So this is my first post around these parts, and I was hoping to get some feedback/tips from the pros here. I'm a photographer for my school's swim team, and below I've picked a few I think are my best swimming shots so far. Do any of you have some experience with shooting swimming? Also: Any tips on photos of diving?
EDIT: So, turns out that all of these photos are darker online than when I processed them in DxO. Huh.
Thanks!
I like the overall feels of the shots. If its possible, Id love to see a higher shutter speed. When I shoot swimming I always like to be above 1/2000th of a second. I know its hard with the indoor lighting, but if you could get it up to maybe 1/500th it would make a huge difference. My favorite shot is the one of the girl doing the butterfly stroke. What could make it even better, would be if you got centered in the lane and got closer to the ground. The low angle makes a huge difference. Heres one I took that uses all of the things I just told you
I do considerable sports photography for the local school district to include swimming. I have fought a four-year battle with poor lighting and as a result very high noise in my images thanks for the entry level cameras I was using. Just this fall I finally found a camera that is a beast in low light with very low noise for ISO. I previously would shoot at 6400 on my Nikon D7000 with a 2.8 lens with barely acceptable noise and was limited to a shutter speed of about 1/1200 sec, not nearly enough to freeze a swimmer's hands and arms in the freestyle for example. I took my new camera out the other night to a swim meet to play around with it, as I consider the school's pool hands down to be the most challenging environment. I shot at ISO 8 to 10,000 with shutter speeds of 1/1600 to 1/2000. This shot was at 1/2000. The best advice I have for folks is to know our camera's limitations and be "forward thinking" in your purchases. Had I done my due diligence, I could have avoided buying at least two camera bodies before landing on the D750, which has performance comparable to the D4s. By the way, if your camera body allows you to save user programmed settings on the command wheel, i.e. U1 and U2 on Nikon, I suggest an action setting (high ISO, wider aperture, fast shutter speed) and a quality setting for more stationary moments like when they're just standing around on the deck or standing in the water after a race (lower ISO, slightly smaller aperture if you want more depth of field, and a corresponding slower shutter speed).