high school football at night

hello, i am gonna be new to sports photography this season. (as a job anyway) I was asked to do the photos for

my old high school's website. i have a 70-200 2.8 L on my XTI. my biggest worry is that the noise on xti's suck

in my opinion. the games are all at night with of course not the greatest lighting. awesome field but bad

lighting. i will be on the sidelines at least. i plan on getting the EF 1.4X even though i am scared about

losing that 1 stop. i know you need to be there to know, but do you think with will be possible to stop action

with 800 ISO @ 3.5? i'm guessing thats where i will be with the extender. i'm pretty sure i can't shoot at 1600

ISO because of the noise.

any opinions or options anyone has for me? thanks in advance. (won't be able to practice before the first game)

no practices or scrimmages at night)

thanks.

I shot for a college mens lacrosse team this past year and and shooting at night can be very difficult when you do not have a really good f-stop range. Even with 2.8 I have had problems with bad lighting on the field, and there are a lot of high schools where the lighting is terrible. Typically I found that to catch action you will need to at least have a shutter speed of 250 or higher and even with that you will sometimes still get blur. I would say that even with the high noise put your iso to 1600 and put your shutter speed up higher so that your able to catch more movement and your lighting will be better in the images. Then get a noise reduction software program (noise ninja, nik define, neat image are some good ones) and remove the noise with that. Then try to sharpen a little if you need to. When I first starting shooting I had an old rebel and the noise was awful, but if your smart about your shutter speed and that your image is getting enough light you should be able to get some nice images.

Joey,

 

First off, congrats on the new gig.

 

But let me ask, why don't you try and go without the TC at first? Try it out and see if you really need it. As i'm sure

you are aware, since you will be shooting from the sidelines, ball placement by the refs varies, so take the shots

when the ball is placed on the side hash mark nearest you, and see how many shots you can get. You can probably

even get away with shooting mid field to the side you are shooting with.

 

When you get home, pull up the EXIF data on the shots, and see what focal lenght you actually shot at.

I'll bet you'd be surprised that many of the images were shot at below 200mm. If that's the case, you can really go

withou the TC.

 

And if this is a paying gig, maybe with word of mouth, you can get a few more gigs, and if you have to, and have the

means,jump up to a 300 f2.8.

 

In any event, give it a go for the first time out and see how it goes. You will find that 1 stop to be a valuable stop. I

would bump up that ISO to get the proper shutter speed like Victoria suggests, and remove the noise if it's that bad

PP.

 

Hope i made some sense here.

Here is a link for <a href="http://www.geocities.com/stalker+of+the+web/shootingaction.html" target="_blank">Shooting

Action</a>. I would not use the a teleconverter for nighttime high school football. I would shoot at f/2.8 but if the at ISO

800-1600 range. If the shutter speed drops below 1/250, I would suggest using on flash with ttl. Not the built in flash. I

would set the shutter to 1/200 with an ISO 1250. The 70-200mm is a good focal length for high school football. I shot many

of a high school game doing this with a Canon Mark II with the 70-200mm f/2.8 then later a Nikon D2x with 70-200 f/2.8 Vr

for a chain of newspapers in Central California. These days I hardly touch a flash because I can shoot at ISO 6400 with the

Nikon D3. But it is an effective technique for some High School Dungeons.<div></div>

thanks guys. i appreciate the posts you've given. it is kind of a paying job. i will be getting a free website out of it, and also at the end of the year immediate family is able to purchase any photos of their child i have taken by way of my website. besides just loving sports and photography i will not get the chance to put them together and also get a website out of it. i am very excited about it. i do have noise ninja and it does work well so i guess that is where i will go. i was just worried that it may make the prints (if ordered) not look as real.

this all leads me to another question. i do have a canon 430 ex flash. i just figured it wouldn't do much for me so far away. will it? also, i have a bracket but i don't ever recall seeing a sports photographer using one. would that be a bad idea? being that the lens is so long (i could prob do without the hood) will i have black spots on the bottom of my images because of the lens being in the way of the flash?

i normally do weddings and portrait's so writing these questions makes me feel like a complete beginner. i'm really not except for in sports photography at night! haha. thanks everyone.

i meant i will NOW get a chance to put them both together.

You will have about a midfield range with a flash from the sideline. I would not use a bracket. It will do you no good for this

type of shooting. You will have no shadows because of lens length. I would keep the hood, mainly because it will protect

the lens from players banging into you. Also you could have some lens flare from the stadium lights.

If it were me Joey, i'd go without the flash. I think to my taste, te flash makes the sports images look like "snapshots", than anyone can take with a p & s. Very artificial looking. (with all due respect Ralph).

 

I've shot indoorhockey with very, very poor mercury or tungsten lighting, and with the correct WB, yielded excellent results.

I have been shooting high school and college sports for the last 4 years. I have to say that nighttime outdoor sports, football and soccer, really pose a challenge to cover. I think you will find that using a flash is the only real option you will have to get good stop action photos with the camera you are using. I started out with a Rebel XT and I agree with you about the noise at 1600 ISO. I shot most of my nighttime games at 800 ISO with a flash and was pleased with most results. I would also recommend using a monopod if you have one because it will help with the long shots you will be making. Good Luck!

I can understand the use of flash for nighttime football (especially in stadiums with poor lighting), but (IMHO) I really don't like it. Our small-town newspapers capture the shots using flash and it kills me every time I have to look at red eyes. I made adjustments with my camera in order to avoid using flash. I missed a lot of shots, but I caught some great ones too. I used a Nikon D50. ISO 1600 was too noisy, so I had to bump it down to ISO 800 and then I had to adjust the exposure to -2.7 (very dark). Post processing was a killer, but my son's football memory book was remarkable and worth the effort.

 

I have a Nikon D80 now and recently purchased a Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 lens. I'm anxious to try them both out under the lights. The season starts next Friday. Here is the thread when I started looking for a better lens: http://www.photo.net/sports-photography-forum/00Q63t

 

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck--whether you use flash or not.

You never asked the question, but I'd like to suggest that you get ahold of the largest capacity memory cards you can afford. It won't be unrealistic to assume that you'll be shooting over 200 images in one game, and more if you're going to use your motor drive (which you should). Ditto on the monopod. I've used one for documenting sports action for the past 20 years, and it's an indispensible tool. And the reason I don't like using flash is because you may inadvertently distract a participant and therefore indirectly influence the possible outcome of the game--which is the ultimate no-no. You are going to have a wonderful time taking your pictures. This is going to be a LOT of post-production work. But there's no substituting the pride felt when kids see themselves in action, looking just like the pros. Good Luck!!!!

I have to agree with using a flash option. I have been shooting high school sports for over 8 years and there are two things you need for night games, at least a 2.8 aperture and a flash. I love the fields where I don't need to use flash, but most of the time I do need to use one. A TC is nice, for the day games, as is a 300 2.8, but when you need to use flash the 300 is a little long and makes your flash have to work really hard making any sequence shot really hard to get, because of slow recycle time for the flash.

Don't use the flash or the converter. Try to keep the shutter speed up to at least 1/500 and if noise is a problem try to stay at ISO 800 and if you have to go to 1600 you can use a noise reducer like one person suggested. To get the shutter speed that you need you need to underexpose the photos when you take the shot, and then when you download the photos use photoshop to correct the exposure. If you want to see examples send me an e-mail because I don't know how to post photos on this forum. owens@goldenowens.com Good luck. You will get a lot of pleasure from seeing how much the kids and families enjoy seeing good action photos.