Bad Pictures at out Basketball game . help plz

so I took my new Camera out to the game took over 60 pictures could not use one good one at all
I was unable to use a flash so i had to try just about every setting I could come up with I even googled so in door setting for my nikon D5100 for indoor games with no luck

I started with Auto setting then went to A with my ISO at 400 then went up every few pictures up to 6400 all were dark bad lighting some just to dark or the color was just off..

Also when trying to take a picture of the score board the lights would not show up on the pictures.. until set to auto ..

most settings on line said start at :1/300 +- ISO 400-6400

Where is a good setting to start at:

Which lens do you have...I shot a soccer match at night with a 50mm 1.8 lens..

The lighting wasn't good and set the aperture at F2 ISO at 800 shutter at 1/250th of a sec and shot it raw and jpeg...

The images were dark and was able to save a lot in photoshop..

In addition to which lens, what post processing did you try?? can you upload a couple with the EXIF data and we may be able to comment more..

Pat in NH

What Lens and what f stop were you shooting at? Normally indoors with low light require fast glass.

It would help if you posted a few examples so we can see exactly what you're talking about.

My pictures are up you can see the lighting how diffrent in seetings first one is on auto then A mode with ISO starting at 400 then up to 6400 . Using a 18-55 lens

Pictures posted in gallery 18-55mm you need to be closer, practice flash shots at home and see what the flash does, start at say 10 ft and keep moving back. Next buy a flash to fit on your hotshoe.

I cant use a flash at the basketball game so thats not an option .

I see your aperture was set at F8, if you open it up to F4.5 to F5.6 you might get better images

That does look way better than before. Thanks.

There are a few things I see wrong with your pictures. First and mostly important is the fact that they are underexposed. It is not uncommon for beginners just to point and shoot. You have to understand how the camera's light meter is trying to decide on how much light the sensor needs in order to produce a photo. If you were to take a photo of a white wall, the camera would try to make it 18% grey. If you were to take a photo of a black wall, the camera would try to make it 18% grey. This is the standard for light meters. In your case, there is a lot of white in the pictures (wall and ceiling) so the camera underexposed (less light). Some of these things must be understood before you take the photos. The camera has no idea of what the scene is. It's up to the photographer to look at a test shot and evaluate what has to be done.

For sports like this, I think it is much better to use the manual mode based on a reasonable shutter speed and then use the proper aperture and iso to get the shot done. This you can do before the game as the light usually does not change during the game. Once setup, then you can point and shoot.

My second point is the change of white balance with your different shots in the gallery. Either your camera is set to "white balance bracketing" or you tried every combination possible. If you did not change the white balance settings, then you should reset your camera because I think it is bracketing the white balance. You should leave it on Auto for now and after you look at your pictures with your software, then you can change the balance efficiently. That is if you use the raw setting for the shooting.

There is a lot to learn, but once understood, it's not rocket science. I hope you will take the time to read you manual and get maybe a few books that would explain basic photography.

Enjoy your Nikon as it is a fine piece of equipment.

Thanks Marcel, even I learned more about white balance due to your explanation. Another thing I have noticed is that when we shoot RAW the photos turn out darker than that displayed on the camera screen, this is due to that image being jpeg apparently and the final is RAW. I have always wondered why mine seem underexposed when after viewing them on the computer and I think this is the reason.

I shoot in the dark every week ..it called a 13th century church with 5w eco bulbs and heavy stained glass ......A for aperture mode at f8 iso 100-6400 min speed 1/60 no problem it normally settles at about 1250 iso

pistnbroke said:

I shoot in the dark every week ..it called a 13th century church with 5w eco bulbs and heavy stained glass ......A for aperture mode at f8 iso 100-6400 min speed 1/60 no problem it normally settles at about 1250 iso

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Yes, but the original poster was talking about basketball… Different stroke. Check out the original post and click on images in his info box on the left, you'll see some of his photos (maybe 4-5) that all have different white balance… I think there is something basic missing here.

has he got the auto white balance on ? I have all sorts of light colours and its not problem....

pistnbroke said:

has he got the auto white balance on ? I have all sorts of light colours and its not problem....

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I have no idea. Still waiting for him to read and respond to our answers. It's kind of hard to help someone when they never come back to fill us in about their settings.

But from what I saw of his images, the white balance was all over. Did he change it between shots or was it on WB bracketing, I have no idea.

Looks like the WB may be off because of the kind of lights in the gym. Certain fluorescent (or maybe all) lights have some sort of high frequency flicker that causes the WB to be different from shot to shot, especially when in Auto WB. Set the WB to the correct environment, and stay away from auto.

mguffin said:

Looks like the WB may be off because of the kind of lights in the gym. Certain fluorescent (or maybe all) lights have some sort of high frequency flicker that causes the WB to be different from shot to shot, especially when in Auto WB. Set the WB to the correct environment, and stay away from auto.

Click to expand...

Bingo!, you've found the culprit. I remember having this problem once in my home with fluorescents… And if I remember correctly, it also had to do with my shutter speed. Higher shutter speeds leaned toward half the picture one color and the other half another...

Thanks for pointing this out.

had a look at some photos we did recently and it seems that if you have a window in the background and the subject in tungsten light or vica versa the auto does one or the other ...so mixed lighting is possibly the problem...you wont get around that problem ..what the TV boys would do in the situation above is cover the window with yellow plastic so its all tungsten colour.....lifes a bitch

PS there is a flicker frequencysetting on my camera ...??/