This past weekend I got to cover the Element Skate Contest down at Chula Vista Skatepark. It was my first taste of shooting skateboarding in a contest enviroment and I learned a lot of valuable lessons. The camera performed flawlessly and I was able to take over 600 pictures total. The biggest lessons I learned were as follows:
- I need a faster lens. I had the camera set to shutter priority to eliminate any motion blur. Most of the day I was shooting with my 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens and occasionally with my 70-300mm f/4-5.6. It was a little overcast and some of the shots were slightly underexposed. Due to the fast action of skateboarding I don’t think it is a realistic solution to slow the shutter down. Instead, I think getting a lens that is at least an f/1.8 will give me enough light. Ideally I would like to get something more around the f/1.2 speed.
- I need a fisheye lens. I think I could capture the energy, grace, and drama of the action better with a fisheye and I could keep the focus of the shots on the skateboarder. Plus, a fisheye is invaluable for capturing the wide-angle shots of the park and crowd (a place were I really felt my limitation of lenses since the park is so expansive).
- In the skateboarding photos I need to get in closer and fill the frame up with the skateboarder. I felt like a lot of the shots had too much open area and my subject tended to get minimized or lost.
- I needed to capture more personality and emotion shots of the audience and contest participants. A skateboarding contest is so much more than skateboarders doing tricks and I feel to some degree I missed out on the human element of the event. Much like skateboarding itself, the contest was about having a good time.
Overall I was very happy to be involved in the things I love: skateboarding, photography, hanging out with friends, and enjoying life! My next venture, in addition to continuing my skateboarding and sport photography, is to start taking photos of scenery such as sunrises, sunsets, landscape, and city shots.
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What ISO setting were you using? You could bump it up to make up for the slower speed on the lens. You could probably get away with 400, maybe even 600 in that lighting condition.