In a post in Main Photography discussions, I mentioned I was going to be going to the rodeo at Tingley Colosseum at the New Mexico State Fair and asked for some advice on the best equipment to take given the lousy lighting. I am posting what I learned at this shoot and hope this is helpful to others who shoot indoors events like this in poor lighting.

What I learned during this shoot:

1) The Canon 135 f2 was probably the best choice for a lens in this lighting.
2) In the lousy lighting I was shooting wide open at f2 and still had to use ISO of 2000-3200 if I wanted to get shutter speeds anywhere near fast enough to stop action.

3) On my 7D2 the high ISO introduced a lot of noise I had to deal with in post.

4) The 135 L on the 7D2 was probably a bit too much reach from where we were sitting.

5) Next time I will probably use the 6D and the 135 because a) I found the reach a bit too long on the crop body and b) the 6D will do better with noise at higher ISO (which I had to shoot even wide open).

6) Also, I found using multi AF points not necessary and in fact caused a lot of mis-focused shots due to lack of contrast between the riders and the background audience, etc. With 9-point AF selected I found a lot of shots where the audience was in focus and not the subject of interest.
-- In that respect, with the 6D, having only decent center-point AF won't matter since I found keeping the focus point on the subject rather easy (not like BIF).

7). I used a monopod without a ball head. I made the length short and placed the foot on the seat between my legs - worked perfect!

8) Next time - don't sit so close to the chutes!

There was a lot of noise due to high ISO which I reduced in post with luminance, which is what these photos are not as sharp as I'd like. I was overall a little disappointed that I had to shoot at such high ISO. Here are a few samples: