Filters?

[denise_taylor]

I am a beginner and want to take pictures at my son's soccer game. I have a

Nikon D50 with a 80-200mm zoom. Do I need to use some kind of filter? The

pictures I took at his practice look kind of bleached out. The sky was

actually a darker blue than the washed out blue it looks in my photos. Any

Suggestions?

[peter_daalder]

A circular polarising filter will help in that instance. Beware that you'll lose some light, though.

[peter_daalder]

You'll need a 77mm filter for the 80-200mm zoom, but be careful with the plastic screw in thread on the lens.

[david_henderson]

Careful with a polariser- they cost you two stops of light which will affect either your aperure or shutter speed or ISO rating. Can you afford to change any of these things and still get the result you want? Maybe a little post-processing? Whilst you can't replicate the effect of a polariser in PS you can make things darker/more saturated easily enough.

[art_haykin]

Sounds like simple over exposure to me. Have your meter checked.

[Ed_Ingold]

There are several things that could make the sky appear washed out. First, how are you viewing the images to make this determination? The LCD monitor on the camera is not very objective - the histogram function tells a better story. Since you are a beginner, it is unlikely you have a calibrated monitor on your computer.

 

In all probability, the sky is actually being overexposed. The most likely cause is if the players are in shadow or the sun is behind them. The camera will tend to expose for the foreground, washing out the sky. Or you might have inadvertently changed one of the camera settings. The last thing I would suspect is a meter error.

 

The best thing you could do is to post an example. This would narrow down the possibilities.

[denise_taylor]

Thank you all for your advice. You are appreciated!

[engelgrafik]

David, not all Polarizers lose 2 stops of light. It all depends on the quality of the filter. My Schneider (B+W) 77mm thread Polarizer usually only loses about 1/2 a stop! I'm not kidding. At certain angles, yes, it may go up to 1 or 1 1/2. But on nice sunny days, it's an amazing filter.

 

Tiffen and Hoya are good and cheap but there's a reason why B+W costs sometimes 2X the price or more.

[stormchaser]

Washed out? The simplest solution is underexposure, but that may not help. A polarizer will darken the sky, but will also reduce the amount of light reaching the sensor - which may actually be good, if too much light is making your pictures look washed out. You could also try a lens hood. If all else fails, adjust the levels with a photo-editing program. It works wonders for my washed-out photos.

[david_henderson]

Jeffrey. I have two B+W polarisers. They lose two stops. I test them and expose all my photographs manually using a two stop filter factor.

[dangoldman]

i would not use a polariser for sports. My inclination is that you may have also shot backlit, which if not right, can reek havoc on image quality. I rarely use it for sports as you loose the sky and it is hard to get a good exposure if you are using your meter. When shooting backlit, i will usually take a test exposure, check the meter, then lock the camera on those settings.

[engelgrafik]

David, all I can tell you is my experience. Depending on the angle to the light, I can lose up to 2 stops, but often I only lose about 1/2 to 1 full stop. I know this because I will test one shot with and one without. I could even physically show this to you, I've done it with others that didn't believe me. I use a Tamron 17-35mm f2.8-4.5 lens with 77mm filter thread on a Fuji S3Pro.