Tell me how you would do it! Please?

[MitchStrp]

United States Air Force is having a mixed martial arts event on saturday. I havent seen the venue or how the building sets up but I was told I will be ringside (octagon side w.e) shooting action shots from behind the fence. Now my question is with typical stadium lighting (florescent) how would you shoot this? Just sport settings? Manual? Shutter speeds? Give me some suggestion I want to get the best shots possible with very little tweaking as possible.



Thanks Guys!!

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Do you know how to use a light meter?

 

[MitchStrp]

I actually dont, very new. very little knowledge about photography but loving learning such a great hobby. So, What a light meter? :mrgreen:

 

[MitchStrp]

Looked them up online, a handheld is way out of the budget. Does my camera have one by chance D3200 I couldnt find if it had one built in or not.

 

[tirediron]

Yes, your camera has a built-in light meter. If you know how to adjust basic settings, then set your ISO to the highest usable setting (before images begin to suffer too much digital noise; experimentation may be necessary), then put the camera into aperture priority (A) mode, and set the aperture to the largest aperture (smalles 'f' #) and hope for the best (I'm assuming you don't have or wouldn't be allowed to use a flash). If you aren't sure about those settings, put it in 'green box' mode and hope for the best. Gyms are miserable to shoot in with even the best gear, so don't expect too much.

 

[Bitter Jeweler]

Yes, your camera has a light meter. You use it to figure out what settings to use, based on the light available.

Photography 101.8 ? The Light Meter

Understanding Camera Metering and Exposure

 

[KmH]

DSLR camera's have a built-in reflected light meter. Your D3200 offers 3 light meter modes of use. See page 60 of your D3200 user's manual, which is a PDF file on the software disc, not a hard copy.

By the same token, your D3200 has 3 different auto focus modes, that are used in conjunction with the D3200's 3 auto focus area modes. (See pages 35-43 of the user's manual)

A further considereation would be White Balance, which is basically telling the camera what type of lighting is being used. (See page 69 of the user's manual)

You might also look at - Understanding Camera Metering and Exposure
Camera Exposure: Aperture, ISO & Shutter Speed
Understanding Camera Autofocus
Understanding White Balance
Understanding Depth of Field in Photography

 

[MitchStrp]

TiredIron Thank You! I understand exactly what your saying, probably the best settings i could chose for a poor lighted arena. Hopefully I can get up high and get the stupid fencing out of the shot!! Any chance of photoshopping it out, airbrush maybe?

 

[MitchStrp]

To shoot in Jpeg or Raw?

 

[tirediron]

Shoot in raw+jpg. The fence will hopefully be defocused enough not to be a major issue.

 

[Solarflare]

You can put your camera into raw+jpeg and then forget about it.

JPEG is a very poor medium and only records a small fraction of the data your camera actually gathers. However, having a jpeg ready is sometimes handy, and allows you to see what the image is when its in the filesystem of your computer.

RAW is a camera specific (well, vendor specific) file format. For Nikon, this format has the ending .NEF. Even if you dont know what to do with these files yet, they will offer you a lot more data and a lot more editing options later.

 

[deeky]

Hope OP doesn't mind me piggybacking a little, but it may be a sort-of solution for him:

There are light meter apps for phones out there that use the phone camera to measure light. Anyone played with them? Are they that accurate? I've only looked at the free version a little.

Just curious.

 

[ph0enix]

You'll probably want to keep the ISO at or under 1600.

 

[greybeard35 7]

You'll probably want to keep the ISO at or under 1600.

I would have to respectfully disagree and say, set your ISO at it's highest setting when shooting sports. It will do you no good to have a noise free picture if it is all blur because the shutter speed was too low to capture the action. Bare in mind though that ISO settings above 1600 will get noisy so don't be surprised if they are. One of the reasons people pay big bucks for cameras like the Nikon D3 is for their ability to shoot at ISO 6400 and above and still produce usable images.

 

[ph0enix]

You'll probably want to keep the ISO at or under 1600.

I would have to respectfully disagree and say, set your ISO at it's highest setting when shooting sports. It will do you no good to have a noise free picture if it is all blur because the shutter speed was too low to capture the action. Bare in mind though that ISO settings above 1600 will get noisy so don't be surprised if they are. One of the reasons people pay big bucks for cameras like the Nikon D3 is for their ability to shoot at ISO 6400 and above and still produce usable images.

I guess I should have elaborated more. Given the OP's lack of photographic knowledge, I didn't want him to be surprised if he cranks up the ISO to Hi-1 (12,800 equiv.) and then comes back asking "what did I do wrong?" when the images are noisy. He needs to decide for himself how much noise is acceptable.
I definitely agree with what you're saying.