Rookie Needing Help With Sports Photos

[DFRESH]

I bought a new Canon SLR EOS Rebel 10.1 mp camera. I have a 35-80mm and 100-300mm lens. I want to shoot photos of my children playing sports. The "sports" mode on the camera still leaves the pictures blurry during fast action. I was reading the manual and thought the "TV" mode would be best. It is a manual mode. I need some help with the settings. My first set of photos on a bright sunny day came out dark. I have ISO, and shutter speed adjustment. The "white balance" is set on "auto". What other settings should I be concerned with? What settings are best for:
(1) Bright Sun
(2) Overcast
(3) Indoor sports

Thanks for the help. I hope the next round of shots is better.
Doug

[mn shutterbug]

Doug, it would really help if you could post a couple examples. This way, others can see how you shot these and maybe pull the exif from them. I suppose you wouldn't happen to remember the ISO, shutter speed, aperture etc.?

[DFRESH]

Here's some photos. Taken with TV mode, auto white balance, ISO 200, Shutter speed 1/2000 (I think). AI SERVO.

[jorgemonkey]

Its possible you set a shutter speed that was too high for your aperture, which is why they came out dark. You might want to try shooting in AV mode. Thats how I usually shoot my sports.

[freygr]

The photos you posted, the first on you have not stopped down so you have Depth of Field problems (the in focus area the high the F number the smaller the lens opening the greater the in focus area). The second photo you auto focus is not focusing on the action, you need to change the setting or get the camera centered on the action.

About the exposure you will need to increase the ISO setting so you can stop down the lens to at least mid way. You don't want to set the ISO at its max as then you will get noise. The shutter speed, F stop and ISO are all inter related, you can increase one and then you can decrease one of the others. Example, you increase the ISO from 100 to 200, you can stop down the lens one stop ( F2.8 to F3.5) OR decrease the shutter speed half ( 1/250 to 1/500 ).

For indoor sports, you will need an F2.8 minim lens. Out door in the day light (full sun and most overcast days) the lenses you have should be ok. You need to set you camera to shutter priority mode and set the shutter to 1/500 second. Just remember you may have to increase the ISO to keep the shutter speed fast.

[DFRESH]

The photos you posted, the first on you have not stopped down so you have Depth of Field problems (the in focus area the high the F number the smaller the lens opening the greater the in focus area). The second photo you auto focus is not focusing on the action, you need to change the setting or get the camera centered on the action.

About the exposure you will need to increase the ISO setting so you can stop down the lens to at least mid way. You don't want to set the ISO at its max as then you will get noise. The shutter speed, F stop and ISO are all inter related, you can increase one and then you can decrease one of the others. Example, you increase the ISO from 100 to 200, you can stop down the lens one stop ( F2.8 to F3.5) OR decrease the shutter speed half ( 1/250 to 1/500 ).

For indoor sports, you will need an F2.8 minim lens. Out door in the day light (full sun and most overcast days) the lenses you have should be ok. You need to set you camera to shutter priority mode and set the shutter to 1/500 second. Just remember you may have to increase the ISO to keep the shutter speed fast.

I followed most of what you said. Could youplease explain the "F" number to me and exactly what it means. It seems with my 100-300 mm lens, I can only get it down to F4.5. You suggested lower than that. I don't understand the purpose of it. Thanks very much,
Doug

[mattbikeboy]

I followed most of what you said. Could youplease explain the "F" number to me and exactly what it means. It seems with my 100-300 mm lens, I can only get it down to F4.5. You suggested lower than that. I don't understand the purpose of it. Thanks very much,
Doug

The F number is how big the "hole" or aperture in the lens gets -- which lets in more light. The smaller the number -- the bigger the hole which helps in low light situations. It also decreases the area of focus at the same time the number drops. High end lenses in the f2.8 or lower range let more light in and typically focus faster for low light situations like indoor sports or night sports shooting. But those lenses get expensive quick.

Do some research on the web. It does get a little confusing since many of the adjustments are called out in stops. Here is a place to start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number


mbb

[freygr]

I followed most of what you said. Could youplease explain the "F" number to me and exactly what it means. It seems with my 100-300 mm lens, I can only get it down to F4.5. You suggested lower than that. I don't understand the purpose of it. Thanks very much,
Doug

Depth of Field is the distance that is in focus.

