately)
you may need to go to 1/250 sec.and/or push the NHG to 1600--while in theory a
one-stop underexposure may fall within the useable range of the film, in
practice color negative film responds poorly to underexposure and you are likely
to get better results by pushing one stop.
As for focusing, both manual and auto focusing require some practice before you
can expect consistent results. For AF, I would suggest selecting a single
focusing point, which should increase the AF speed. If you can get close enough
to the ice (like in the penalty box), you can shoot vertically, selecting the
top-most focusing point, which should keep your focus on the head/eyes while
(with luck) not chopping off the skater's feet in full-length shots. Keep in
mind that the best sports photos don't necessarily include the athlete's entire
body (so it is unlikely that 300 mm would prove too long). Regardless, a
monopod, tripod collar, and vertical grip are all quite helpful. Finally, if
your ice shows are infrequent events, you might consider renting a 300/2.8L.
Finally, depending on how well the manual focus works on the lens you are using,
you might try manually focusing while tracking your subject--it isn't always
necessary to prefocus on a particular spot. In any case, be prepared to shoot a
lot of frames in order to get just a few good shots.
fcc
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