lighting help

[BBones]

I got tapped to do an indoor event tomorrow (nothing like waiting until the last second) shooting some Olympians at an Arena. Sounds pretty basic, press conference/wave to the crowd close ups is all they want. I know arena lighting can be tricky though, I have seen enough troubles with shooting in gyms and such.

Outside of shooting RAW, should I manual white balance or should I use the flash balance? Probably going to be able to use my 580EX for this with no issue and will be using the 24-70 L 2.8 and 70-200 IS L 2.8.

Asking here since there has been a lot of talk about shooting in oddly lit places (volleyball, basketball, etc).

Thanks guys!

[BBones]

Um....anyone?

[Steve Cavigliano]

I got tapped to do an indoor event tomorrow (nothing like waiting until the last second) shooting some Olympians at an Arena. Sounds pretty basic, press conference/wave to the crowd close ups is all they want. I know arena lighting can be tricky though, I have seen enough troubles with shooting in gyms and such.

Outside of shooting RAW, should I manual white balance or should I use the flash balance? Probably going to be able to use my 580EX for this with no issue and will be using the 24-70 L 2.8 and 70-200 IS L 2.8.

Asking here since there has been a lot of talk about shooting in oddly lit places (volleyball, basketball, etc).

Thanks guys!

Brandon,
I've never shot in a gym using a flash :dunno Having said that, if I was tasked with this assignment, I'd do some test shots to see what works best. The 580EX should really help. I would try flash wb instead of Custom/Manual wb. You won't have to worry much about shutter speed, since there will be little motion/action. I think either of the lenses you mention should work just fine. I would treat these like a normal indoor shot. I'd say a good starting point would be ISO400, F5.6 and 1/100. Adjust speed and FEC as required from there. You can open the aperture wider if you need to isolate a subject. But if you go too wide you won't get everyone in focus for those group shots.

Sorry, I am sure this isn't much help. But, maybe someone else will chime in :D

Good luck :thumb and let us know how it works out.

Steve

[mercphoto]

I think Steve's got a good baseline for you. From what little experience I have with indoor stuff, the biggest problem I have had personally is with lights that cycle their color balance. What happens then is you don't get a consistently correct white balance, causing a lot of work in post. The solution I learned for that from robgalbraith.com, and it works, is to shoot at either 1/60 or 1/125 shutter speeds. Since lights cycle at 60Hz either of these shutter speeds will guarantee you get all the various color shifts the lights might go through.

Flash on ETTL and adjust FEC as needed. Go manual on the camera at 1/60 or 1/125. f/5.6 is a good suggestion. Adjust ISO so that your ambient exposure isn't too far down (no more than 2 stops for sure). And shoot RAW.

The more expensive solution is to hang strobes. :)