Your long lens 100-300 at the 100mm is an F4.5 but at the 300mm end it's most likely an F5.7. The problem is the longer the lenses is, the depth of field decreases. A PS digital camera will have a smaller sensor so the focal length of the lens has to decrease to get 50mm lens 35mm film angle of view. If you notice this PS photos look very sharp foreground to background, as the focal length very short, example my old Olympus C-3030 real focal length was 6.5mm to 19.5 mm. The shorter the lens the more deep of field the lens has.

The Depth of Field is also controlled by the F stops, the smaller the F stop (larger numbers) the more depth of field you have. If you search the web there are online DOF calculators.

[gryphonslair99]

DFRESH,

I shoot a lot of sports at the college level. There are several things that make for an outstanding sports photo. Remember these are all general rules, there are times when a shot will be out of the normal bounds depending on the desire of the photographer and the effect they are trying to create.

First, the action needs to be in focus. Set you camera to a single, usually center, focus point and use it. Focus on the player creating the action. Don't worry about the rule of thirds, you want to shoot a touch wide to allow for a bit of cropping to bring out the best in a photo. Use AI Servo to track the action.

Second. Aperture is very important here. You want the action in focus and everything else out of focus. Other words good bokeh. Good bokeh will draw your eye to the action in the photo and make it stand out. To do that you need as wide an aperture as you can use and still leave you the necessary depth of field to capture the action. That will change depending on what sport you shoot. For Football I am generally in the f2.8 range. For Basketball I am usually around f1.8 or f2. I tend to use primes for indoor sports and can get faster glass that way.

Third you need to control you shutter speed. 1/2500th of a shutter speed is to fast for any sport I know of. For football/soccer a minimum would be 1/250. Younger kids just are not that fast. For baseball 1/500 to freeze the bat and ball. 1/500 is my minimum at the collage level, they throw harder and swing faster so I will be between 1/500 and 1/1000.

Forth you need to understand the sport you are shooting. A lot of getting great sports shots is anticipating the action. Your child may not be the scoring threat of the pee-wee league but is an outstanding defensive player. Know their strengths and weaknesses as well as the sport and you can anticipate shots and be prepared for them. This will allow you to get more keepers. The XXXD or Rebel series has the slowest responding focus system of the Canon bodies. The XXD series are a nice improvement and the XD series are very responsive. Anticipating the action means you can get a jump on focus as well. This does not mean that you can not use a XXXD body for sports. It can be done and people do it all the time.

Fifth, and one of the most important for getting good sports photos when your family is involved. Forget you are a parent. When that camera is to your face you do not care who wins or looses. Every call is a good one. All you care about is good action. If you stay in parent mode you will be wrapped up in you child, not the photo opps that present themselves. Frankly, you will just be too late too many times. Only if your child is knocked out cold, or has a broken or missing limb should parent mode kick back in.

As for shooting itself, I am going to suggest a different track. Either AV mode or preferably Manual mode. In AV you set the aperture you want and get the necessary shutter speed by upping the ISO. I would rather see sharp in focus action with a touch of noise than a fuzzy action with out noise. You can reduce noise in post processing, you can't fix out of focus. Don't let an ISO of 1600 scare you, it is a necessity at times shooting sports.

Even better is learning to use manual mode. You set it all and get that balance you want. The balance needs to be the aperture value for the shot, fast enough shutter speed with the minimum ISO necessary to get the job done, be it 100 or 1600. In constant light such as at a basketball game this is very doable. The light should not change on you. This may take some trial an error, but by understanding aperture, DOF, shutter speed and how to use light you will get adept quickly.

Also, depending on the sport, don't be afraid of manual focus. I wouldn't suggest it for say football or soccer, but I use it quite a bit in Track and Field. In the 100 I will usually focus on the finish line and get the shoot of the whole field as the winner hits the line. I know it is always going to be in focus on that shot.

The last thing is practice, practice, practice. Once you are worn out from practicing, practice some more. Sports photography is one of the most demanding forms of photography. Once it starts to come together you will be amazed at how addictive it gets.

[xystren]

I followed most of what you said. Could youplease explain the "F" number to me and exactly what it means. It seems with my 100-300 mm lens, I can only get it down to F4.5. You suggested lower than that. I don't understand the purpose of it. Thanks very much,
Doug

This site has a pretty good demo of how the ISO, shutter speed, aperture settings are like.

http://dryreading.com/camera/index.html

Pardon the pun, but I found it brought things into focus for me.