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2

I'm to take pictures at a boxing match, probably under low lights conditions.

My plan is to set the camera on a fixed shutter speed, and the let the camera automatically set aperture and ISO. But how slow can I safely take the pictures. I hope I can bring my tripod, so it's not as much a question of camera shake, more a question of catching the action.

My equipment is a canon EOS 500D and a Canon 24-105mm f/4L IS USM lens.

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See also photo.stackexchange.com/questions/6151/…, a more general "what speed to stop motion" question. – mattdm Apr 1 '11 at 15:36
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I would change your tactic regarding shutter speed and aperture. You want your shutter to be selectable, as that changes how you capture the action. You want your aperture to be as wide as possible, to get as much light as you can. I would let your ISO vary automatically, to ensure you get a useful exposure for the shutter you set. To do this, you would need to set ISO to "Auto" and use the M (manual) camera mode to set your aperture wide, and choose your shutter speed. – jrista♦ Apr 1 '11 at 17:42
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@jrista - The problem with my (cheap) camera is that setting it to M and ISO to auto actually fixes the ISO to 400. But setting shutter priority mode will have the desired effect (wide open aperture, and automatically adjusted ISO) – Pete Apr 1 '11 at 21:30
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Most cameras work that way. Auto ISO is usually disabled and replaced by a fixed value when in M mode. This makes manually controlling exposure more predictable and consistent when using Bulb mode. Some more expensive cameras do not even have an Auto ISO option in ANY mode. On high-end Pentax DSLRs, there is a TAv mode which is essentially Manual with forced Auto ISO. – Itai Apr 2 '11 at 3:49
Hi ive shot a few boxing matches just a quick tip if say youre shooting your friend in the ring put most of your efforts on the other guy or youll do what i did and get most shots of your friend getting a beatings.....which certainly cheesed off MY fighter. I was shooting!!! – sally Dec 12 '12 at 22:14

3 Answers

up vote 23 down vote accepted

Any speed will give you something. It will render the photo differently.

So, the question should not be how slow can I take the photo? but how slow do I want to take the photo?

Some ideas:

  • If you want to freeze the sweat flying off the boxer's face when he takes a hit, I suggest 1/2000s or faster.
  • If you want to freeze the boxer's body and leave the hands blurry (to convey the action), then try around 1/500s.
  • If you go slower then 1/250 you will probably blur the entire boxer, at least by a bit.
  • You should be able to go down to 1/focal-length (or 2 stops lower with stabilization) to get convey the action while keeping the ring and background sharp.

You'll have to try a lot but you are right about using Shutter-speed priority. You may want to fix the ISO and let camera play the aperture if you do not want all your shots to be at F/4, since most cameras prefer opening the lens than raising the ISO when light is low.

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Excellent answer! – mattdm Apr 1 '11 at 16:33
Awesome answer, thanks – Pete Apr 1 '11 at 21:23
Short addition: 1/focal-length is valid for full frame cameras, so for APS-C it is 1.6/focal-length... – eWolf Apr 2 '11 at 5:41
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@eWolf - It's a rule-of-thumb and very approximate, it highly depends on the individual and resolution, so people just quote it as 1/F-L regardless of sensor-size. If you really want to adjust it, you actually have it backwards (Canon APS-C = 1/(1.6*F-L) and everyone else APS-C = 1/(1.5*F-L)). – Itai Apr 2 '11 at 14:13
up vote 3 down vote

I recommend leaving your tripod at home. I can take pictures at 1/60 or 1/100 without noticeable camera shake. If you're taking pictures faster than that anyway, it would just slow you down.

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Advice to leave tripod at home is good. Shutter speed numbers depend on way too many factors to make this a good answer. – mattdm Apr 5 '11 at 19:50
Hi Tim, and welcome to Photo-SE. I would like to encourage you to provide some more details in your answer. I think the recommendation to leave the tripod at home is good advice, but could you clarify the bit about shutter speed more? I think the minimal shutter speed necessary to avoid camera shake is dependent on the lens. If you could provide more information about the lenses you use to achieve those shutter speeds, that would be useful to readers. – jrista♦ Apr 7 '11 at 4:18
— sorry, I didn't mean to come across as rude there. Welcome to the site, and yeah, as @jrista says, more detail would be helpful, particularly on your technique for taking shake-free pictures at those speeds. – mattdm Apr 7 '11 at 11:53
up vote 1 down vote

The more skilled you become at shooting action shots, the more you learn to use slow shutter-speeds and use the subjects' motion to highlight the important activity and give the image impact. At a slow shutter-speed, you should, with practice, be able to completely blur the boxers' arms, legs, boxing-ring, and audience, but capture that moment when glove makes contact, making it the most sharp and abrupt part of the image. In this case, pun intended, a real moment of impact. Using the motion blur to frame and focus the most important part of the image, leading the viewer's eye there. Not unlike the same way that shallow DOF is used to isolate a part of the subject from foreground and background, but in this case it is accomplished with motion-blur.

This takes practice with both knowing how to quickly pan and follow a subject as well as knowing your subject to know how it will move, and the limits of how each movement might stop abruptly or halt motion during a sudden change of direction. Examples: snapping off a shot at the peak of a jump, or when a football player makes a 180-degree turn on the field, when a baseball hits the bat. (These skills are also invaluable in wildlife and birding photography, but then you must also know animal behavior as well as you might know human behavior.)

Too often people assume they need the highest shutter-speeds for action photography, when actually some of the best shots ever taken of these kinds of subjects were with slow shutter-speeds and low ISOs.

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The negative part about "they" at the end of this post doesn't seem very constructive. – mattdm Apr 5 '11 at 19:52

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