Roller Derby Photography

Hi,

I have recently joined a roller derby team as a skater/official/marketing/photographer guy. Roller derby has its challenges in terms of the speed, constant motion, low and changing color light conditions. I have had my D5100 for a year or so and taken a lot of pictures but I am far from an expert and these conditions are certainly presenting a challenge for good crisp photos.

So anyone with any advice or experience with this type photography I am very ingested in your help.

Thank you!

one type catagory.... Fast Primes.... These will be needed for those exceptionally low light areas.
F2.8, F2, F1.8, F1.4, F1.2 the more light you are able to put onto the sensor.... the better.

yes Fast Primes. Nice Bass there.
Welcome to Nikonites.

Thanks for all the info. Appreciate it. I will post some of the shots I took on Tuesday night later this evening and see what you think. I think a lot of them are good but sometimes the camera doesn't pick the one focus point I am looking for it to concentrate on and picks another point. I have not done any research on if that is something I can adjust but it could be part of my problem.

rellison8 said:

Thanks for all the info. Appreciate it. I will post some of the shots I took on Tuesday night later this evening and see what you think. I think a lot of them are good but sometimes the camera doesn't pick the one focus point I am looking for it to concentrate on and picks another point. I have not done any research on if that is something I can adjust but it could be part of my problem.

Click to expand...

You want to set it to single point focus, then it'll always focus at the same spot. If your camera has a "sport" mode (which is likely does), that will at least get you in the ballpark (rink?) of what you want, and you can learn what it's doing and go to the more manual settings from there. The sport mode will set a fast shutter speed and single-point focus. (I'd explain how to do this, but I'm not familiar with your camera, so I can only give general guidance. Someone here will chime in, or the owner's manual will help now that you know what to look for.)

Or you could switch to "S" mode (shutter priority), and set a good fast shutter speed, try, say 1/250 or so to start, and set your ISO up higher to improve the sensor's sensitivity. Set the focus to single point (I recommend dead center because that's the easiest to aim at). Take a few pictures, then look and see if they're blurry/dark/etc. If they're blurry, decrease the shutter speed (1/400, 1/500, etc.) until they're sharp. If they're dark, increase the ISO. If they're sharp and dark, try a slower shutter speed and see if they're still sharp while getting lighter.

Other tips - you may be better off to zoom out if your lens' aperture opens wider, then crop the picture. But that also makes focusing that much harder - it's a smaller spot to hit. It's a trade off.

When reviewing your pictures, don't get into pixel peeping - any picture, when zoomed in far enough, is going to be fuzzy. You're looking for motion blur - streaks in one direction. (Or it could be blurry because you missed the focus, something I do all the time. But that's still different than blur due to motion.)

As was said, indoor, relatively dark, no flash, and fast-moving people is among the hardest thing to do for a camera, and it's where you'll start to notice the limitations of some cameras and lenses (our point-and-shoot model just doesn't handle this type of photography very well compared to the DSLR). I do ice hockey pictures frequently and have similar issues.

I inline speed skate and the rollergirls sometimes come to our practices to learn to be better skaters.

A few things to think about besides equipment, because your equipment is not what's going to get you the Awesome Shot...

1. Shooting in these conditions is not "difficult"; it's just different. Get over the idea there are hard shooting situations and easy shooting situations. That's all in your head.

2. Panning. Learn how to pan your shots but be prepared for a bit of a learning curve; good panning is not as easy as it looks. Done correctly, it will be an immense help in getting better shots.

3. Don't be afraid of a little motion blur from time to time. Sports photography doesn't *always* have to a be a super-crisp, freeze-the-action type of thing. The creative use of motion blur conveys a powerful dynamic, a sense of urgency and motion. Use it.

One of the benefits of both of these techniques is they *require* relatively slow-ish shutter speeds, something you'll be dealing with from the start I imagine. Sometimes you need to take what appears to be a disadvantage and make it your ally instead. This sounds like one of those times.

Something to get you thinking: The Art of Panning

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Great information there guys. Appreciate all the help and look forward to taking some more shots this weekend using all of your input. There are certainly some things I was doing wrong and the photos aren't half bad really. So I think I should be able to make them even better now.

Great info here! Thank you!

Having gone "around the world" in subject and style matters with my 5100, for something like this you want either a decent flash or a better low-light-capable body like 7100-600 to avoid iffy AF and next-to-nothing ISO capability.

Primes will limit your flexibility. I've done about a year with primes and honestly, a decent zoom + flash does wonders w/ sports. Even better though, is a body that can do above ISO640 without sharp loss of details.

@Fish - of course anything can be done with any means, but the amount of pain required to do so consistently is the difference.

It's not my "thing", but I have a couple of buddies who shoot for the local league. They get dressed up and into character for it.