Gethin Hill .net - Random Ramblings

Last Friday night, the 17th of July was the annual Battle City break battles, held in Brisvegas. The talent on display from the b-boy’s and b-girl’s was out of this world. My mind was blown..
It was a fantastic night of crazy dance moves, in ya face attitudes, and a lot of fun!! These guys and girls are amazing athletes.

I took this display of awesome moves as an opportunity to attempt some low light action photography and see if i could capture any of the impressive dance moves. Unfortunately, my current equipment struggles under these difficult conditions, but i did what i could, eventually needing to work my way through to the front to get some decent shots.

Before next years Battle City, i’ll definately be purchasing a better lens for these types of conditions.. most likely the Canon 50mm f1.8 mkII which is one of the cheaper priced Canon lenses available.
Tip: The key to photography in these kinds of conditions is being able to let as much ambient light into the lens quickly as possible so you can use a faster shutter speed to freeze the action. A couple of ways to do this is by using a low aperture, ie f1.8 or by raising the ISO, ie ISO 800 or so.)

I experimented with various setting until i found some that seemed to be working as well as my equipment allowed. I ended up with ISO 800, daylight white balance, and using shutter priority of about 1/50th of a second to allow me to hopefully freeze the action and get a clear, relatively non-blurry shot while still letting in enough light to show up in these dark conditions. (more…)