Sports Photography with Nikon D2Xs?

<p>Hello Everyone,<br>

I have been asked to cover a fotball match which will take place in the evening, at 7 : 30, when it will still be quite light outside. The match will go on for 90 minutes, and when it gets darker, tungsten lights will be put on to light the pitch.<br>

I will mainly be using my Nikon D2Xs, but havent used this camera for sports photography in about a year now, so i was wondering if anyone had any particular settings to reccommend or any tips and tricks on how to get the best action pictures?.<br>

Pontus Wallstén</p>

<p>Use your longest fastest lens. Set the aperture to wideopen, likely in Av mode, and let the camera set the shutter speed. You need a shutter speed of at least 1/250, and more preferably 1/500. You will have to adjust the ISO, starting at 100, to ensure you are getting these shutter speeds as the sun goes down. If you have an f2.8 lens you will likely need ISO 400-800 under stadium lighting, and if an f5.6 lens then 1600-3200 (which will create a lot of "grain"). If you do have an f2.8 lens a monopod will help steady the camera. Keep an eye on your histograms to ensure you are getting correct exposure.</p>

<p>If the action does not fill your frame consider using the high speed crop mode to get fast action sequences. This also gets you more shots on a card.</p>

<p>You can get good action shots from the sidelines but also venture down behind the goal line to get shots of the players head-on as they come down the field.</p>

<p>Someone may know the best AF mode to use. I seem to have better luck in Continuous mode with just the centre focus spot, but I know this goes against conventional wisdom.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>ok<br>

I have the following modes : A, M, P, S. is the Av mode equivalent to the A mode?<br>

My D2Xs seems to have problems with high shutter speeds, as when i tried in the past to set a high shutter speed manually during a horse race, the pictures became underexposed. Why could this be? Perhaps another setting had been imputted by mistake which caused this underexposure?<br>

My fastest longest lenses are a sigma 50-500mm (f4) and a Nikon 18-200mm (f3.5)<br>

I also have a 50mm f1.4, which may be good if i can get quite close, when the light starts to fade.</p>

<p>You will not have the light to get great photos with that camera with those lenses. They are SLOW at the long end.</p>

<p>Your camera doesn't have "problems" with high shutter speeds, I'm guessing. Rather, I'm thinking that you didn't have enough light to use the high shutter speeds at the long end of those lenses.</p>

<p>A D90 with that Sigma will get you better exposures, since you may be able to get good images all the way up at ISO3200 with it. A D300 as well, and the D300 has a GREAT AF module for sports. Is this a big enough deal to rent a camera?</p>

<p>Just take the 50-500, which I think is actually an f5.6 lens at the long lengths. Sorry, set the camera to A mode and dial in the smallest number using the front wheel. Do not use the crop mode with this lens. You can likely use ISO 200 until the stadium light takes over then you will need ISO 3200. On my D2X I think that is ISO H2, so it may be the same on your D2Xs. I am not familiar with these since I never go beyond ISO 200. You absolutely need a monopod for that lens.</p>

<p>When you manually set high shutter speeds with the horses, you did not compensate by setting a wider aperture and/or higher ISO setting.</p>

<p>Unfortunately its not a big enough deal for me to be able to rent a camera, they dont seem to have a huge budget for this shoot, but i think that what they mainly want is to be able to select at least 10-20 good "action" pictures to put up somewhere, maybe on a notice board in the training hall, for members and relatives to see pictures from a typical match..etc. They also want shots of the whole team posing together, which is quite straightforward and simpler shots.<br>

Yes, I have been told that the D90 is an excellent model, and have been thinking of purchasing one for using in these kinds of assignments. The D2Xs is quite cumbersome to carry around and does not always produce great shots, as i have to use the bracketing mode quite alot.<br>

