Which lens?

[Keith1616]

Hello, I am new to the forum (I have introduced myself), and I am hoping that someone may be able to help.
My main interest over the last 30 years has been match fishing, this has rubbed off on my lad who has now become a fully sponsored angler, he is sponsored by a tackle manufacturer and gets all his tackle provided free.
He has some new rods to review and has asked me to take photo's of the rods in action.
One of the obvious required fields of a rod is to cast.
Now one rod in question is designed to cast long distances, so a lot of effort and speed will be required to build up enough pressure on the rod to perform to its maximum.
I will have to be able to 'capture' my lad and the rod whilst under its maximum compression just before it launches the casting weight and I would need to make this look as dramatic as possible while keeping everything sharp.
My intention is to try isolate my lad and to blur the background as much as possible.

I don't own a fast zoom lens so my choice is limited.

Would I be better to use my 35mm f1.8 lens to keep the aperture wide open and shutter speed up and ISO low, or would I be better to use my zoom lens up to 200mm which will be about f5.6 and up the ISO to keep the shutter speed up and rely on good light, or would I have to resort to spending time on the computer to add blur?

Location and ideal light and time will probably be very limited so chances will be few and far between.
These photo's may be used by his sponsor if I get any keepers.

 

[AndyB]

Keith this sounds almost like product photography and unfortunately that means you need to take time to find the best solution. It's very difficult for anyone here to say one particular way will work the best.

Personally if I had time constraints I think I would be inclined to begin with the 35mm simply because you'll have a wider angle to play with and should be able to capture the drama better. Probably start at f8 to make sure you get your boy and the rod in focus but the trade off is that you won't get much background blur so you could try opening to 2.8 and see if you can still get the focus you need.

To catch the rod in detail you will need as fast shutter as you can get so don't be afraid to push the ISO up if you need to.

Ideally I would also try using an off camera flash to freeze the action. If you do that you could also go faster with the shutter and make the background dark.

But then again - I would switch to some long shots to see how they work if I had the time.

Good luck
Andy

 

[Keith1616]

Thanks Andy, I thought it might be a trial and error job, but hoped someone may have had experience doing something similar.
The off camera flash is something I had not thought of and I do have that option so it will add another angle, thanks for your time.

Keith