This competition was taken place on 20 Apr ‘07 in sport stadium at Wuxi, JiangShu. The top players likes Guo JingJing, Li Ting and Wu MingXia were competing for the gold title. Only the best two divers will eventually be selected to represent China in 2008 Beijing Olympic in this category. Not to everyone surprise, they proceeded to win the Gold (Guo), Silver (Li) and Bronze (Wu) medal later. Chinese women’s diving team has dominated the world in Diving arena.
As this was my first time shooting diving sport, I’d no idea what to bring. Luckily I enjoy watching diving and have seen quite few competitions on TV, I figured out I need a fast telephoto lens (dim indoor stadium), a monopod (supporting heavy gears), plenty of memory cards and a grey card (white balance calibration). With this in mind, I brought my work horse Canon 1DMKII, 70-200 F2.8L IS, 1.4X TCII and monopod.
Turned out, I did not need the monopod as it restricted my panning movement. I got better result with hand holding my 3Kg setup. Perhaps Wimberley SideKick/tripod’s setup was better but space constraint disallowed that. Note that I was an amateur who bought ticket to see the show. Hence, I could only shoot from my seat.
And forget the extender. With 1.4X TC, I lost one stop of light. This simply not an option when high shutter speed (>1/800s) is required to freeze diver in mid air.
After some trial and error, I found out the best technique and camera settings that work for me were as follow. Before proceed, please be informed this is purely based on my limited experience. Hence, take it as a guide to start and see if it works for you.
Hand held works better than monopod for smoother panning.
Leave some space between the diver and edge of frame to prevent cutting off hands or legs when diver is in the air. Once up in the air, her motion is too fast for re-composition. So, zoom out a bit. Then do a little cropping later in computer.
Vertical mode works better than landscape mode because most of time the diver body is in vertical position (or near). Bring your battery grip!
Know the game. This simply gives you what to expect next and prepare for it so you do not miss an opportunity.
Be there early to find the best vintage point and for giving you more time for readiness.
I found out minimum shutter speed required to freeze diver in air is 1/800s (higher is better). Hence, I kept constant F2.8 and used ISO1250 to ensure shutter speed was above 1/800s, giving the less idea lighting in stadium.
Use highest frame rate your camera allows. For my 1DMKII, I set drive mode to “High” (8.5 FPS). This increases capture rate.
Under the less idea light, even my 1DMKII’s AF system slow down when drive mode is at “High”, AF at “Al Servo” and with continuous AF. I got a short pause in between shots. Even using only center AF sensor did not help. Therefore, I only activated AF before diver jumps. Most DSLRs allow user to separate AF and AE button. If your camera does not have this feature, switch to manual focus and perform pre-focus before each dive. As long as your shooting position is perpendicular to diving’s projectile, decent sharp focus can be archived.
Shoot more. Don’t stingy on memory card. They are cheap as compared to miss moment.
With above techniques, I got few complete diving sequences that I like. Besides, I actually deleted less than 10% out of 700 plus frames I took within those two hours. Those deleted photos were either out of focus or having diver hands/legs cut off. Of course the remaining would not make it to Sports Illustrated magazine, but I feel I’ve got the basic right (and much more to learn). And giving another opportunity to shoot similar event, I can do better.
Now, what was the regret? I think 10 FPS and low noise of Canon 1DMKIII coupled with 300 F2.8L IS will shine more in this arena. ;P
