Friday Night Football

mmparker01 · Aug 30, 2014

I cannot afford a 70-200 2.8 is, not sure if I will ever be able to but I like to take photos for Friday night football games. I am currently using Canon 40d with an 18-200mm lens, what is my best setting under the lights?

Light Guru · Aug 30, 2014

mmparker01 said:
what is my best setting under the lights?

Well considering nobody here has taken a meter reading from the stadium you will be shooting in nobody here can tell you the exact settings you should use.

The settings you use are also probably going to change throughout the evening because the game will start when there is still some light in the sky and continue until after the sun goes down. Changing light conditions means changing camera settings.

If you learn the exposure triangle you will never have to ask what settings to use because you will know how to make the adjustments you need to get the best exposure for the conditions you are in.

mmparker01 · Aug 30, 2014

Well, you make a good point. This is where my inexperience shines through, obviously need to do more playing around with the settings and study a lot more

pdq5oh · Aug 30, 2014

You're going to have to crank the ISO up to at least 6400 and use the widest (most open) aperture your lens has. I'm guessing 5.6? Set your shutter speed to overexpose about 1/3 to 1/2 stop. Experiment with this. Hopefully you'll be able to freeze the action. It's going to be tough with such a slow lens. Shoot raw and use auto white balance, as many times the lights pulse, and the color temp will change from shot to shot. Shooting raw you can correct color shifts in post. Good luck.

goodguy · Aug 31, 2014

I will be brutally honest..........................

Read a quick review of your 40D camera and while its perfectly capable of producing good pictures in good to mid lighting conditions I dont think it will be able to produce good quality pictures in low light in the conditions you are describing, not even with the 70-200mm 2.8 lens
You might be able to use an 85mm f1.8 lens which is a very moderate zoom lens (hope this is the right term) but you will need to be located close to the field but I doubt even then you will get good shots.
For sports shooting I wouldnt get my shutter speed bellow 1/400 which means high ISO even at f1.8

Good luck

Derrel · Aug 31, 2014

High school fields often have sucky lights, and the end zones are often pretty dim compared to the 50 yard line area. With a slow lens like the 18-200, focusing will be tough. The 40D is NOT that bad a camera, but a faster-aperture lens would help...you can usually get field access, and there are plays where the action comes close to the sidelines, and of course, on plays that start at the 20 and closer to the goal line, GOOD pictures can be made with short lenses, like 35mm or 50mm prime lenses, since the action is 20 to 60 feet away, and MAY come right to where you are!!!

ISO setting of 2,500 or 3,200 is a good start. Lens wide-open if it is a slowpoke like the 18-200. Pan with the action. Look for running backs turning the corner and coming close to you on end-around type plays. On TD passes, be at the back line of the endzone, and watch the ball in the air, as soon as you see which side the ball is going to, pick up the receiver and get focused and when the ball arrives, shoot. On short-yardage shots, pre-focus somewhat on the defenders' backs and be ready for a running back to break through the line.

Pay ATTENTION to the game, ttay 7 to 8 yards ahead of the line of scrimmage, and be READY on every play. Do not talk to others, and do not let others talk to you. Stay alert.DOn't chimp all the time, be SHOOTING all the time instead. Delete the bad ones LATER< not missing frames during the actual game play time! After each score, shoot the celebration that is around you: coaches and players jumping for joy, high-fiving, etc. SHoot the rally squad at halftime. Shoot a bit of concession stands during the pre-game run-up.

See if you can borrow a FAST lens, something with an f/2 or f/1.8 max aperture!

TCampbell · Aug 31, 2014

pdq5oh said:
You're going to have to crank the ISO up to at least 6400 and use the widest (most open) aperture your lens has. I'm guessing 5.6? Set your shutter speed to overexpose about 1/3 to 1/2 stop. Experiment with this. Hopefully you'll be able to freeze the action. It's going to be tough with such a slow lens. Shoot raw and use auto white balance, as many times the lights pulse, and the color temp will change from shot to shot. Shooting raw you can correct color shifts in post. Good luck.

It's a Canon 40D... ISO is normally 100-1600. If "expanded" mode is enabled, it can go to 3200 but it's called "expanded" mode because even the camera maker doesn't think you'd normally ever want to use that mode due to the intense amount of noise you'd have in the resulting images.

In the end, you've got to be able to use a high enough ISO and then collect enough light for that ISO *while* keeping a fast enough shutter speed for the action.

"Fast enough" shutter speed is usually about 1/500th sec (faster is preferred... but below 1/500th sec it gets hard to freeze action.)

As I sift through Flickr looking for football (at night) shots, I see examples where I can translate exposure values to EV 6 (mid-afternoon sunlight is EV 15 -- so that's 9 stops lower. Each "stop" is half the light. So that's 1/2 of 1/2 of 1/2 etc. ... 9 times out. Or "roughly" 1/500th as much light (just so you know what you're up against.)

Suppose you max your camera ISO to ISO 1600 (ignore ISO the "expanded" ISO of 3200 because I'm pretty sure you'll hate how much noise you have.) Suppose you have a 70-300mm f/4-5.6 lens. At 300mm you're at f/5.6 (frankly you're at f/5.6 by the time you get to 200mm). To get enough light at ISO 1600 using an f/5.6 lens you'd have to slow the shutter speed to a mere 1/30th second shot. That's NOT going to be adequate to freeze action unless the camera is on a tripod and the subject is standing still.

If you had an f/2.8 lens, you could make it to 1/125th second. But that's still not really fast enough. You need to be able to bring the ISO up to about ISO 6400 (even with an f/2.8 lens) to achieve 1/500th sec. but that's beyond what a 40D can do. At f/5.6 you'd need to bring the ISO up 2 stops faster... ISO 25,600. It turns out some modern cameras actually *can* do that. Of course at those high max ISOs you do get noise... so being able to use a fast lens will allow you to drop the ISO down to ranges where noise isn't really a problem.

The 7D has had quite a huge price cut (in anticipation of the announcement of the 7D II -- which we actually think may be as soon as next week.) A 7D is strongly preferred because the camera is optimized for action photography such as sports. BUT... even a 60D (which has also had a huge price cut) has the same sensor and ISO capabilities of the 7D but it has the same focus system as the 40D (9 point AF where all 9 points are "cross type" even at f/5.6). The 7D, on the other hand, has 19 AF points which are all "cross type"). The 7D has a vastly faster continuous shooting speed (8 frames per second.)

You may want to call Canon and ask them about their "loyalty program". This allows you to trade in your 40D for a discount on a newer camera (the camera you trade in does not need to be a "working" camera.)