Newbie - shooting night football

BadWolf

Senior Member
Morning everyone! New owner of this camera and trying to figure things out :)
Shot some night football last night. Tried using Priority mode, then tried the "Sports" automatic setting the camera has

Problem I'm having is blurry shots. Shutter speed won't go high enough. When I switched to manual (first time i tried it) the camera warned me that the subject was too dark as I increased the shutter speed.

Any suggestions on what setting I should be on to get some improvements?
Thanks for helping me learn!!

Attachment info
Lense 70.0-300.0mm f/4.5-6.3
ISO 3200
120mm
f 4.8
1/60sec
DSC_0105.jpg
 

mikew_RIP

Senior Member
Your shutter speed is far too low but it is only one part of the exposure triangle the other two need to be in balance for the correct exposure, you could look at this.


Looking at your settings i dont think you had enough light to capture the image.
 

nickt

Senior Member
Study that video that Mike posted above. Ask questions if you don't get it. For your DSLR happiness, you need to completely understand that.

Now to apply what you've learned, you can do that in various ways. There are different ways to get to the same end. You will get various different methods suggested from people. All will work, but don't mix and match methods, lol.

For me, I would shoot this in manual with auto iso. I shoot wildlife this way so I am most comfortable with this. The setup would be Manual mode. Set the aperture wide open. Set your shutter speed at least 1/focal length or faster. So for the 120mm shot above try 1/125. Set iso to auto with bottom of iso 100 and no upper limit. Some will disagree with no upper limit, but for now, try it.
Back to the shutter speed, 1/125 is a bare minimum, you will likely need to raise it to not get blurry pictures if there is motion. Probably 1/250. With this setup, you can play with the shutter speed all you want and the iso will adjust to balance the triangle. You won't need to mess with the aperture unless you desire more depth of field.

Although my preference is above, you could also shoot this in shutter priority and auto iso. You could use manual iso, but more thinking and observing is needed.

I suggest manual or shutter priority because I feel for a dark scene with motion, shutter speed is most important and that is the parameter you need the most control over. For a dark scene, you also want to keep your aperture wide open unless depth of field becomes important. Keeping your aperture wider will keep the iso as low as possible giving a less noisy shot.
 

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
Is your lens a VR? If not, then you have to keep in mind that the more you zoom, the faster your shutter speed needs to be to overcome camera shake. I shoot at least double the focal length especially for the long lenses because I am a shaky shooter.
 
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BadWolf

Senior Member
Dumb question I'm sure but can you explain a bit more what "double the focal length" implies? Are you referring to, like, 200mm?
 

nickt

Senior Member
Dumb question I'm sure but can you explain a bit more what "double the focal length" implies? Are you referring to, like, 200mm?
The long time suggestion is 1/focal length for a safe handheld shutter speed. So for a 100mm lens, 1/100 or close is a good start. Most of us do better with a little faster. Suggesting double the focal length would be suggesting 1/200 shutter speed for a 100mm lens. Of course available shutter speeds don't always exactly match lens focal length, its just a starting suggestion.
 

Dawg Pics

Senior Member
Yep. Sorry. I didn't use correct language. Total lack of sleep. 1/double the focal length is what I should have said. Some suggest using the crop factor as a guideline, so 1/(1.5x focal length) or if you are Dawg Pics zooming to 150mm then my shutter speed would be 1/320th on my camera.

I saw one video that suggested using 1/500th for football. Anyway, sorry I confused you there. Try taking a few images at different focal lengths at shutter speeds of 1/focal length and 1/(1.5 x focal length) and see if you are happy with the images. Good luck. Let us know how things turn out.
 
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drummerJ99

Senior Member
Welcome to the wonderful painful frustrating world of shooting football. Lol it really all comes down to how good lighting is on the field.

Sutter speed: you are gonna want to get up to 1/800-1/1000 to eliminate any blur from moving body parts. My iso is anywhere from 5000-9000 on my D7200 on average. Warm-ups and first few plays it may be down closer to 3200.

I use a 70-300 Tamron lens comparable to yours. However I'll tell you what I've found out, if this so something you are gonna do alot you will want to upgrade to 70-200 2.8. Since the D5xxx bodies don't have auto focus motor built in, you won't be able to use older 80-200 2.8's.
 

BadWolf

Senior Member
Yes I tested last night again. Issue is I just don't have enough light. Only thing I can really do to get pictures at correct exposure without noise is to get a lens that allows more light in, like you suggested. Off to ebay I go... :)
 
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