[corsar-caribean]

All

I'm looking for some opinions and tips regarding photographing kendo. I tried doing some photography for our club at the Austin Taikai in 2004, but wasn't too happy with the outcome. I have a rather old Olympus C2500L DSLR, and I was using a tripod, but couldn't get rid of motion blur. Does anyone have any ideas regarding the appropriate shutter speed, especially for indoor lighting (the tournament was at their Rec Center, and I think it was an indoor basketball court).

And does anyone know how one might compensate for fluorescent lighting?

[cyslespitocop]

I know a lot of people just use a digital video camera and take still frames out of it to get images.

[videolkif]

Yes, that's possible, but that would be pretty low-res.

[topbonuscasino]

I have a rather old Olympus C2500L DSLR, and I was using a tripod, but couldn't get rid of motion blur. Does anyone have any ideas regarding the appropriate shutter speed, especially for indoor lighting (the tournament was at their Rec Center, and I think it was an indoor basketball court).

And does anyone know how one might compensate for fluorescent lighting?

Because the lighting for most kendo venues tends to be rather dim, you need a fast lens (relatively large maximum aperture) and fast film (high ASA/ISO), or in the case of digital cameras, a CCD with low noise.

Zoom lenses in general tend to be rather slow (max aperture between f/3.5 and f/5.6, depending on how much you're zoomed in), which is rarely adequate. Get yourself a nice fast prime lens (fixed focal length), with a max aperture of at least f/2.8 if not faster. I have a Nikon 80 mm f/1.8 which is good for this. Also, you generally need film at least 800 ISO or faster (or the equivalent digital setting).

Shutter speed is entirely an issue of what kind of pictures you're going for. A "kamae" shot can be very nice. And sometimes a little motion blur can add a sense of speed. But if you want to stop action dead in its tracks, you want to shoot at around 1/500 seconds. And because kendo is so explosive, it's very, very hard to press the shutter just at the right moment to capture the action. So if you're looking for action shots, you need some kind of motor drive, or in the case of digital cameras, a feature that will allow you to take a burst of multiple shots.

And forget the tripod. It's useless for shooting kendo. If you need a tripod to steady the shot, it means your shutter speed is probably too slow. General rule of thumb for hand-held shots -- never set the shutter speed slower than the inverse of the focal length. For example, if you're shooting with a 100 mm lens, you can safely shoot hand-held down to about 1/100 second (or on most cameras, 1/125 second). If you're shooting hand-held with a 300 mm lens, you should be shooting between 1/250 seconds to 1/500 seconds.

[amusaasyday]

All

I'm looking for some opinions and tips regarding photographing kendo. I tried doing some photography for our club at the Austin Taikai in 2004, but wasn't too happy with the outcome. I have a rather old Olympus C2500L DSLR, and I was using a tripod, but couldn't get rid of motion blur. Does anyone have any ideas regarding the appropriate shutter speed, especially for indoor lighting (the tournament was at their Rec Center, and I think it was an indoor basketball court).

And does anyone know how one might compensate for fluorescent lighting?

I use an Olympus E-300 DSLR myself and I'm a wannabe amateur photographer, so the following advice is bsed on my own limited experience:

A fast lens (max. aperture of f3.5 or bigger at full zoom) is recommended. For most of my shots, I use a 50-200mm lens, f2.8-f3.5 max. aperture. Depending on the light level and your tolerance for noise at the higher ISO settings of your camera, my shutter speed will range between 1/30 to 1/60. I may be able to push it to 1/80 or even 1/100 in rare cases. Try adjusting your ISO to 400. Depending on your camera, the pictures may come out a bit grainy. If your pictures still come out a bit dark, you can do some post-processing with Photoshop or some other software. I like using Picasa (download from Google) myself for simple post-processing.

Check out my Flickr site for some samples:

http://flickr.com/photos/ocbpictures...7594163255729/

There's EXIF data for each picture, so you'll be able to see what settings I used on my camera to take the shot.

I hope this helps and good shooting!

[irridgita]

I agree. fast lens, high iso and use aperture mode.
Since the lighting conditions won't vary a lot, take a good light reading off a grey card or use an external light meter as I do. Then fix your settings and shoot away. With all the black hakama and gi, the camera will have a tendency to overexpose and thus demanding even slower shutter speeds.

That's how you get shots like this and yes... also like this.

If your cam supports RAW shooting, you can also try to deliberately underexpose by say.. 1 stop and then correct in your RAW converter. And be shure to adjust the white balance.

[lymnCymment]

You got two things to deal with: Flourescent lighting, which often gives an orange tint to digital images and not enough of it (light that is).

The flourescent lighting can be dealt with by setting the white balance on your camera. If your camera doesn't support that, then you can do it as post process. Nikon's Capture editor offers several different ways of doing this and I'm sure Canon, Olympus etc got their own way of dealing with this.
Alternative, you can add a filter to your lens, either the A81 or A82, which will compensate for the orange tint, with minimal lightloss.
As for speed & light, if you have an analog camera, you need to use a higher ISO film and a faster lens.
I now use a Nikon 50mm F1.4, which enables me to shoot with an ISO of 200-400 and at least 1/60 sec exposure, which easily enables actions shots:
http://www.kigurai.com/Bowden2006/images/dsc_0077.jpg
http://www.kigurai.com/Bowden2006/images/dsc_0100.jpg

These are not post-processed.

[AdSuiteAdobe]

You'll prob find that even with a lens which shoots at f2.8 or wider, you still wont be able to achive a perfectly crisp image using 100-200 ISO.

