Action sport at night question

[rjm522]

Greetings All:

I just volunteered to take pictures of my son's high school Lacrosse team. The booster club asked for parent volunteers to take action shots of the teams during the games. Their games will be held at night, outside and with stadium lights. While the setting will not be dark, it wont be anywhere near daylight or bright. The league does not want flashes going off during the game....it is distracting. I am a complete noob to this type of photography and need input from the group so my shots don't turn out like garbage.

My camera is a Nikon D-5100 with a 55 to 300mm zoom. I bought it from COSTCO back in late 2011 as a package. I know its a crop body camera but that is all I could/can afford, so that is what I am using. I also have the Nikon D5100 for dummies book and Bryan Peterson's Understanding Exposure book. I read both back in late 2011 when I purchased the camera. I was really into photography for about a year and took lots of good family, vacation, etc pictures. Then life took over and my new hobby fell back to zero. I don't think I took 10 pictures in 2013. I am basically starting from zero.

I also have Lightroom version 3 that I can use. The camera has an "action" mode but I really want to shoot in manual mode. I think I will get better results. I used to shoot in manual when I did it a lot and got good results.

I know that as ISO goes up so does noise. The ISO goes up to 6500 and then there are these additional choices. Hi 0.3, Hi 0.7, Hi 1 and Hi 2. To get the action shots I will need won't I have to run a high ISO to get a high shutter speed? A Lacrosse ball at this level of play moves around the field at 70mph to 80mph for a shot.

I don't want to bore everyone with a long e-mail....hopefully I have put out enough information that you all can help.

Thanks in advance for your input.

 

[tirediron]

Good action shots under these conditions will be a challenge with any gear. You're going to have to put up with some noise, and I would expect to work right at the top of the camera's ISO range. My suggestion would be to raise the ISO as high as you feel comfortable working at, and shoot in either full manual or shutter priority (it won't really matter in this scenario) with a shutter speed of at least 1/250th (and ideally 1/500+. At the end of the day,you're a parent, using your own equipment to help the team and doing your best. If they feel the results aren't worthy of the cover of SI, well, too bad!

 

[Propsguy]

Is renting a fast telephoto lens an option for you? Keeping the ISO down and having very fast autofocus are the two main technical challenges, so if you can rent a fast lens like 70 - 200 2.8 or even a 200 2.0 prime would help a great deal. (a good VR system will likely also be of benefit in this case). Either way, shoot RAW and get your framing as close as possible to the finished image so that you don't have to crop very much... that will help with the noise inherent to high ISO images.

 

[KmH]

Since it's a season long deal I suspect renting a lens is not a viable option.

I agree with John. A noisy photo is better than a blurry photo, so crank up the ISO so you can maintain a shutter speed fast enough to stop motion.

The low levels of light even in pro stadiums is why pro sports photographers show up for work carrying $30,000 worth of professional grade lenses and cameras.

You'll need at least 1/500 to stop the motion of the players. To stop the ball you'll need an even faster shutter speed.

Do you know about 'stops' - a doubling or a halving of exposure?

 

[Tailgunner]

Is renting a fast telephoto lens an option for you? Keeping the ISO down and having very fast autofocus are the two main technical challenges, so if you can rent a fast lens like 70 - 200 2.8 or even a 200 2.0 prime would help a great deal. (a good VR system will likely also be of benefit in this case). Either way, shoot RAW and get your framing as close as possible to the finished image so that you don't have to crop very much... that will help with the noise inherent to high ISO images.

Agreed.

If renting is an option, I would look into a 70-200mm 2.8 or 300mm 2.8.

 

[rjm522]

A buddy of mine got free tickets to the Chick-Fil-A bowl this past December. We were at the 40 yard line and three rows from the field. We had an opportunity to talk to the sports photographers that were on the field....and there were a bunch of them. Uber expensive Nikon bodies with zoom lenses that cost more than my wife's mini van....wow....what an investment. The one guy had three separate camera set ups...I bet he had close to $100K in gear with him. I am no where near near that.

Thanks for the recommendation on the shutter speeds of 1/500 or greater. I have looked into renting a faster lens. About $100 for Friday night to Monday morning rental. Not bad for a one time thing but I couldn't do it for the entire season. I have never used an ISO as high as Hi 1 or Hi 2....what numerical value are they? How noisy will the photo be at this high a level?

Do I know about "stops"? No, not really. I will have to re-read the Understanding Exposure book and see if I can find that information.

FWIW my zoom has this written on the barrel:

AF-S NIKKOR 55-300mm 1:4.5-5.6GED

The first game is tomorrow night. I'll crank up the ISO and see what happens. I might be back with some pics for your input and critique.

tirediron - at the end of the day you are correct. I am a parent volunteering my time trying to do my best with what I have.

 

[rjm522]

Is renting a fast telephoto lens an option for you? Keeping the ISO down and having very fast autofocus are the two main technical challenges, so if you can rent a fast lens like 70 - 200 2.8 or even a 200 2.0 prime would help a great deal. (a good VR system will likely also be of benefit in this case). Either way, shoot RAW and get your framing as close as possible to the finished image so that you don't have to crop very much... that will help with the noise inherent to high ISO images.

I have seen this option in the camera menu. I also have seen a YouTube video by a guy who is always wearing a shirt that says "I shoot RAW". Jared Polin is his name.

What is the difference between RAW and JPEG? I know that RAW requires processing before you can e-mail or print the picture and JPEG does not....its ready to go straight from the camera. What is the advantage of RAW vs JPEG or visa versa?

 

[Braineack]

shoot raw.
try auto-iso with matrix metering.
shoot in shutter priority.
keep shutter speed high to stop motion.

expect, decent, noisy images.

