Sports Photography Settings

[glp103]

I am definitely a newbie that is trying to get away from the auto modes on my entry level DSLR. I use a Canon T3. I have been taking pictures of my daughters fast paced lacrosse games with the EF 75-300mm zoom lens and on Sports mode there was no option to adjust the settings. I had a big problem with the depth of field, I think part of the reason was the 9 points of focus it has in that mode and the camera assumes the player I want in focus, but many times it was incorrect as my daughter was the blurry one.
I have had some success changing the settings to Av F5.6, ISO800, 1250/sec with center focus only on. Many shots were much better than Auto in bright sunlight, however when it was overcast the photos were washed out and lacked color. I am not sure which settings correction I should make for the next game that is not in bright sunlight, any suggestions would be appreciated.

 

[photog4life]

You will likely have to change settings for each picture.

Get a ground zero then go from there. 1250 is an extremely high shutter for lacrosse though and you could lower the shutter speed to about 1/500 with an iso of 400 and then keep the aperture at 5.6.


Read this : Camera Exposure: Aperture, ISO & Shutter Speed

This will help you understand what everything does a little bit better.

 

[glp103]

Thanks, I am reading it now since we have a game at 5:00pm today and it is cloudy right now. I was worried about motion blur so I kept the shutter speed a bit high. I try and follow the players as they are running down the field and take continuous photos as they pass by trying to focus on one, sometimes we are as close as 10-15ft apart. I will lower that today and see if it works. I usually don't think quick enough while the action is going on to try and change the settings and still capture the play, so I was kind of doing a set it and leave it thing.

 

[Tailgunner]

1250 seems a bit high to me as well. Our son plays basket ball and at 1/600~, you could read the wording on the basketball as it's about to fall through the net. Now indoor sports lighting isn't all that great, so I generally have to crank up the ISO pretty high, ISO 3200-6400. I try to keep the F-stop from falling below F/5.6.

 

[glp103]

1250 seems a bit high to me as well. Our son plays basket ball and at 1/600~, you could read the wording on the basketball as it's about to fall through the net. Now indoor sports lighting isn't all that great, so I generally have to crank up the ISO pretty high, ISO 3200-6400. I try to keep the F-stop from falling below F/5.6.

How is the noise on the ISO?

 

[Tailgunner]

1250 seems a bit high to me as well. Our son plays basket ball and at 1/600~, you could read the wording on the basketball as it's about to fall through the net. Now indoor sports lighting isn't all that great, so I generally have to crank up the ISO pretty high, ISO 3200-6400. I try to keep the F-stop from falling below F/5.6.

How is the noise on the ISO?

Well, it's a full frame sensor, so it handles noise better at higher ISO. I still got noise but it wasn't that bad. I could clear most of it out with noise reduction and the rest was hardly noticeable unless i cropped too tight.

 

[glp103]

Thanks for the suggestions. I had luck with keeping the ISO between 400 and 800 with F/5.6, but I still needed a speed of 1000 to 1250 or I would get motion blur if the players were at a full sprint. The depth of field is fine right now. I will continually practice and get more familiar with the camera and settings. It's tough to experiment during a game when I am running up and down the sidelines myself. Someday I hope to be proficient enough to use a shallow DOF and have only my daughter in sharp detail in certain shots. The saturation on some shots is not ideal to a professional photographer, but I will improve in time. The main thing is I did capture some amazing action shots that I shared with the other team mates and parents and they can't stop thanking me. In live action nobody gets to absorb what you get from a still, from facial expressions, ponytails flying, body position and muscles flexing. My next question is should I shoot in "RAW"? Right now I shoot and save at the highest .jpg setting. Thanks again.

 

[muskaan]

Thanks for the suggestions. I had luck with keeping the ISO between 400 and 800 with F/5.6, but I still needed a speed of 1000 to 1250 or I would get motion blur if the players were at a full sprint. The depth of field is fine right now. I will continually practice and get more familiar with the camera and settings. It's tough to experiment during a game when I am running up and down the sidelines myself. Someday I hope to be proficient enough to use a shallow DOF and have only my daughter in sharp detail in certain shots. The saturation on some shots is not ideal to a professional photographer, but I will improve in time. The main thing is I did capture some amazing action shots that I shared with the other team mates and parents and they can't stop thanking me. In live action nobody gets to absorb what you get from a still, from facial expressions, ponytails flying, body position and muscles flexing. My next question is should I shoot in "RAW"? Right now I shoot and save at the highest .jpg setting. Thanks again.

If you shoot in Raw, you can fix various issues like temp, lens correction which will make image look better. Also try on manual mode or shutter speed mode, it will def give you more control.

 

[curtyoungblood]

You're right 1/1250 is not too fast for shooting sports. While 1/500 is often considered an absolute minimum, you're much more likely to freeze action at 1/1000 or above. If you're running in to ISO problems, you could safely go to about 1/800. Low contrast and saturation are pretty common on overcast days.

 

[KmH]

Not mentioned is that the White Balance has to change when it gores from direct sunlight to cloudy.

1/500 would be a minimum shutter speed for any type of action sports and photos won't be hurt by using a faster shutter speed if there is so much light the faster speed is needed to keep the lens aperture wide enough to blur the background.

It is generally better to have some image noise than it is to have blurry photos.

When I shot outdoor field action sports I used aperture priority, auto ISO, and auto white balance.
In the viewfinder I kept a close eye on the shutter speed the camera was choosing to make sure the shutter speed never got below 1/500 though i preferred the shutter speed to be 1/1000 or faster.

In addition i used Spot light metering (your T3 doesn't offer Spot light metering) mode, continuous focus, an area mode that let me use all the AF modules cross-type AF sensors, and I configured the camera such that the focus function was moved from the shutter release to a button on the back of the camera - known as back button focus. After a quick look at the T3 user manual it doesn't look like the T3 can be set up to do back button focus.

 

[Scoody]

I have been shooting high school football games. The games usually start with an hour of sunlight left and then transition to under the lights so my ISO settings have to change accordingly. I have been pretty successful shooting as low as a 400 shutterspeed. I like to stay around 600 fps but will lower it a bit as I up the ISO.

 

[TheNevadanStig]

I think that the 1250 shutter is a little fast. But the 500 or 600 others suggested would be WAY too slow for lacrosse. The thing about lacrosse is they are swinging sticks around at much higher speeds than anything you would see at a football or basketball game. Think more like photographing a batter in baseball mid-swing. That's what you deal with most of a lacrosse game. I would start out at around 1/800 and go up from there until your reliably not getting blur with the sticks mid-swing. I know when I do the kayakers, I usually need around 1/1000 or so to keep the paddles sharp.
I am not sure why your ISO is so high for daylight. Even with that 1250 shutter, at f5.6 800 ISO seems way high for an outdoor, daytime shoot.
As far as the focus and metering, I always like a single focus point and spot metering. Aim right for the athletes eyes.

 

[imagemaker46]

Whatever works. 1250 isn't too fast for sports, if you can get away with shooting 1250 at 5.6, that's great. I shot soccer in bright sunlight, mind you it was backlit, and was shooting at iso 640-800 and at 1000 at 6.3, basically the same. It really doesn't matter as long as the images you are getting work. People overthink everything, when simple basic settings are all that's required.