Want to have a really hard photography challenge? Find a local fencing tournament and have a go, but expected to be challenged! Fencing is right up there as one of the most difficult of indoor sports to photograph, indoor mixed (and usually low) lighting, no flash allowed, white protective clothing, face masks, thin blades as a main focal point and a blur of movement . Trust me to start at the National Championships.
So to succeed we have to find the right mix of aperture, ISO, shutter speed to provide the right exposure and depth of field, white balance to get the whites, white and choosing the right focus options to ensure all that movement is absolutely sharp (unless you're going for the blurred look - my excuse anyway...).
You have to accept that there will be compromises, trying to get a really sharp image means reasonable high shutter speeds, over 1/500 should do,but in low light that might mean a wide open aperture, say f2.8 which means, in theory a small depth of field. Surprisingly the shoot in Sheffield with a similar aperture gave a bigger depth of field than expected so don't be too concerned if you have to do this. Ramping up the ISO (sensor sensitivity) will help get the right shutter speed, however noise (tiny hardly seen spots) becomes more obvious. Having said that the latest cameras are great at surpressing noise at high ISOs. My colleague was shooting with a Nikon D4 (top spec I know) but at 8000 ISO it was impossible to see any noise even when zoomed right in. You can choose to set a fixed ISO or let the camera take care of that in auto ISO mode,but beware the camera may decide to use a high noise setting. Then set the fastest frames per second rate that your camera allows.
Getting the whites white under mixed lighting can be an issue, but if you shoot in RAW (keeps all the data like a negative , unlike JEPGs which throw away a lot of the data) you can adjust the colour balance quite easily in post processing. Setting auto white balance works and I stay away from the other options at the capture stage.
Getting the focus right is of course a key part of getting the picture! Don't expect everyone to be sharp, you'll be disappointed if you do. Having the best lens you can afford will make all the difference to having really really sharp images, but setting up the auto focus is a key skill and understanding the different option is something all photographers, especially those capturing any type of action. There are plenty of on line videos available, so check out - continuous tracking, use of focal points and especially "back button" focusing. This last option is really a must for sports photographers as it allows you to switch between continuous and fix focus at the press of a button, neat.
So finally a question, when was the last time you looked in the menu on your camera? Time to check out all those really helpful functions you might not even know exist.
Oh yes, take plenty of memory cards, with fast write speeds preferable and at least two full batteries. You will be working your camera hard and your PC/Mac after, be prepared for a lot of deleting....but also some fantastic action to add to your portfolio.
It helps to have the right equipment of course, but it's surprising what you can achieve with the likes of an i-phone. So why not give it a try, just mind the flying blades and don't put the fencers off!
Don't forget to check out our images from the day on our events page.
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