Sports Photography Question

jketcham

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For the first time tonight I attempted to do sports photography at a local high school football game, I've read up on it in the past and thought I would finally give it a try.

The pictures I got I think came out ok, but I am confused on something...

On a few sites that I've read the tips they gave regarding shooting football is to keep your shutter speed at 1/1000 or above with the aperture wide open and that you may need to bump the ISO up to 400-800, maybe more.

I have a Canon Rebel XTI with a Sigma 70-300MM lens I use, I set my shutter to 1/1000, F4.0, ISO of 800 and even bumped it up to 1600.. the pictures are completely dark and unusable. How do you use a shutter speed of 1/1000 because nothing I did would work, I ended up having to just change the dial over to "Sports" mode on the camera.

If you're curious as to how my pictures turned out on Sports mode, you can see the pics at http://www.kschaser.com/gallery/index.php?dir=PHS Game

Thanks for any tips!

Joey
 
You don't need to have the shutter speed that high. I mean, it does help in some situations, but that is not necessary, 1/500 will be enough. But make sure to keep your aperture aperture as wide as you can, and a decent shutter speed. Shooting sports during night time is difficult, especially if you do not have a fast lens. Try it again, this time with wide aperture, a shutter speed of about 1/500, and the ISO can be bumped up to around 800 I would say. Experiment with it.
 
when you used the "sports" mode, what is the meta data?
that will give you some insight as what you can use in the other modes.
 
Those photos are about as good as you can get with that lens at night.
Shutter speed in the exif is mostly 100/125th @ F/4, I dont think any amount of manual adjustment will shoot better than the sports mode, other than bumping the iso, but then things get noisy.
Daytime you might get speeds of 1/500th if your lucky, but F/4 max app is just too slow for stop action sports at night, you need F/2.8 and even thats no cake walk.
 
Thanks for the advice.

I tried to get down below F/4 but it wouldn't let me. For now I am just using the Sigma, down the road I will get a better lens.

The link changed to my pictures by the way, I switched to a new photo gallery so the link is now http://kschaser.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=3

Again, thanks for the feedback and advice!

Joey
 
I have facing similar problem with my dslr and normal lens. If I were to use fast shutter speed which means less light will hit the sensor, and the picture will turned out too dark. When with fast shutter speed is it a must for one to use a ext flash?

I have tried on my Canon G7, it seems that I have to use flash in order to make the image brighten. Without flash at fast shutter speed the image is just too dark!.

Any solution?
 
Thanks for the advice.

I tried to get down below F/4 but it wouldn't let me. For now I am just using the Sigma, down the road I will get a better lens.

The link changed to my pictures by the way, I switched to a new photo gallery so the link is now http://kschaser.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=3

Again, thanks for the feedback and advice!

Joey
Well I can explain one thing for you, the reason your camera will not let you go below F/4 is that F/4 is not available on your lens. I think as far as exposure goes you did an excellent job you just need to work on composition and capturing the right moment. Also, do not expect your images to look like Sports illustrated or for that matter even something out of your local newspaper as the smallest lens most of those guys ues will run you in excess of $4000 and that is a small one.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/183202-USA/Canon_2531A002_Telephoto_EF_300mm_f_2_8L.html

And this is a little closer

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/186153-GREY/Canon_2534A002_Telephoto_EF_600mm_f_4_0L.html
 
JIP hit the nail on the head...
Your limitation is your lens and it's maximum aperture...which isn't very large. Sports photography is one of the most demanding types of shooting because you need long lenses and they need large apertures in order to get shutter speeds fast enough to freeze the action.

Also, it doesn't help that high school fields are not as brightly lit than pro fields.
 

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