Need help

stratt0n · Jan 14, 2016

I was taking pics at.my daughters volleyball game. I st my camera to manual mode. Ap set at 1000 f-stop at 2.8 iso at 800. The pictures came out very dark. What did I do wrong? When I turned the dial to get the setting in the
middle the Ap went to 60 but pictures were good but the action was not frozen.

KmH · Jan 14, 2016

Camera Exposure: Aperture, ISO & Shutter Speed

cherylynne1 · Jan 14, 2016

I think there are some typos in your post that are preventing me from completely understanding you and giving any specific advice. Posting a problem photo with EXIF would help also.

However, in a situation like that, I would likely set the camera to shutter priority rather than manual. It's also important to switch to spot metering. I do usually shoot in manual mode, but the exceptions for me is when I'm trying to get shots in a constantly changing environment. Let the camera do the thinking until you're completely confident with the exposure triangle.

SCraig · Jan 14, 2016

If the meter centered at 1/60 second and you were shooting at 1/1000 second then your photographs were 4 stops underexposed. Hence: Quite dark! You can't just use settings because that's what you want to use, you have to balance them to the amount of light.

cherylynne1 · Jan 14, 2016

SCraig said:
If the meter centered at 1/60 second and you were shooting at 1/1000 second then your photographs were 4 stops underexposed. Hence: Quite dark! You can't just use settings because that's what you want to use, you have to balance them to the amount of light.

Oh, now I understand what they were trying to say! I was totally lost in the original post.

Okay, OP: Basically, it was a very dim scene with very fast moving subjects. This pushes just about any camera to its limits. You definitely won't get sharp action shots at 1/60. You might have been able to go down to 1/500, maybe even a little less if the subject isn't moving too fast. Your only choice then would have been to bump the ISO way up, which may or may not be an option depending on your camera. If worst came to worst, I would focus on getting sharp shots and underexposing a bit and then bumping it up in post processing.

Derrel · Jan 14, 2016

Indoor Gymnasium lighting at the middle- and high-school level in newer buildings is somewhere along the line of ISO 3,200 at 1/400 second at f/2.8...which is kind of the bare minimum for volleyball...at 1/400 second, the ball on spikes will be blurred...the ball coming off the server's hand will be blurred...but the faces and leaps will be pretty well-stopped, and the ball on digs will look pretty good, since the ball is moving very slowly on digs, and also on sets. A little bit of blurring does convey a sense of movement, of motion, so I would not get too overly worried about the ball being a bit elongated, rather than a perfectly round sphere.

An ISO level of 800 at f/2.8 at 1/1000 second is going to be severely under-exposed...that would be an exceptionally bright in door lighting for any HS gymnasium.

With a new-style sensor, you might be able to "lift" the exposures up and brighten them in software, and have decent, usable images--especially if you shot in raw capture mode. Please tell us you shot the game in raw mode!!!!

Trever1t · Jan 14, 2016

it's a simple matter of understanding the relationships between 3 things...and it's really easy.

Aperture-Shutter speed-ISO

Learn what these three things are, how adjusting one affects the others and you will be able to take a perfectly exposed image anywhere or anytime! (Or at least understand perfectly why you cant!)