Night HS football under good lighting

[r_quan]

<p>Lucky to shoot last Friday's game at a new HS stadium with very good lighting - at least a stop brighter than our home stadium.<br>

Picture Control set to Vivid - somewhat oversaturated. Had some problems with inconsistent color temperature (I haven't learned yet how to correct in PS). No flash. A number of shots had blown out whites meaning I overexposed them & needed to correct in PS. Imagine, <em>over</em> exposing available light night HS football? How I love the 21st century! And what of the upcoming D3s @ iso 12,800?</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2613/4004792533_4c49400460.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="400" /><br>

D3 w/200mm f2.0 1/1600 iso 6400</p>

<p><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3533/4005552452_c441ccdbe7.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="400" /><br>

D3 w/280mm f2.8 (TC14E) 1/800 iso 6400</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2653/4004775023_a3aa3cc98a.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" /><br>

D700 w/85mm f1.4 1/1250 iso 3200</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2625/4005563716_1bd9994b12.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="400" /><br>

D3 w/200mm f2.0 1/400 iso 3200</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2634/4005562194_ac265c4d27.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="400" /><br>

D3 w/200mm f2.0 1/2000 iso 6400</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2610/4004769235_c01c491fdf.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="400" /><br>

D700 w/85mm f2.0 1/1250 iso 3200</p>

<p><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3525/4004776211_fb6a79675d.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="400" /><br>

D700 w/85mm f1.6 1/500 iso 3200 way overexposed partially corrected in PS</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2590/4005551282_8fba1bfa93.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="400" /><br>

D3 w/280mm f2.8 (TC14E) 1/800 iso 6400</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2565/4005556804_25a84ca29c.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="400" /><br>

D3 w/200mm f2.0 1/1600 iso 6400</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2668/4004791469_d6b36cf4e6.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="400" /><br>

D3 w/200mm f2.0 1/2500 iso 6400</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2647/4004802313_c8ddeccc94.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" /><br>

D3 w/200mm f2.0 1/640 iso 3200</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2551/4004802835_f4b09410ce.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" /><br>

Fumble recovery at end of 14 to 13 game (#51 - "Doh!")<br>

D3 w/200mm f2.0 1/1250 iso 3200</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2628/4005544038_fb2cf50194.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="400" /><br>

D3 w/400mm f4.0 (TC20E) 1/1000 iso 6400</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2519/4005545294_05c7c33087.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="400" /><br>

D3 w/400mm f4.0 (TC20E) 1/400 iso 6400</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2617/4005539450_07ab710a32.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="400" /><br>

D700 w/85mm f1.6 1/1250 iso 3200</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2672/4004775467_949a5a71f9.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" /><br>

D700 w/85mm f1.6 1/1600 iso 3200</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2585/4004776487_45efbd3eb5.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="333" /><br>

D700 w/85mm f1.6 1/640 iso 3200</p>

<p><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2649/4005567922_4ba0ac235b.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="286" /><br>

D3 w/200mm f2.0 1/640 iso 3200</p>

<p> </p>

[k_phillips1]

<p>Hmmm! You must have a Nikon, I'm guessing..? I don't know their camera's at all. Canon owner, here. Vivid? Was your camera on "Manual" setting? I keep reading about setting the camera to 1/250th or 1/125th for football, so, now I'm confused. I'm just learning, so it's easy to confuse me, I guess. Ha! Your PS talent is noticed : ) They must've been REALLY blown-out...LOL! They are sooo bright and "vivid", but I love them!!! I would die for lights like these or to make the photos look like this. I will attempt again this Friday night. It's our last home game, so let's hope I get it right. Thank you.</p>

[r_quan]

<p>Nikon D3, D300 and D700 have something called "picture control" where you can dial in settings for the way the pictures will look. This time I experimented setting it for "vivid" which I think in this case made the pictures rather too saturated and contrasty (I was previously using the "Standard" setting). I used aperture priority on all the pictures mostly shooting wide open aperture to maximize the shutter speed and minimize motion blur. DOF is shallow but I rather like the way the main subject is isolated - not as good to get as many faces in focus as possible but if the aperture is small to increase the DOF the SS may be too slow and everyone will be blurred.<br>

I find 1/125 or even 1/250 at times to not be fast enough to capture rapid peak action. In my D2H/D70 days the max iso was about 1200-1600 and I would even underexpose by a stop to keep the shutter fast and post process the ugly-dark-noisy images in PS using levels, saturation and Noise Ninja. My feeling is that stopping action is the priority and exposure/noise can be dealt with later in post processing. I prefer sharp with noise over bright low-noise blurs.</p>

