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Digital camera indoor shots

 Poster: A snowHead
Poster: A snowHead
Hi all,

Can anyone give any suggestions for settings for a DSLR camera to be used inside on artificial snow (Snozone Castleford). Usually if I want some footage I have a GoPro attached to me whilst skiing but this time Im going as a spectator for a boarding event.

Usually inside I just crank up the ISO settings but not certain about the effects the snow will have on the sensor.

Thanks

Shakey
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 Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
depends on your camera really - some perform much better at high ISOs than others. also depends on what you are trying to achieve with your photos - freeze the action or give an impression of movement?
suspect you need to take care on the white balance settings under the artificial lights
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 Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Never tried taking pics on indoor snow, but at a guess you'd need to overexpose by a stop or so to avoid getting the grey look caused by the camera's metering. Take a few shots before the event starts and see what overexposure amount gives the best results?
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 You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
as already mentioned.

white balance will probably need to be set to artifical light and push the exposure compensation probably by a stop to a stop and a half (indoor snow is not as bright as outdoors). ISO will need to be pushed up to cope with lower light levels. Set to shutter priority to get the desired effect (motion blur or freeze frame), also as you are likely to be shooting a moving subject AI servo (continuous focus tracking or whatever it is called on your particular camera). What you probably want is a fast enough shutter speed to stop the skiers motion but to blur the movement of any snow thrown up). Kind of like this one, though this is taken on a real slope... http://www.andystarkey.co.uk/rt1s0535_std.jpg
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 Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
I've never been especially happy with the photos I've taken indoors, especially when you can't help but compare then to your outdoor skiing shots which can often be vibrant. I'm still playing around with settings but so far the ones which seem to work best for me are ISO at 3200, over-expose by 2/3 of a stop and nothing slower than 1/200th of a second. Noise from the high ISO is just about tolerable, but any lower an ISO rating and the shutter speed drops enough for motion blur to become an issue.

At the relatively low light levels indoors my camera (Canon 550D) focuses quite slowly, so I've had the best result by pre-focusing on a fixed point (a gate or a jump).
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 You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
What kind of event is this, racing or slopestyle? How close can you get? To do this well you will need radio triggered remote flashes like sports photographers but I will assume you can't use these.

1. Take custom white balance off the snow and if your camera is fast enough shoot raw

2. Spot meter on the brightest part that will be in any of your frames (probably a bit of snow) and overexpose by around 1.7 stops (varies depending on camera). Lock these settings down in manual otherwise any dark backgrounds anything will throw off the meter and be a pain in post production. You do NOT want to underexpose at high ISO or the noise will get bad quickly if you try and push the exposure it in post. Keep your LCD set to blink for blown highlights and check it occasionally. For aperture I'd go for f/4 to have some margin for focus error (you may be limited by your lens anyway)

3. Find the slowest shutter speed you can use to freeze the motion (if that is what you want to do). I'd start at 1/400 and work up checking the lcd zoomed to 100%

4. To reliably focus track moving boarder in low light and nail focus at wider apertures you need a high end camera and a fast focusing lens (Nikon D700/D3 or Canon 1D series with 70-200 2.8 ) and even then it is not always appropriate. I would manually focus and set your camera to continuous high speed shooting and blast away.

5. When you are done you will have a LOT of files. Sports and wedding photogs use photo mechanic or it's free alternative faststone image viewer to quickly go through the files. These programs render very fast and can zoom in at 100% with a mouse click and using the rating system you can very quickly cull thousands of files without losing your mind.

Sadly situations like this are when you find out why pros spend thousands on gear.

Disclosure: I'm not a sports photog, I'm a wedding photographer


Last edited by You'll need to Register first of course. on Thu 6-10-11 19:39; edited 1 time in total
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 Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...
narc wrote:

5. When you are done you will have a LOT of files. Sports and wedding photogs use photo mechanic or it's free alternative faststone image view to quickly go through the files. These programs render very fast and can zoom in at 100% with a mouse clock and using eth rating system you can very quickly cull thousands of files without losing your mind.


Excellent tip, thanks!
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 After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
After all it is free Go on u know u want to!
Quote:

Sadly situations like this are when you find out why pros spend thousands on gear.


so very true..........
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 You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
Excellent tips, narc.
Quote:

4. To reliably focus track moving boarder in low light and nail focus at wider apertures you need a high end camera and a fast focusing lens (Nikon D700/D3 or Canon 1Ds series with 70-200 2.8 ) and even then it is not always appropriate. I would manually focus and set your camera to continuous high speed shooting and blast away.

That's what I found to work when using consumer grade gear (i.e. lens not fast enough to focus at low light).

Old fashioned trick: pre-focus on a spot and blast away hoping the riders comes into the frame! Wink Works surprisingly well especially if you're shooting boarders pulling tricks on a jump since you know where they'll be.
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 Ski the Net with snowHeads
Ski the Net with snowHeads
^^^ some DSLRs have a function called "catch in focus" where the shutter will automatically fire when an object comes into focus
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 snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
Are you shooting stills or video?

I do plenty of video work with a dedicated HD video camera both indoors and out and it works well enough. e.g.

http://youtube.com/v/fzuMQrsAU_I

My DSLR also does HD video, but I find the video from that is not as good as from a camcorder.
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 And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
've never been especially happy with the photos I've taken indoors, especially when you can't help but compare then to your outdoor skiing shots which can often be vibrant. I'm still playing around with settings but so far the ones which seem to work best for me are ISO at 3200, over-expose by 2/3 of a stop and nothing slower than 1/200th of a second. Noise from the high ISO is just about tolerable, but any lower an ISO rating and the shutter speed drops enough for motion blur to become an issue.


led retrofit
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 So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
So if you're just off somewhere snowy come back and post a snow report of your own and we'll all love you very much
Its going to be stills on a DSLR, got 2 batteries charged & 4 memory cards so will be shooting off many in hope to get a couple of decent pics.

Off work all day tomorrow so will be looking at the settings before I set off.

I am suprised we dont have more pics on this forum (or is it just because of the time of year means not many being shot?).

I suppose most of us would prefer to be skiing / boarding than being filmed.
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 You know it makes sense.
You know it makes sense.
abc wrote:
Excellent tips, narc.
Quote:

4. To reliably focus track moving boarder in low light and nail focus at wider apertures you need a high end camera and a fast focusing lens (Nikon D700/D3 or Canon 1Ds series with 70-200 2.8 ) and even then it is not always appropriate. I would manually focus and set your camera to continuous high speed shooting and blast away.

That's what I found to work when using consumer grade gear (i.e. lens not fast enough to focus at low light).

Old fashioned trick: pre-focus on a spot and blast away hoping the riders comes into the frame! Wink Works surprisingly well especially if you're shooting boarders pulling tricks on a jump since you know where they'll be.


Doh, what you described was what I meant - you wrote it much better that I did!
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 Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
shakeywith, with good technique you don't need all the really fancy stuff on high-end DSLRs but should be using a good quality fast lens, f/1.4 or f/1.8 (I wouldn't go slower than f/2.8). If you don't own such lenses, you can rent them for the day. Calumet Photographic have a good range of rental gear for pro photographers.
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