Earlier this week, I rented a lens from Pro Photo here in town. I did it almost on a whim. Elise and Nolan started their summer gymnastics this past Tuesday, and for Elise's class, parents are only allowed inside the gym to watch the first and last classes (otherwise you can watch through a viewing window). It occurred to me that for their last class, I would have a new baby, and not be able to take pictures too easily. So I decided this one-time opportunity to take pictures of the summer gymnastics class had to be properly respected, by renting a good lens.
By "good lens," I mean one that has a longer focal length (since I can't get too close to the action) as well as a big aperture (since I can't use a flash and the indoor gym has some really dim areas). Here is my path to the lens I ended up with.
July 2010 -- Elise takes the parent-involved gym class. I use my absolutely brand spankin' new DSLR camera with an 18mm-200mm zoom. I am able to move around easily (since it's a parent class -- Jay being the parent involved) and get good angles. The pics are, however, mediocre, especially relative to what I hoped for. I shot in Auto mode with no flash. My ISOs were way too high, resulting in grainy pics. My shutter speeds were too slow, resulting in blurry, grainy pics:
 |
| 28mm focal length, 1600 ISO, 1/60s, f/4.0 |
August 2010 -- for Elise's last gym class, with a little of "what not to do" under my belt, I rented a different lens - a 50mm prime lens (prime means a fixed length, as opposed to a zoom lens). Retail cost of lens about $500 (rental about $20). I shot in "P"rofessional mode, which gives you some (not a lot) more control over automatic. The result was much better:
 |
| 50mm fixed focal length, ISO 400, 1/125s, f/1.8 |
June 2011 - I realized that this would be my best photo oppty for gym class this summer, so I rented a super duper lens. The hard part with the 50mm lens was that I couldn't get good shots at the middle or back of the gym -- it was just too far away. So, this time I tried an 85mm. It was almost too close. Overall I'm
much happier with the 85mm (retail cost $1700, rental cost $25) over the 50mm in this gym. The problem this go round, however, is that I, for whatever reason, chose to use lower shutter speeds than I needed. Well, I didn't choose them, but I *thought* I set my camera to the following: f/2.0, MIN shutter speed 1/250s, MAX iso 400, shooting overall in "A"perture mode. This means that the camera would use an f/2.0 aperture, and select the best shutter speed and iso within the range I set, given the light.
I thought that if the light was too dim within my constraints, that the camera would bump the ISO first, then muck with the shutter speed second. I was wrong. The camera chose to drop the shutter speed first. Boo on me. A tough lesson learned (and further reinforcement that I really need to shoot in Manual in scenarios like this).
For the record, one of the reasons I don't shoot in manual is because the LCD on the back of my camera is pretty limited. I simply can't see the difference between a sharply focused vs blurry picture, when viewed on my camera LCD. So, if I shoot in manual, I feel like I don't have enough information to really view the resulting photo and then tweak my settings. It just looks good on my camera -- then I get home and download it and see the blurry pics and realize I needed to adjust my shutter.
The other reason I avoid manual is because in a setting like this gym, with very different light in different areas, it's just a lot of work to change all these settings on the fly, in between shots.
Anyway, the end result is that while the pictures are not grainy, they are indeed blurry. Some of them came out all right, though.
 |
85mm fixed focal length, iso 400, f/2.5, 1/125s.
|
It is hard to tell from the single pictures I posted here, but looking over the set of the 50mm photos vs the set of the 85mm photos, it is EXCEEDINGLY clear to me that the 85mm is just a vastly superior lens for this setting. I LOVED using this lens. I wish I had more time to use it so that I could have experimented more with other scenarios, and had more practice in the gym setting. I felt like getting a truly "great shot" was actually within my grasp.
In a subsequent email stream, Christie mentioned that she'd heard the 85mm was also just a great portrait lens. So of course, I figured a small session of candid portraits was in order. God I love this lens! The background blur (bokeh) is gorgeous. My kids were just riding bikes and/or walking, and I played with both "S"hutter and "A"perture modes for about 10-15 minutes while dinner was cooking. The only complaint I have is that with the 85mm length, man those little kids pop in and out of frame so very very fast. One small step to the side and poof, you've lost your entire subject. Using the 85mm lens, you really have to be on the ball to predict their direction of movement and you have to fire your trigger QUICKLY when they get in frame. This is another vote for Manual -- because the camera is calculating less (ie none), the trigger responds just a hair faster. It was, however, actually noticeable to me using this lens.
I thought it was interesting how much the nature of the bokeh changes, depending on how close my subject was.
 |
| iso 200, f/3.5, 1/160s |
 |
iso 200, f/2.0, 1/800s
I am posting this one because it is so interesting to me that although the three people are at a considerable length from my camera, the depth of field is so narrow for f/2.0. Nolan and Jay are mostly in focus. Elise is entirely blurry. |
 |
| iso 200, f/2.0, 1/400s |
 |
iso 200, f/2.0, 1/320s
The far side of Elise's face and some hair is in focus, most everything else is not.
check out that bokeh!
I kinda love this picture, though it's far from frame-able. |
 |
iso 400, f/2.0, 1/250s
My pics of Elise turned out better than Nolan in this session but I had to throw one of him in.
This picture should be crisper -- he wasn't moving that fast. I think the slight blur is due to my unsteady hand -- the 1/250s shutter should have been sufficient.
I love that the hair at the back is blurry -- especially since his hair is a mess right now. :)
I wish it was easier to capture the magic and light of brown eyes. |
