I've been photographing sports, especially football, for several years but I'm trying to figure out how to make the best of the poor lighting available at most high school football stadiums with my D300. I've had several opportunities to photograph some college games and the lighting is much better so I'm ok there. However, when I shoot a high school game I almost always have to max out the ISO at 6,400 and have my 70 - 200mm Nikon lens wide open at f/2.8 to get anywhere near the 1/500th of a second I consider to be the minimum shutter speed I shoot football games at.
I would really rather shoot at a lower ISO and with my lens stopped down to at least f/4 but if I do these things my shutter speed will be much too slow to freeze the action. Is there anything I can do, either when I'm shooting or afterwards on the computer, to compensate for such bad lighting?
I have considered using flash, but I really don't have the equipment to do that right now.
I would really rather shoot at a lower ISO and with my lens stopped down to at least f/4 but if I do these things my shutter speed will be much too slow to freeze the action. Is there anything I can do, either when I'm shooting or afterwards on the computer, to compensate for such bad lighting?
I have considered using flash, but I really don't have the equipment to do that right now.
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