Yes, 3200 ASA is H2. I used this mode (and H1 mode) together with a flash during a graduation ceremony in a very dark hall, where there was almost no light, and the pictures turned out ok, some where a bit grainy, but i was able to do some work on the pictures afterwards in an editing programme to remove some of the noise/grain...<br>

the 500 is indeed 5.6 at long length, and an f4 at short length</p>

<p>hmm, a 50-500 or an 18-200 shooting sports at night on a d2x? that's gonna be problematic. you're gonna need a pretty fast shutter to freeze motion. likely you will be shooting beyond your camera's comfort zone as far as ISO unless you can get ahold of a faster lens. i'd say be prepared to post-process. a lot.</p>

<p>unfortunately for you, the ante of what used to pass as acceptable sports pictures has been upped by the d3 series, with their superior low-light performance. most pro sports nikon shooters are shooting the d3 or d700 with 70-200s or 300/2.8s. i'd think about renting a faster lens to avoid the potential disaster which lurks.</p>

<p>August in Geneve should still give you plenty of light for an hour or two from 19.30, so in fact you can use what you have, the somewhat light-challenged combo of D2Xs and 50-500mm f4-6.3) to get those 10-20 "keepers" early in session. If I were you, I'd probably get there even earlier to take advantage of light abundance and shoot players warming up, especially goalie drills since you can count on these oppotunities, but not necessary that many saves during the game. And since you're shooting with a variable apeture lens, I'd go with shutter priority mode at minimum of 1/500 sec. and would go with ISO-800 as maximum sensitivity for the D2Xs. When camera light meter goes down past ideal exposure, it would be time to take the zoom off and put the 50mm f1.4 on and hang around near goal for closer up action in PK area and goal box.<br>

While newer bodies such as D300, D90, etc. have more advanced AF, the D2Xs AF is still perfectly usable and suitable for sports, IMHO.</p>

<p>The D2X's AF system is fine. In fact, when it was my main camera between 2005 to 2007, I thought it was great, but Nikon surprised me that they managed to improve on it. The D2X's high-ISO capability is poor, but I think the OP's biggest challenge is the two slow lenses.</p>

<p>For whatever reason, it is very expensive to rent DSLRs, but lens rental is quite reasonable, at least in the US. If possible, I would borrow/rent a 70-200mm/f2.8 or 300mm/f4.</p>

<p>Yes, at this time of year, the sun usually starts going down at about 8: 30, even a bit later. The official match start time i have just been informed, is at 19 : 45, so hopefully, i will have good evening light for most of the game. I have also discussed with them doing some pre-game shots, as you suggested. doing pre-game shots could also be good as i could quickly test a few settings and find the best spots before the actual match starts.<br>

If you have a look at this page on my website :<br>

<a href="http://pontus.smugmug.com/People/People/9819719_ZuTXu#667132815_7nyJs">http://pontus.smugmug.com/People/People/9819719_ZuTXu#667132815_7nyJs</a><br>

there are 2 fotball game pictures i took several years ago. One of them is a typical "freeze action" picture, taken with the D2Xs, luckily on a bright sunny summer day, which made "freeze action" shots easier exposure and aperture wise.<br>

The 2nd picture was taken again, with the D2Xs, but this time on a very cloudy, rainy day, It was almost impossible to get the "freeze action shots", especially as i was quite far away. The 2nd picture (with player and referee) has also been cropped, to emphasize what is happening, resulting in it being less sharp and maybe looks less visually appealing, however, people liked it as they said content in that case was more important than the actual "look" of the photograph....(although i always prefer whenever possible to try and get both the "look" and "content" to be as good as possible...) If i remember correctly, both these images where taken with a 70-300mm f4 (5.6) Nikon lens.</p>

<p>I think John Crowe pretty much said everything I would suggest. Use your longest fast lens possible. When shooting fotball the 70-200 is a little on the short end unless the players get relatively close. Unfortunately that 5.6 is pretty slow, but I guess you'll have to make do with what you have. </p>

<p>I personally shoot on manual, and adjust settings, check histogram and adjust from there. I also find that I use continuous, center point autofocus when shooting sports, I just find it the most predictable to work with. Also, try to crop as close as possible and try to fill the frame with action if you can.</p>