Shooting natural light action at night

[bill_thornley]

<p>I have a Canon EOS Digital Rebel. I would like to shoot natural light photos at night, and I do a lot of action – pro rodeo, football, basketball, etc. My photos come out fine with a flash, but my natural light photos are very blurred and show a lot of movement, even on the sports setting. I have read my manuel cover-to-cover, tried every setting, and no luck. Any suggestions on what setting I can use to make my nighttime natural light photos clear and crisp? <br>

Bill Thornley<br>

bthornley@spooneradvocate.com</p>

[phule]

<p>What lenses do you currently own? </p>

<p>Non-flash photography under various forms of "stadium" lighting require lenses with large apertures and the use of high ISO. It also requires control over the camera, which means using Av, Tv, or M only, and not any of these "scene" modes. </p>

<p> </p>

[howard_m]

<p>there's no magic here. you need fast glass ($$$$) and a camera that is capable of very good high ISO performance.</p>

<p>Try renting the Canon 200 F2 (lensprotogo.com) lens or something like that and see how you get on w/ high ISO and some post-processing noise reduction.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>Or just try something like the very inexpensive 50/1.8 so that you can get a sense of how having a wide aperture will drag in many times more light, and help you to get those shutter speeds back up where you want them. You don't mention the focal lengths at which you're shooting - it would help to know that.</p>

[jay_p.]

<p>I concur with the others. Fast glass is critical for this type of shooting. Image stabilization on the lens also can help. I've had good luck with my Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS and my 70-200mm f/2.8 IS in both an indoor baseball stadium and an indoor basketball stadium.</p>

[Greg M]

<p>Not only fast glass, equally important when it comes to shooting at professional and even upper-level college events is....access to the venues with that equipment. Here in Dallas I can get my DSLR outfit into the stadiums where the major league baseball team and NHL hockey team plays, but the Dallas Mavericks and Dallas Cowboys are very restrictive and, as a league in general, the Big 12 does not allow DSLR outfits into their football games. Very frustrating at times.</p>

<p>When it comes to image stabilization, I turn it off at sporting events, be it baseball, football, horse racing or anything else. You need fast shutter speeds when shooting sports and IS adds nothing to the process of freezing a moving subject. You need a shutter speed above 1/1000 second to do that. Depending on the sport, in some cases much faster than that. Capturing a static subject at 1/60 second or slower is where IS works.</p>

[nigel_charman]

<p>I agree as well!<br>

But would add that bracing yourself and using calm breathing & squeezing of the shutter release (like a sniper!) would help, if handheld. While a monopod or tripod would help if you can get them in the venue...<br>

If the problem is the speed of the action/light levels & you can't get a high enough shutter speed on high ASA; then try panning the action, but don't forget to follow the subject smoothly even after release - you should get some great results with a portion of the player sharp, surrounded by blur.<br>

I've shot motorsport at 1/15ths with this technique.</p>

[matt_needham]

<p>Use fast lenses, shoot raw, and learn digital push processing.</p>

[jcuknz]

<p>If you want ambient light action then you need a faster shutter speed to freeze the subject and camera movement, unless you pan with the action as suggested above. If RAW puts you off you can still push a jpg file which when you open it in your editor becomes a 'full sized' uncompressed file. But you do need the 'levels' or 'curves' tool so that you can leave the highlights as they are and lift the shadow detail. Color fidelity may be a bit off but at least you will have frozen the action. You should also find that action coming towards or departing from the camera will be sharper than action crossing the camera's line of view.<br>

So rather than using camera 'modes' you should be working in Tv or Manual so that you can pick the fast shutter speed required.</p>

[jcuknz]

<p>Further :- Since you have an EOS mount camera you could also investigate finding a fast f/1.4 or f/1.8 Takumar lens made by Pentax. You can then get an adaptor on Ebay to suit either its M42 thread or its 'K' mount depending on how old it is I have Takumars from earlier days and have the f/1.4 55mm as well as a 135mm f/2.8 which worked well when I went to a local basketball game just to try it out, sitting half way up the stand [ five rows back].</p>

[eric_arnold]

<p>i wouldn't use a preset mode for serious shooting. learn to shoot in M (anual) mode and tweak settings as you go.</p>

<p>in general, motion blur results from a too-low shutter speed. to raise shutter in low-light you need to shoot at higher ISOs and wider apertures. it's science but it's not rocket science.</p>

[lemaclemac]

<p>I sometimes see night-time shots of a stadium scene, like football, and you see hundreds of flashbulbs going off in the stands. Surprising how many people can be clueless about the short distance flash illumination is good for.</p>