Night Football Games

Excuse me for my little knowledge of photography but I have a huge problem. I have

to shoot at night at a football game for my school newspaper. A similar question has

been asked but that was for a much different camera. I'm using a Minolta Dimage 7

digital camera with 5.2 mega pixels. When I shot at a night game last time all my

pictures came out incredibley dark. Even when I was really close I still got a dark

picture. From my research I'm thinking it has something to do with the shutter speed

because my flash is just a tiny thing. I have the manual to my camera but it's so big i

don't know where to look for answers. My resources are very limited; I don't have a

monopod or other huge lenses. So if someone could just give me a clear way to get

some decent photos it would be much appreciated.

The photo I took had Aperture: f 3.5 ISO Speed: 200 *all automatic with the action

program it had

Gabriel, I'm afraid you're stuck. Your paper is unrealistic if they think you can take sports shots under the lights with that camera. You have the quadruple problem of having very little light,needing decent depth of field, needing good autofocus and needing to stop action. It's very hard even with professional equipment. Try shooting while there is still some ambient light in the sky, get close-ups of players' reactions on the sidelines, get close-up of coaches and players going over plays at halftime, stuff like that. There is no magic answer for you. Here I had to shoot at ISO 1600, f/3.4 just to keep a shutter speed above 1/125 sec. It sounds like you just dove into sports photography without any knowledge-even of your camera. Read that manual and some basic photo books, shoot at practices and day games and get advice from other photogs and you'll have more fun and better results. Don't let this get you down, learn and keep at it.

Flash is NOT the answer; neither is ISO 200. You need higher ISO. Take an hour or two and read the whole manual.

Even though the manual probably has some "how to..." information in it, it probably doesn't have enough "why" information. Reading the manual is going to cover a lot of basic information superficially and conversely cover some very technical (and largely unnecessary at this point) camera control information in excruciating detail.

 

It's the "why" information that will help you understand why you won't likely get the kinds of shots you really want. All pictures need a certain amount of light to be correctly exposed. That's not usually a problem for outside daylight activities but indoors or night activities get tougher fast. Also working against you is the need to have fast shutter speeds to stop action, which is another reason to look to the less active sidelines for subjects (as noted in the other thread).

 

Unfortunately, most high school football stadium lights won't give you enough light. So your choices are to add light or to reduce the amount of light needed. You may be able to get closer to what you want if you add an external flash. Most consumer flashes will not have the range to help you too much but would allow you to take action close to or on the sidelines - people shots, cheerleaders, guys getting loose, place kickers warming up, etc. But they just won't reach far onto the field. Increasing the ISO speed will change the sensitivity of the camera and reduce the amount of light required. But increasing the sensitivity comes at a price, the pictures develop "noise" and can loose the crisp, consistent colors you'd want for really good prints.

 

A monopod could be helpful for sideline shots but would take practice for panning on active shots and would really take some attention to avoid being hazardous around players crashing across the sidelines.

 

So what can you do? Add flash. Borrow one if needed. Unfortunately newer Minolta cameras take a proprietary flash shoe so it may be less likely than that you'd find a generic flash that you could borrow. Increase the ISO rating. Try some at each rating but don't hold out too much hope for stunning quality at the highest isos. If possible, practice shooting at a practice under the lights. Use a "sports" program mode if the camera has one (if it allows higher isos) or set an aperture priority mode and keep the aperture wide open (smallest f number you can set).

 

Maybe you can contact other photographers for some help and advice. It wouldn't surprise me if there were staff members, other students or their families that had some experience you could draw on. Maybe the local paper may be able to offer some advice or let you talk about it some with an experienced staff photographer.

 

You've been asked to try to do something which is one of the most equipment dependent types of photography with equipment that isn't really up to the task. Practice, experiment and don't worry.

Here's a response from a (former) school paper jack-of-all-trades:

 

You simply cannot shoot action shots at a night football with the Minolta Dimage 7 camera you have. Period. It wouldn't be my first choice for daytime games either, but it will work well enough.

 

For night football, you need high ISO. I ran my last paper at the tail end of the darkroom era (early 1998), and we used Tmax P3200 film for situations such as this. That's ISO 3200, black and white, with the option to push to 6400 if lighting was really awful. Modern digital SLR's can also go this high with good results, but no compact digicam (like your Minolta) can.

 

Pros use huge expensive lenses, but even if you've only got, say, a 135mm f/2.8 on an SLR, you can at least get some action shots from the sidelines. You won't get pro-quality action shots, but you'll get some publishable action shots for a school paper. I typically borrowed a manual SLR with a 135mm f/3.5, ancient, yes, but it's what I had access to and I got stuff that was usable. Good for hockey, too.

 

I forgot to mention earlier -- flash is useless in a situation like this. You need to rely on the exisiting, dim light.

 

Finally, consider using a tripod or monopod. I typically used my fluid-head video tripod for situations like this because 1. it let me follow the action, and 2. I already owned one!

Gabriel,

 

I have the same problem as you do! I am an amateur photographer...I take all the photos for my daughters' high school marching band. I have been struggling for 3 years trying for that great evening, action shot.

 

Take the advice of those who have written. Focus on the sideline shots, and those pics before the sun sets...otherwise you are on your own...and god forbid it is hazy, foggy or raining! ha!

 

You may enjoy seeing some of my attempts on the website I maintain. I take all the photos on this site: http://fossilridge.net

 

Dave<div></div>