Help: Football under the lights Nikon D70S

[radtky]

I have a nikon D70S camera with a AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED lens. This combination gives me great action (football) photos with daylight. However, I'm unable to get good action photos under the stadium lights. (Blurring)

I've tried the same sports setting used during the day,
also tried adjusting the ISO up to 1200
I've also tried going into "M" manual mode with an ISO of 1000 and using the meter to figure out my exposure speed but am still getting terrible blurring.

Any ideas or suggestions for settings?

Thanks in advance,

[livin4lax09]

what f stop do you shoot at when you're shooting M?

[Old Timer]

I have much the same problem with the poor lighting at my home field. I would have thought you guys up in Northern KY would have better lights than us country cousins. However it has been a pain and continues to be. There are several threads that address this issue here on PR Sports forum, check back over the last month or so. I shoot in aperture priority at f2.8 and don't go below 1/125 (much higher when I can) and adjusting the ISO to meet those setting when shooting available. However once the available sun light is gone our field lights will not allow any kind of available light shots regardless of ISO.

I set my SB800 at 1/16 to 1/8 power shutter speed at 1/250, apperture at f2.8, ISO around 800 to 1250 and fire away once the light is gone. I have some images from last week posted under Friday Night Lights to give you an idea of how that has worked. Friday night football is a real pain. I found a very good thread of Sports Shooters.com that addressed this issue and what the pros are doing, you may want to check it out also.

[radtky]

I believe our lighting is probably pretty decent for HS football. My son is playing on a 7th/8th grade team. They play all of their games on Highlands HS field. I see the photos that the media gets every week during the friday night games and they appear better than the pictures from other local HS stadiums.

I'm convinced my problem is not knowing how to use my camera. I've been using point and shoot cameras for most of my life. I just last week purchased my SLR digital camera. I saw the pictures my father-in-law was getting with his older D70 and same lens and had to get one myself. He's out west for several weeks so I'm on my own for now. I don't believe he has taken many pictures under the lights either.

I belive my camera automatically detects the lens and uses the 2.8 f stop but I could be wrong. If not, I know the camera is showing F2.8.

Thanks for your feedback

[livin4lax09]

if you're shooting Manual, it won't automatically detect the right aperture. You'll have to set it yourself. What I would do is shoot at f2.8, crank up the ISO, and get that shutter speed as fast as possible while still maintaining correct exposure. If it's underexposed a bit, that's ok, it can be adjusted in photoshop.

another thing to do, like oldtimer said, is just set the camera on aperture priority, set it on 2.8, crank up the ISO, and just let the camera decide what shutter speed it needs.

[JETA]

[QUOTE=livin4lax09

another thing to do, like oldtimer said, is just set the camera on aperture priority, set it on 2.8, crank up the ISO, and just let the camera decide what shutter speed it needs.[/QUOTE]

Rob, if you are convinced you don't know how to use your camera start here. My problem is the same at yours. I'm just learning. I set my iso and aperture myself for my first 3 games. Now I'm shooting manually, but I'm totally lame. Much to learn.