Night High School Football

I shot my first high school football game at night and did not do well. I have a Canon 40D and used both

my lenses, Canon IS 70-200 f2.8 & Sigma 170-500 f5-6.3. I tried shooting using the sport setting, tried Av

& Tv but still wasn't able to get the right settings to capture the action under the lights. Most action shots

are blury. No problem shooting when they're standing still though. I have no problem shooting durng the

day but under the lights is challenging. Should I use my 430EX speedlite? I want to try again this

weekend. Any suggestions on what settings will work best for night games to catch the action.<div></div>

Connie,

 

IMHO, I'm not a big fan of flash use for football. Photos using flash look like generic, P & S photos that anyone shoots at these games.

You don't mention what settings (f-stop & shutter speed you were using, but if you can get 1/320 sec, minumum @f2.8 using your 70-200, at say 1600 ISO, (not sure how good/bad the lighting is)it may work out for you. Based on the image you provided above, your not too far off, becasue it appears you have your aperture stopped down some as evedience by the amount of DoF you have.

 

Keep shooting, and remember to keep that aperture wide open. and shutter speed up.

 

Hope this helps

 

Cheers

of course it all depends how the lighting is at the stadium. but try ISO 1600 shoot f2.8 @ 320sec. don't bother bringing your sigma. you paid good money for that canon 2.8 so use it! as for flash. the 430 will work. i personaly think you should TRY it and see what you think looking at with flash and without flash. but the settings i just listed should work just fine without the flash. if you add the flash maybe give yourself an f-stop of 3.2 or 4. of course your shutter (sync) speed will only be 200.

on a side note, and not to be rude about it. that photo of the running back high stepping over the defender would have been an awesome shot!

I have starting shooting night games at the local high school and do find 1/320 @ 2.8 is a definite minimum. I tend to use Av priority.<div></div>

One more shot at 1/400<div></div>

Hello John, <br>

The answer is it depends on your ambient light and your camera sensor. No two high school stadiums are lit the same. For some

shooters flash is an unforgivable sin. For others it is a necessary evil. I tend to be in the middle. But I can afford to do that now

because I can shoot at ISO 8000 with the Nikon D3. But a year ago I was shooting a Nikon D2X. The most I crank the ISO for

working images was 1600. <br>

So I ended up shooting <a href="http://www.geocities.com/stalker+of+the+web/sportsflash.html" target="_blank">Flash</a>. I

hand to make sure that I had good quality images for reproduction for the newspaper I worked for. So flash was the most efficient

way to complete the shoot. As a general rule if my shutter speed drops below <a

href="http://www.geocities.com/stalker+of+the+web/shootingaction.html" target="_blank">1/500 when shooting high school

football</a> I would look at flash. <a href="http://www.geocities.com/stalker+of+the+web/sportsflash.html"

target="_blank">Flash</a>.

<p>

I look at your Meta tag info. I would most likely shoot flash at about 1600 ISO. even if you shot at 1600 ISO you would have

1/100 @ f/2.8. The big trick with shooting <a href="http://www.geocities.com/stalker+of+the+web/sportsflash.html"

target="_blank">Flash</a> at is to use a fast shutter speed of 1/200 -1/250 @ f/2.8 with a high ISO of 1250-1600. You want to

take as advantage of the ambient light as possible. this will avoid really bad shadows. You will have some red eye issues so

beware that is an issue you might have to deal with.<div></div>

With Football <a href="http://www.geocities.com/stalker+of+the+web/sportsflash.html" target="_blank">Flash</a> f/2.8 @

1/250 @ ISO 1250.<div></div>

Hi Ralph,

Of course it depends on lighting as it is different from field to field. at looking at the Op's photo, there is too much DOF indicating a f stop other than f2.8, and the shutter speed is probably 1 stop too slow.

 

My "starting " recommendation was based on her submitted photo. of course the OP should shoot some test shots, check histogram, and make adjustments as necessary.

>>[John Vanacore]>> <i> looking at the Op's photo, there is too much DOF indicating a f stop other than f2.8, and the shutter speed is probably 1 stop too slow </i>

<p>

Here's the EXIF from the OP's image:

<p>

Model = Canon EOS 40D<br>

<b>Exposure Time = 1/50"</b><br>

<b>F Number = F2.8</b><br>

Exposure Program = Action program<br>

ISO Speed Ratings = 800<br>

Exposure Bias Value = ±0EV<br>

Metering Mode = Pattern<br>

Flash = Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode<br>

Focal Length = 95mm<br>

Color Space = sRGB<br>

Exif Image Width = 2592<br>

Exif Image Height = 3888<br>

Exposure Mode = Auto exposure<br>

White Balance = Auto white balance<br>

Scene Capture Type = Normal<br>

<p>

The DOF is thin, as expected at f/2.8... take another look at the photo. The center of focus is on player #43 in the background, not on the leaping runner.

<p>1/50" shutter is just too slow for fast action sports. The OP used ISO800. Even bumping to 1600 would only give a shutter speed of 1/100". Still too slow.

<p>

They'll need flash on this field's lighting.

Thanks everyone for your helpful comments. I do notice that the center of focus seemed to go on the wrong player and perhaps I should change the point of focus to more than one on the camera. Thanks Joey for your comment as I do wish that shot was in focus as I think it would have been great. I will definitely leave the Sigma home this Friday night and stick with Canon 200 f2.8. I will also play with different settings, Manual & Av & will try flash. I can always tweak the shots in Photo Shop but can't do anything with it if it's not in focus. I appreciate all the tips.

PS: Do you recommend shooting sports during the day (softball/baseball, football, soccer) in Manual Mode, Sports mode or other? Thanks all!

<i> >> I will also play with different settings, Manual & Av & will try flash. </i>

<p>

Don't use Av mode with flash...<br>

See <a href="http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/#faq7" target="_blank">7 - I tried to take a flash photo and the camera wanted a really slow shutter speed.</a><br>

and <a href="http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-flash/#faq10" target="_blank">10 - My camera meters in P and Av modes very differently when I have a flash turned on.</a>

<p>

Also, for tricky lighting, always try to shoot RAW+JPEG. RAW will give you a lot of extra play room in post-processing.

<p>

So use manual or try shutter priority (Tv mode). Also read up on "dragging the shutter"... this is basically using a longer exposure to properly expose the background, then using the flash to freeze the action in the foreground...<p>

See <a href="http://planetneil.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/3-dragging-the-shutter/" target="_blank">http://planetneil.com/tangents/flash-photography-techniques/3-dragging-the-shutter</a>

<p>

<i> >> Do you recommend shooting sports during the day (softball/baseball, football, soccer) in Manual Mode, Sports mode or other? </i>

<p>

During the day, use Aperture mode (Av) wide open (i.e., the lowest f/stop for your lens, e.g. 2.8). This will give you the fastest shutter speeds and the tight DoF will really make your main subject pop out from the blurred background. I also recommend using single point focus... for sports, just use the center point and follow the action... don't worry about trying to compose within the rule of thirds. Use continuous shot (squeeze off 3+ shots in rapid fire).

Save up for trading up to a 50D. At 6400 ISO it will give you 1/400th at f/2.8 without flash. Meantime, consider say 100mm f/2 which will get you to 1/400th using the 3200 ISO (Hi) setting.

I might hold off on that 50D....I have no personal experience with it at high ISO and my mouth was watering at the possibilities but the little bit I've read from real world photogs seems to indicate that the high ISO touted for the 50D does not traslate into useable images.