How Do You Take Action Shots

Echevang · Feb 20, 2013

I need help! I need to take action shots for my photography class in which we use film. But to be safe and to see my results instantly I also brought my Nikon D5000 to make sure I was setting my camera correctly. I went to an inside horse show so flash would not have been an option. The lighting was dim but not horrible yet when I set my aperture to 5.6 ( the lowest my lens goes) and the shutter speed to 625 and an ISP at about 600 and something my picture came out almost black. I tried to reverse the numbers and the results were lighter but the images were very blurry and noisy. Someone please help me! This is so frustrating. I thought I was following everything correctly. Do I need to invest in another lens that allows me to get a lower aperture? Will a flash make that much of a difference?

gjhill · Feb 20, 2013

Well I always go for higher ISO because noise/grain is better than blur/underexposure. Easier to fix, more tolerable to leave in, etc... But you say you are going to be shooting film? I would think you'd want to set your ISO to whatever the speed of your eventual film will be using, otherwise your D5000 photos won't really be representative of the final exposure you go for on your other camera using film. Unless this exercise is confined to your digital camera, I wasn't clear on your intention there. If you can, crank that sucker up. (Note: I don't shoot Nikon so I don't know how high you can go before it gets "bad"

)

A larger aperture isn't going to get you that much. Roughly 2-3 stops of light depending on if you go f/2.8 or f/1.8 respectively. And then you're introducing DOF concerns... maybe you like the idea of a shallow DOF but you'd probably end up forcing yourself to pre-focus and predict where the horse was going to be because you wouldn't be able to focus and take the shot fast enough. Maybe not, but that was my first thought on that matter. Also, I personally believe that buying something new should never be the first solution especially on an unpaid gig... that can get really expensive really quickly!

Finally shutter speed... yeah if you are locked into an ISO and a f-stop, the only other thing you can do, barring adding more light, is slow down the shutter speed. But you might already need a faster shutter than you're using if those horses are actually doing jumps, etc... If they are relatively stationary or walking slowly you might be able to go slower. You could also pan and track the horse, although that's not technically stopping motion, but it would allow you to use a lower shutter speed.

As for the frustratingly dark image, did your camera indicate a correct exposure before you took it?

TL;DR It's kind of a pickle if you're only solution is to slow down the shutter speed while your goal is to keep it fast, but you do have to "buy" those stops of light from somewhere.

Snowtographer · Feb 20, 2013

Crank that ISO! Experiment with various lighting scenarios in your house and figure out where the ISO gets too noisy for you- so you have an upper limit for what YOU consider acceptable for your pictures.

Personally I would shoot on shutter priority and keep it high enough to avoid hand shake in that situation- it's more important than worrying about depth of field (how much of the image is in focus)

You may need to get a faster (lower aperture) lens, especially if you want noiseless images and want to avoid using a flash. But try cranking that ISO way up and figure out where you're happy. You'll want to keep your shutter speed above 1/30 if you're using a fairly wide lens (like the 18-55 kit zoomed all the way out), and may need to take a few redundant pictures to make sure there's not any shake. Faster shutter speeds for longer focal lengths which it sounds like you're using since the lens is so slow. It depends on the photographer's ability to hand shoot and whether there is VR.

I disagree with the above poster...going to a faster lens will make a tremendous difference. Especially going from f/5.6 to f/1.8! One stop is twice as much light.

As far as your film camera, fast glass is important here too, even more so since fast film can look VERY grainy and generally film just isn't as fast as digital. What speed of film are you using? Does your class include a development class? Do you know about push-processing?

Echevang · Feb 20, 2013

The speed of the film I have is 400. We develop the photos but I was trying to avoid having a whole roll be just black images like I was getting on my digital. Although my film camera has a lower f stop than my digital. It goes to 1.8.

Snowtographer · Feb 20, 2013

What kind of camera is your film camera? Does it have a light meter? As long as the light meter is even remotely close to accurate you'll get at least usable pictures.

Don't fear rolls of black. It sounds like you need to be using aperture or shutter priority or even program (fully auto) mode until your photography class gives you a better understanding of exposure.

A shutter speed of 1/30 at f/5.6 exposes the film to the same amount of light as a shutter speed of 1/320 at f/1.8. You can see that's a huge difference.

bratkinson · Feb 21, 2013

One of the "tricks" I use to decide on what manual settings to make is to take a shot or two in full auto mode. Then look at what settings the camera decided to use and set up my manual settings from there. Although the camera will do its best to make the right exposure, it doesn't know/care about subject movement, etc.

As a result, it will likely shoot wide open and a shutter speed too slow while keeping the ISO relatively low under low light conditions. By increasing the ISO speed and shutter speed as well to stop subject motion, you'll get the shot, at the cost of higher noise levels.

But in your situation, shooting with the intent going to ASA 400 film, you need to lock the ISO at 400. At that speed, you will absolutely require a fast lens, definitely f2.8 or faster, to get a reasonable shutter speed. Depending on lighting, you may still end up with shutter speeds too slow to stop subject motion blur. Recognize, too, that wide open (or nearly so) gives very thin depth of field which makes accurate focusing even more critical. Also, most lenses are less than their sharpest wide open, as well.

Bottom line, I don't think ASA 400 film/ISO 400 will give you the results you want without a flash. I upgraded all my glass to f2.8 or faster and ultimately moved to a 5D3 for the higher ISOs needed to do low-light work without a flash.

Wozza · Feb 21, 2013

To attack this from another angle....

It sounds like your are making life difficult for yourself. How much freedom do you have in your brief? Do you have to shoot horses indoors? Action photography is so much easier outside. Because with action you generally need faster shutter speeds, more light makes this achievable. Can you photograph horses outdoors? Or something else outdoors, or indoors with a flash?

Action shots are not impossible in low light, just very hard. Slower shutter speeds can be great for fast action as they show motion, but you will need to be/get pretty good at panning, especially shooting film.