EOS R6 focus advice for ringside pro wrestling photography

[theperfectplex]

What should my focus settings be when shooting in different settings. I do a lot of pro wrestling and I shoot at 2.8, 800 shutter and my iso as low as I can because Indy wrestling can be a bit dim lighted. My photos come out great but during a move if I really zoom in in post, one wrestler tends to be a bit more focused than the other. I’m ringside and sometimes I want to focus on everything going on. A nice ringside wide shot. I know for the most part my camera won’t focus on more than one face at a time etc. And I’m usually on face detection etc. 

canon R6, Tamron 2.8 24-70mm and Tamron 2.8 75-200mm. 

[stevet1]

theperfectplex,

Maybe take it out of face detection and use one of the focusing zones?

Maybe a smaller aperture too to give you a greater depth of field. If you're ringside, and using f/2.8, your depth of field is going to be pretty small.

Steve Thomas

[theperfectplex]

I would consider not using 2.8 but anything higher is difficult since lighting can be terrible. What zone do you think? Are we able to post picture examples here?

[stevet1]

theperfectplex,

If you do go to a smaller aperture, you can boost your ISO to compensate.

Just above where you are typing, there is a little row with some icons. On the right-hand side, there is an icon of a little camera. If you tap on that, it will ask you to insert a photo. Once you select one, and it loads,  hit Done.

Steve Thomas

[wq9nsc]

I agree with Stevet1 that face detection isn't the best for a LOT of sports because lighting and fast changing action forces you into a lot of decisions better made by you than the camera.  With low lighting and fast action, both ISO and aperture are often going to be compromise choices. 

One way to help with that compromise is to make the most of the shallow depth of field that comes from shooting with a wide aperture.  Instead of using face detection, define a narrow set of focus points for the AF system to use and place those at the BEST spot for the image you are trying to capture.  For example shooting with a 60mm focal length 20 feet from the action, you will have a total depth of field in critical focus of about 5'7" BUT the depth isn't centered on focus point with 2'5" in FRONT of the focus point and 3'2" BEHIND the focus point lying within critical focus.  So you choose a focus point that is slightly front biased; this is a thinking/reaction skill you will learn pretty quickly and it maximizes camera performance under these difficult conditions.

Don't be tempted to try to greatly slow shutter speed to improve ISO or DoF through a narrower aperture because a blurred photo will always be blurred.  You can clean up a lot of noise in post (you should be shooting in RAW instead of JPG) but blur from too slow of a shutter speed is baked into the image.  I would use 1/800 as the hard floor for shutter speed and accept the need to further reduce noise from higher ISO as aperture is narrowed to increase DoF.

This is a handy online DoF tool that will help you figure out your best strategy:  https://www.pointsinfocus.com/tools/depth-of-field-and-equivalent-lens-calculator/#{%22c%22:[{%22f%2...

Rodger

[stevet1]

theperfectplex,

Roger has good advice.

Steve Thomas