As it's innapropriate to use flash, In my opinion you have two options -

1. Shoot at lower ISO and use the blur to your advantage, this can be quite suggestive and artistic

http://www.amgfisher.fotopic.net/p28042160.html
http://www.amgfisher.fotopic.net/p28042149.html

2. Shoot at higher ISO (800 - 3200) and go for the 'Grainy/Reportage' look, it works quite nicely too

http://www.amgfisher.fotopic.net/p28042177.html

Can't really see the grain coz of resoloution, and I dont have many examples as it not really my style


Personally, I tend to regularly shoot kendo at between 80 and 200mm and always at f2.8, i set the camera to about 320-400 ISO, and shoot at about 125/1 so as not to be too blurry but still suggest movement, as per -

http://www.amgfisher.fotopic.net/p28042164.html

as for white balance, it depends on exactly the type of lighting they're using in the dojo, but more often than not its usually some form of tungsten, if you can manually choose the colour temp. set it to about 3200K-3600K, if not try all the setting you have and see which looks best.

Best thing is, as you have a DSLR, just experiment, its not easy, but its just a matter of practise. Before long you'll be shooting the shots you love!

Hope this helps mate, and wasnt too full of jargon, i have a tendancy of doing that you see

Let us know how you get on

Andy

[HaremShaih]

You got two things to deal with: Flourescent lighting, which often gives an orange tint to digital images and not enough of it (light that is).

Slight correction. Flourescent lighting is green, tungsten is orange. Another problem if you're shooting in flurescent is that it isn't even a steady color, so if color is critical you have to shoot down at 1/60th to capture a full cycle of the lights. And that isn't good at all for stoping action.


Side note: When do you realize how little you really know about kendo? It's when every time you arrive at practice your hachidan hanshi sensei is practicing suriashi on his own.

[Angelinaaiiiiiiiii]

Thanks everyone. It would be awesome to see more examples of photographs taken by people who do kendo, because they'd know what to look for.

My Olympus does have a setting to correct white balance. I suppose it's fairly standard - you point it to a white sheet of paper in the ambient lighting to set the white balance. Perhaps I didn't do it correctly, because a few photographs were burnt (for want of a better word). I wish I could post examples, but it's going to take some time to hunt them out. I think tungsten lighting appears more pleasant.

Andy, is the use of a flash really frowned upon? I don't really know; it's never really occurred to me. Anyway, I assume a flash would be useless unless one is standing pretty near to the action?

[66paptroump]

Check out my Flickr site for some samples:

http://flickr.com/photos/ocbpictures...7594163255729/

There's EXIF data for each picture, so you'll be able to see what settings I used on my camera to take the shot.

I hope this helps and good shooting!

Nice, thanks!

What distance would you say you were at, mostly?

[Binuilienzync]

Andy, is the use of a flash really frowned upon? I don't really know; it's never really occurred to me. Anyway, I assume a flash would be useless unless one is standing pretty near to the action?

Flash is definitely a big no no during shiai. Besides, flash shots rarely look nice anyway, unless your bouncing off the ceiling. But then you also have to worry about the color of the ceiling to make sure it's nice and neutral, so that it doesn't give some weird tint to the lighting. Assuming the ceiling is low enough to being with.

[JonDopl]

Have any of you experimented with black-and-white photography in kendo? Any opinions on whether it is necessarily better? (Of course, according to your own definitions).

[rockboyzaza]

Nice, thanks!

What distance would you say you were at, mostly?

It depends...I was using my 50-200mm zoom lens most of the time, so I could be anywhere from a few feet from the action to clear across the gym on a few shots.

[russianstallian]

Sure you can use flash, but it's very likely to be useless because you're to far away from your subject (Although this might be different for Kendo. In iai you're easiliy within reach of a flashing sword, no matter where you stand). At high iso you might be ok though. check the guide number.

Oh yeah... one more thing.. Kendoka have feet don't they?

[maclaudser]

Sure you can use flash, but it's very likely to be useless because you're to far away from your subject

Sure you can use flash from a technical standpoint. But during shiai, judges will tell you to stop it. It distracts the competitors.

[antipenq]

er... yes... that too of course. If you're on the reveiving end, it is very annoying....

[bestformaldress23]

Yeh Shinpan, don't like you using flash.

Its a shame really, 'cause its really the only was you'll get crisp images, without the grain/noise.

At the last WKC the Pro photographers that were there kept getting warnings for using flash, but it didn't seem to stop them.Thats how they get all those shots you sometimes see in kendo nippon/jidai and advertising and stuff like that.

If you are just shooting a kendo practise, then using flash shouldn't be a problem. As for distance it depends on what flash you are using, but you'd be surprised how far it will travel.

[Lipitorseffec]

All

I'm looking for some opinions and tips regarding photographing kendo. I tried doing some photography for our club at the Austin Taikai in 2004, but wasn't too happy with the outcome. I have a rather old Olympus C2500L DSLR, and I was using a tripod, but couldn't get rid of motion blur. Does anyone have any ideas regarding the appropriate shutter speed, especially for indoor lighting (the tournament was at their Rec Center, and I think it was an indoor basketball court).

And does anyone know how one might compensate for fluorescent lighting?

I usually ask people to slow down so the pictures don't turn out blurry.

[offinoNem]

I usually ask people to slow down so the pictures don't turn out blurry.

Might as well ask them to pose in your backyard and pass it off as a tournament