[drubene]

<p>Very nice. Did you use anything in post with these shots? Any noise reduction software used?</p><div></div>

[r_quan]

<p>Some images that had blown highlights tamed in PS using highlight/shadow function. Some had minor tweaking using levels. High iso noise reduction in camera set to max but some images further processed with Noise Ninja. Didn't make the effort to lower the saturation (too many to fix) or to color correct the white jerseys to really be white (I still don't know quite how to do this). Next game on Friday I will set Picture Control to decrease the saturation level and see how it goes. Trying to learn something with every game.<br>

I admire all you RAW shooters. You must find that RAW files produce better .jpg's but how much work is it to produce them from RAW? Better noise handling and exposure tweaks? Haven't got the experience to process them yet.</p>

[BernardMiller]

<p>Nice shots! Definitely some winners there.</p>

<p>Save yourself some work on getting the colour temperature right by setting your white balance at the start and not letting the camera choose it shot-by-shot. That way they'll all come out the same. Which should, I would hope, be satisfactory. But at least if it's not, you can apply pretty much the same correction to all of them to get them back in line.</p>

<p>Here's how you set a custom white balance on a D300, and I'm sure it's gonna be identical on your bodies. Take you a nice, white sheet of paper to the game (it doesn't have to be completely white--a game program can do the trick in a pinch). Have someone hold it so that the stadium lights are illuminating it completely, and there are no other strong colours reflecting light on it (red football jerseys, say). Fill the viewfinder frame with the white paper--it doesn't have to be in focus, but do make sure it fills the frame completely. Set your camera's white balance on the PRE setting, then hold down the WB button until you see PRE blinking in the viewfinder (or top LCD display). Fire a shot of the paper.</p>

<p>If you see "good" blinking in the viewfinder/top LCD, you've gotten a usable white balance reading. If it says "no good," try again; you might need to reduce the exposure just a bit to get it to take a reading. Then fire off a few shots to see if you're satisfied with the results. You can always re-do the white balance measurement if not.</p>

<p>To keep highlights from blowing out, I always set my camera on manual exposure. I make sure I am aware of areas of the field where the light might not be quite uniform, so that I can adjust. On many high school fields, the lighting between the 20s is quite good, but once you get down near the end zones it falls off by a stop or more.</p>

<p>Hope this helps!</p>

[elliot1]

<p><em>" Had some problems with inconsistent color temperature" </em> Typical with stadium lighting, frequencies of the lights change constantly (flicker) which is not visible to the human eye but can be picked up readily from a camera shooting at high speed. So the perfect WB at one moment will not be right at another. Unless you shoot at low shutter speeds (1/160 or slower), the only way to resolve this issue is to correct during PP.</p>

<p>The overexposure can be easily corrected by dialing in some exposure compensation . Probably -.7 EV will take care of it. You of course want to shoot RAW which of course can be correct during PP as well if the overexposure is not extensive.</p>

<p>Love your pictures, especially #3!</p>

<p> </p>

[John Crowe]

<p>The contrast, saturation, sharpness, and colour balance are definitely too "vivid" creating a cartoon-like appearance in many of the images. Try turning off the "vivid" and by using a very acceptable shutter speed of 1/500 you can likely drop your ISO to about 1600, maybe even less. High ISO capability is great but the lower you can go the better for the final image.</p>

[r_quan]

 

 

 

<p>Responses very much appreciated. Although I like the vibrant look as opposed to the undersaturated darkish high iso look I agree that the "vivid" setting is way too saturated and contrasty. "Cartoonish" is an apt discription. Posting in this forum is so valuable to get good feedback.<br>

I will change back to the "standard" setting next time. Good advice on lowering the iso if lighting will allow. I will also decrease exposure using EV control. I hesitate to go to manual exposure since field lighting is very inconsistent and can't predict where the next play will be e.g. downfield for a long pass. Home HS football field is about 2 stops darker so probably will still have to crank it up to 6400. </p>

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[youcalltheshots]

<p ><a href="../photodb/user?user_id=5661020">K Phillips</a> , Oct 14, 2009; 03:38 p.m.<br>

"Hmmm! You must have a Nikon, I'm guessing..? I don't know their camera's at all. Canon owner, here. Vivid? Was your camera on "Manual" setting? I keep reading about setting the camera to 1/250th or 1/125th for football..."</p>

<p>I've always used the 'focal length' speed rule. Using a 400mm lens, I shoot at no slower than 1/400th sec. for example.</p>