 

[Tailgunner]

A buddy of mine got free tickets to the Chick-Fil-A bowl this past December. We were at the 40 yard line and three rows from the field. We had an opportunity to talk to the sports photographers that were on the field....and there were a bunch of them. Uber expensive Nikon bodies with zoom lenses that cost more than my wife's mini van....wow....what an investment. The one guy had three separate camera set ups...I bet he had close to $100K in gear with him. I am no where near near that.

Thanks for the recommendation on the shutter speeds of 1/500 or greater. I have looked into renting a faster lens. About $100 for Friday night to Monday morning rental. Not bad for a one time thing but I couldn't do it for the entire season. I have never used an ISO as high as Hi 1 or Hi 2....what numerical value are they? How noisy will the photo be at this high a level?

Do I know about "stops"? No, not really. I will have to re-read the Understanding Exposure book and see if I can find that information.

FWIW my zoom has this written on the barrel:

AF-S NIKKOR 55-300mm 1:4.5-5.6GED

The first game is tomorrow night. I'll crank up the ISO and see what happens. I might be back with some pics for your input and critique.


tirediron - at the end of the day you are correct. I am a parent volunteering my time trying to do my best with what I have.

I believe H1 = 10,000 and H2 = 12,000? I could be wrong so don't quote me.

Anyhow, as others have said, shoot in RAW. A lot of sports photos will shoot in Jpeg because it's faster but their using high end gear and shooting in RAW will help you correct noise and exposure in post processing. I would also suggest shutting in Shutter priority and setting it to 1/500 or 1/640 if possible. I would probably shoot in Continuos mode the first couple trips out until you get the hang of it. Also, I would set your camera to AF-C mode...better for moving things.

 

[runnah]

What are you planning to do with the photos? If they are just going to end up viewed online then even the noisiest photos will be more than passable. If they are expecting large prints than they maybe an issue.

 

[JerryLove]

Do I know about "stops"? No, not really. I will have to re-read the Understanding Exposure book and see if I can find that information.

F-number - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In photography, stops are also a unit used to quantify ratios of light or exposure, with each added stop meaning a factor of two, and each subtracted stop meaning a factor of one-half. The one-stop unit is also known as the EV (exposure value) unit. On a camera, the aperture setting is usually adjusted in discrete steps, known as f-stops. Each "stop" is marked with its corresponding f-number, and represents a halving of the light intensity from the previous stop. This corresponds to a decrease of the pupil and aperture diameters by a factor of 1/

or about 0.7071, and hence a halving of the area of the pupil."
​

FWIW my zoom has this written on the barrel:

AF-S NIKKOR 55-300mm 1:4.5-5.6GED

At 55mm, your aperture is F/4.5. At 300mm, your aperture is f/5.6

The progression of f-stops (see above quote) is f/1, f/1.4, f/2, f/2.8, f/4, f/5.6, f/8, f/11, f/16, f/22, f/32, f/45, f/64, f/90, f/128

So if you got, say, a 70-200mm f/2.8; you would be able to get between 2x and 4x as much light into the camera body.

More light in from the lens has two basic effects:
1) Autofocus is faster.
2) You can increase the shutter-speed and/or lower the ISO by the same amount.

Those are also listed in doubling/halving. Often, the term "stop" will still be used.

So if, say, image stabilization is said to be "4 stops" that means (in theory) you could hand shoot a 200mm lens at 1/50sec rather than 1/200sec without motion blur from your hand (note: stabilization does nothing at all for the target's motion).

The first game is tomorrow night. I'll crank up the ISO and see what happens. I might be back with some pics for your input and critique.

I am *very* much the armature here but here's the mantra I follow.

1) Set my f-stop based on the depth of field I am trying to achieve.
2) Set my shutter speed as fast as I can before the ISO starts to rise.

When the ISO starts to come up, if my shutter still isn't fast enough (motion blur) then I start my compromises. At first: I just let the ISO rise; but after a point I have to decide between slower shutter and more shallow DoF (assuming I'm not shooting full-open to begin with).

 

[Fox_Racing_Guy]

You might consider converting the photo's to B&W as well if noise becomes a big issue, easier to deal with noise or "grain" in B&W V Color.

 

[Derrel]

You do realize that you should "pan" with moving subjects, right? Meaning keep the camera moving at the same, exact speed as the players are moving, and "track along with" their movements as much as possible.

 

[Tony S]

Not to knock what you are trying to do, but you are really going to be stretching the capabilities of your camera and lens combo. Even at the shorter focal length with f4.5 you will have problems getting a fast enough shutter speed to stop the action zoomed in will be even worse. Your best bet will be to try and find subjects when they are static and hardly moving, i.e the player in front of the net watching and preparing for what's coming at them.

Set your camera to manual, go with your ISO at H2(if it really is ISO 12,000), set your shutter speed at 1/400 and your aperture as wide open as it will go. Try this out and see what you get, make any changes from there. Most of this really depends on the quality of the lighting from the stadium lights, those will be what makes or breaks what you can do without added flash.

It sounds like the coaches and such need a lesson on just what flash does not do to players on the field, it does not affect their vision, only their concentration if they are not paying attention to what they are supposed to do. Usually it bothers the coaches and the players say they never even notice it. I even have parents in the stands that say they don't really notice the flash if they are watching the action, but do when they are looking at the sidelines where I am shooting from. But that can be a touchy subject when it comes to talking with coaches. Almost all state high school athletic associations allow flash in all sports except gymnastics, volleyball and swimming (at the start of a swim event flash is used to start timers).

 

[runnah]

Do they hold practices under the lights? If they do go and try it out.

It might not be as bad as folks are making it out to be. Depending on the number and quality of the lights you should be able to pull it off.

Also if it wasn't mention earlier, I would use spot metering. This way you are exposing for the players, not the whole scene.