The Photos from USJA are now Finished....I think :)

If I understand things correctly, you can click on the photo below and it will take you to the photobucket album with all the photos...

Opening Ceremony, USJA Junior Nationals - July 2007, Indianapolis Indiana

Photobucket Album

Yes, The Judo Photos Are Coming!

I finally had some time (or made some) to start working on the photos from the early July USJA Junior Nationals in Indianapolis. Like with most indoor fast-paced sports photography, I'm spending most of my time trying to get the color at least in the realm of reality and doing a little noise reduction. You'd think the white gi would make it easy, but the weird light temperature is compounded by the blue and red mats which reflect the color up. I try to at least get decent skin tones, but there isn't always a lot of skin showing....this isn't beach volley ball! Cropping for sports comes fairly easy to me, I generally know how I'm going to crop the instant I see the photo (and sometimes even as I take it).

I made it about half the way through tonight, and hopefully I'll finish tomorrow evening. I might have finished tonight, but Ryan called from boot camp (he sounded great!) and after talking to him, we had to spread the news to grandparents and such. So all our College Park Judo friends you only have to hang in there a few more days and I should have them done. Here's one of Shelby and Gabby in the stands that first day.

Shelby and Gabby, USJA Junior Nationals - July 2007, Indianapolis Indiana

Ippon!

Misha leaves no room for doubt with this throw....I know I owe a lot of judo photos to people....hang in there, I haven't forgotten...but I have no hard drive space :(

Misha Grunberg at USJA Junior Nationals 8 July 2007, Indianapolis Indiana

Shelby Competes

This had to be tough for Shelby. Her first judo competition in about 3 years....and it was in a foreign language! As you can imagine, she was a little nervous. We didn't know how we would know which mat to be on and when. She was unfamiliar with the venue, the fighting style and the refereeing style. She lost her match, but it was hard fought. Shelby did not look nervous or timid. She attacked well and confidently. Shelby used some of the techniques she has been working on for use against taller competitors with longer arms (which is most of her opponents). In today's match, even the winning throw, both Carl and I thought Shelby was going to be able to reverse it and win as they were going down. I'm sure Shelby's opponent would never have guessed that it has been so long since Shelby's last competition.

Indoor Sports

Here's a shot of Shelby at judo practice last night. Indoor sports photography is always a challenge. The lighting is almost always poor. Plus, the weird and mixed color casts from the different light sources aren't "fun" like they were here. And then there are the challenges of the particular sport, in this case judo. You want to get a nice action shot, but a good deal of the time, you end up being in a bad position relative to the competitors...or right as the throw happens, someone gets between your camera and the action.

This was shot with my EOS 5D and a 70-200mm 2.8L IS lens. I set the ISO to 1600 (hence the "noise" and the reason why this photo really won't look a lot better big if you click on it) and shot aperture priority 1/200s at f/4. The computer tells me I was zoomed to 130mm, I would have probably done better to have gone out to 200mm, since I ended up cropping a butt out of the left side of the frame and some wires and junk off the top. I worked on the white balance some when I did the raw conversion, but it is basically hopeless. The lights are not all the same, and there is a nasty red light coming from the reflection off the mat.