Shooting Raw

I shot a large high school track meet in Cabot on Thursday. It started at 4:30 and wasn't over until 11:30. It consisted of 80 teams and more than 1000 athletes.

I had to get photos of two specific athletes -- Cabot's Marissa De La Paz, who recently set a school in the 800 meters; and Lonoke's Kylon Boyd, who recently signed a track scholarship at the University of Central Arkansas.

Marrisa didn't run until late 8:30 p.m. and Kylon jumped in the finals of the triple jump at 8:10 p.m. and the lights at Cabot's football field are not good.

I shot the meet with a Canon 20D and 70-200 2.8L non-IS. I shot the pics on 3200 ISO and Raw format with small jpg.

For Marissa's photo, I exposed the photo at 1/400 sec., shooting near the finish line, which was illuminated by a shop work light so that the automatic timing camera could see the finishers. I took advantage of the light but was able to make the photos look better using Raw and the Canon Raw conversion software. The photo was underexposed by a stop and a half.

The photo on the left is the one shot in raw. The one at right is the jpg version.

As far as Kylon's triple jump photo, I shot it at 1/500 sec and it underexposed by approximately 2 stops but using raw, I was able to bring out the photo and set the white balance.

The photo on the left is the raw photo. The one on the right is the jpg.

I haven't used raw format much but it worked out well this time and gives me the confidence to do it again, possibly during football season when I don't want to use a flash.

Thanks for looking.

Mark