On Sun, 14 Jan 2001, Jason Lay wrote:
> I own a Cannon EOS Elan II...I really enjoy taking pictures. I also have
> the Cannon 28-80mm and 75-300mm lenses. 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??? What setting should I use on
> the camera??? Any advice or books you could recommend would be greatly
> appreciated... Thank you for your help
To catch and stop movement without flash... you need fast film. I don't
know how fast, that'll depend on your situation (the lighting at the rink
and so on.) So experiment. If last time, you wasn't able to do it, use a
faster film next time. 800 should not be too bad yet. Try at least that.
About the setting in the camera... just use P as that will generally give
you the largest aperture and therefore the fastest speed. Of course, if
you have very fast film, the P might start to use smaller apertures, then
switch to Av, and set the largest aperture (the camera will again use the
fastest speed). And set the focusing to AI Servo! And try using only the
middle focusing point. It's a cross sensor (i.e. more sensitive than the
two other sensors), and as it doesn't have to calculate the other points,
the focusing will be a bit faster. Just preselect it, don't use ECF here.
About the lens... sure the pro lenses are much faster focusing. But then
again, it depends on your situation. I've shot quite a bit with the 75-300
USM IS lens. Yes, it's much slower then 70-200 2.8 for instance, but still
it was fast enough for motorsports. In that situation, I was of course
shooting quite faraway from the cars and thus the motion needed for
focusing was not as demanding as when shooting close to the cars from the
track side. But in your case, it just might be that there is not enough
light for it to function at it's best. Then the only answers are better
camera and lens. Pre-focusing on a spot and then waiting for the skater to
skate there... depending on the spot, it might never happen. I would
personally not try that.
I'm not sure if this is helping much, but all I want to say is that you
don't necessarily need the pro lenses to get the photos. Keep on trying.
Try to learn what are the hard focusing situations for the camera, and try
to avoid them. And shoot more the easier situations. For instance it might
be able to focus to a skater moving sideways quite easily (you need to
practice panning here, btw), but if they are coming right at to the
camera, it might have harder time to keep it in focus. Start focusing a
bit earlier than you take the photo. This makes it easier for the camera
to lock-on to the subject.
Best regards,
Hugo.
************************************************************
** Hugo Gävert **
** [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.hut.fi/~hugo **
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