Need help and advice

[DsMcCombs]

I'm new to both the forum and photography. I have a nikon5600 and have purchased a Sigma 150-600 5.3-6. The first time I used it I had no problem. The last softball game I tried to shoot my camera was saying the apature was 14 so all my pictures came out horrible because I didn't notice. My camera has done this before with both Sigma lenses and my nikon lenes. Is there an easy fix to this? I checked to make sure both Sigma lenses were compatible with my camera, and they are. Any ideas on how to fix this would be amazing. Thanks in advance for your time.

An enthusiastic newbie

 

[PJM]

It would be helpful if you could provide some more information. An aperture of 14 all on it’s own shouldn’t cause horrible pictures. What were the other settings? Were you shooting in auto mode, manual mode, other? What was the shutter speed, ISO? And maybe you could post a couple of the pictures so we can see what you mean by “horrible”.

I have the 5600 and have had great luck with it. Although I haven’t used the Sigma lens.

 

[Jeff15]

Hello and welcome...Let's see some of your results...

 

[wfooshee]

It sounds like maybe your camera was in aperture-priority auto-exposure and set to f:14, which is a pretty low light level into the camera. It would have probably used unacceptably long shutter speeds, resulting in motion blur, perhaps huge motion blur.

Be mindful of the exposure mode is all I can say, without knowing more. Shooting sports you probably want to be in shutter-priority mode so you can lock the shutter speed to something acceptable.

 

[ac12]

I'm new to both the forum and photography. I have a nikon5600 and have purchased a Sigma 150-600 5.3-6. The first time I used it I had no problem. The last softball game I tried to shoot my camera was saying the apature was 14 so all my pictures came out horrible because I didn't notice. My camera has done this before with both Sigma lenses and my nikon lenes. Is there an easy fix to this? I checked to make sure both Sigma lenses were compatible with my camera, and they are. Any ideas on how to fix this would be amazing. Thanks in advance for your time.

An enthusiastic newbie

As @wfooshee and @PJM said, we need more data.
Post a sample picture, with ALL the exposure info (ISO, shutter speed, aperture, time of day, lighting condition).
Did you hand-hold the lens or use a support?
Where were you sitting/standing and what player position were you shooting?

The 150-600 at 600 is a LOT of magnification (17x).
If you are hand-holding the lens, even with the lens IS, you may not be able to hold the lens steady enough.

I shoot high school sports a LOT, and I've mentored students.
If you use the wrong lens for the sport, you will have problems.
If you do NOT get the exposure settings correct for the sport you are shooting, you will have problems.

Something you just learned.
BEFORE you go out on a shoot, check the settings on the camera, to make sure that the settings are appropriate for the shoot, and if necessary change the settings to be appropriate.
My setting for a night game is totally different than my setting for a day game which is totally different for a gym game.
The teacher in one of my classes, made a cheat sheet/check list for his students. For each of the sports they shoot, what the camera settings should be. That is laminated and put into the camera bag, so the students have no excuse for not knowing what to set the camera to for a given sport.

Example: Softball might be: ISO 800, exposure Shutter priority, Shutter speed 1/1600 sec.

There are other issues, like is the sun to your back, or are you shooting towards the sun.
Is it windy? It can be hard to hold the camera steady in the wind.

 

[weepete]

what mode were you shooting in?

 

[DsMcCombs]

And I guess the big thing I am asking is if the lens has a set aperture setting like a 5-6 how does it go to 14? Is that due to another setting changing? Im not really sure if i am even asking the right question. Its like all the pictures i took after the dead battery change are grainy and blah. I don't know why that would make a difference, but I didn't change anything else.

I usually shoot manual and adjust based on what I am doing and what I am shooting. And again I am brand new at this so I am just trying to figure things out.

About the picture..... my light was crap it was cloudy and rainy. I am on third base side, my daughter who is in the picture plays shortstop. Shutter 2500, f14, and Iso 25600

 

[ac12]

The "grainy" look is from the "high ISO noise" of 25600.
That is why people try to use the lowest ISO possible, to avoid that high ISO noise.
If you shot at about f/8 (2-stops faster), then you could lower your ISO to 6400, where you would have less noise.
If you don't know how to set the ISO, read the manual.

On the D5600, the camera controls the aperture.
In manual mode, to change the aperture, you press and hold down a button (read your manual for which button), then turn the control wheel.

You could probably lower the shutter speed down to about 1600, so that you can lower the ISO another half stop.

When you have poor lighting, like a rainy day vs. a sunny day, you end up having to raise the ISO to compensate for the lack of sun light.
In DIM/LOW lighting, I either
- Go aperture priority, set the lens WIDE OPEN, max light. Then I watch the shutter speed, to make sure it does not drop below 1600. If shutter speed does drop below 1600, raise the ISO to get the shutter speed above 1600.
- Alternate is to set the camera to manual; with shutter speed 1/1600, aperture WIDE OPEN, then set the ISO to auto. This lets the camera deal with the ISO. I do not remember how to set the ISO to auto on the D5600, so again, read the manual.

Note: The sport scene mode on the D5600 has a cap on the auto ISO of 3200, so in dim lighting, the ISO will not go higher than 3200. This is why sports scene mode is essentially useless in low light conditions, especially with a slow lens.

The first time you used the lens, was probably in nice sunny weather, and you did not have to raise the ISO so high.

This is why, without the pic and your exposure info, we could not give you any decent recommendations.

 

[PJM]

Some of your question I think relates to nomenclature. On the 150-600 5.3-6 lens, the 5.3-6 indicates the widest aperture’s the lens is capable of at the extremes of the focal length. So at 150mm the widest aperture you can get is f/5.3. At 600, it is f/6. The lens is certainly capable of going to smaller apertures such as f/14.

 

[DsMcCombs]

So I also just realized that my husband was shooting at this point.

 

[DsMcCombs]

Thanks everyone for the help. Sorry about not being sure what to post or how to ask my questions. I will get better at it I'm sure. And the more I get into this the more questions I'm sure I will have.

 

[DsMcCombs]

Some of your question I think relates to nomenclature. On the 150-600 5.3-6 lens, the 5.3-6 indicates the widest aperture’s the lens is capable of at the extremes of the focal length. So at 150mm the widest aperture you can get is f/5.3. At 600, it is f/6. The lens is certainly capable of going to smaller apertures such as f/14.

I guess I just thought that if that was the aperture range it wouldn't go above or below that.

 

[wfooshee]

f:14 aperture could well have been what was metered with the ISO that high. The lens is probably capable of stopping down all the way to f:32 or even f:40.

Still the question of "how did it get to 14?" depends on several things, but it very well could have been auto-selected by the camera with that shutter speed and ISO. If that was an auto-metered exposure, then dropping the ISO to 6400 or even a bit lower would still have been within the range of that lens's maximum aperture. 3200 would probably underexpose at that shutter speed, but you could change the shutter speed to 1/1600 as suggested above to gain some room on the aperture limit.