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04/17/2005 04:45:14 PM · #1 |
What mode do you use on your camera when shooting sports... like football, soccer or any other sport... Especially fast sports.
And why do you use that mode...
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04/17/2005 04:47:30 PM · #2 |
Originally posted by Discraft:
What mode do you use on your camera when shooting sports... like football, soccer or any other sport... Especially fast sports.
And why do you use that mode... |
Apature because I find that's the element I most need to control.
Clara |
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04/17/2005 04:47:38 PM · #3 |
I would suppose a lot of Tv and M. Tv to get different effects - blurs, stop motion, etc. M because if you're indoors at a basketball game, etc, or outdoors at night the light isnt going to change much and you can set it once and fly with your shots.
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04/17/2005 05:11:32 PM · #4 |
Depends on the lens I'm using, and the available light. In low light I use Aperature priority. In bright light,outdoors, I use Shuter priority and under expose 1/3 stop.
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04/17/2005 05:40:45 PM · #5 |
Originally posted by Discraft:
What mode do you use on your camera when shooting sports... like football, soccer or any other sport... Especially fast sports.
And why do you use that mode... |
I think the conventional wisdom for sports action shooting is to use Aperture priority; and the reasoning is that's it consided desirable to control depth of field and isolate the subject from the background. In low light situations you sometimes have to use your widest aperture to get fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action and thus you have to deal with pretty shallow DoF. It can be limiting in your subject selection. But the newer cameras with a wider range of usable ISO are making it easier to tailor your shots.
I think there may be a rethinking of this beginning to show up as new camera and printing technologies come into use. I have seen a trend to large images taken with wide angle, and with a greater DoF where the lighting allows.
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04/17/2005 06:15:21 PM · #6 |
Full manual always when shooting motorsports.
Auto metering is going to give different readings depending on what part of a scene I point at, resulting in under and/or over-exposed shots. If the lighting conditions aren't changing every 2 seconds then I'm going to want everything to be taken with the same settings.
At the track I work out several aperture/shutter combinations before a race, rattle off a few test shots and check the histograms. Now I'm covered for freeze frames and blurred shots in both sunny and cloudy conditions, and I know that if a white car comes into the frame it isn't going to blow out & spoil the shot.
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04/17/2005 06:18:22 PM · #7 |
Originally posted by spydr:
Depends on the lens I'm using, and the available light. In low light I use Aperature priority. In bright light,outdoors, I use Shuter priority and under expose 1/3 stop. |
What's the reason for underexposing? Is this to combat blowouts? |
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04/19/2005 03:25:23 PM · #8 |
Originally posted by kyebosh:
Originally posted by spydr:
Depends on the lens I'm using, and the available light. In low light I use Aperature priority. In bright light,outdoors, I use Shuter priority and under expose 1/3 stop. |
What's the reason for underexposing? Is this to combat blowouts? |
Yes. You can easily adjust underexposure. Once your blownout there's no coming back. In addition, it gives me a bit more shutter speed. This probably isn't needed for some lenses. My 70-300 5.6 needs all the help I can give. Not bad lens for the price, but deffinately not ideal.
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04/19/2005 03:36:35 PM · #9 |
Kind of a long similar lines, I was photographing an IM volleyball game and to get faster shutter response time, I tried using manual focus so that the camera wouldn't have to take that extra second to calculate the correct settings. I had it on a wide aperture, too. The problem was that a lot of my shots still came out blurry--or parts of them did--either becuase of motion blur or softness that indicates that I focused it incorrectly (Let me know if you need me to upload examples of what I'm talking about). I find that it's kind of hard to tell on the LCD screen (and even the view finder) if a shot is correctly focused or not.
Questions:
1. What can I do to improve shutter response time.
2. What can I do to improve time and still have "crisp" shots?
3. How does one tell if a shot is focused perfectly (in general) while he or she is preparing to take the shot? |
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04/19/2005 03:47:37 PM · #10 |
I'll add to the folks who say they use Aperature priority. I use it 99.9% of the time for shooting football games for the reasons that have already been stated.
NovaTiger... to give the easiest answer to your questions, I'd have to say, "Get a DSLR!" Unfortunately that's probably the only real answer to those questions. |
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04/19/2005 03:57:38 PM · #11 |
Let me as a hypothetical question:
Lets say you are using a Canon 350XT with a 70-200mm f/4.0 "L" lens and the sun is to your back but low in the evening. You are sitting in the right field seats [some distance away from home plate]. Using the Aperture priority and you wanted to frame the pitcher, catcher, batter, and umpire as the the batter swings. What would be the best setting under AP?
Message edited by author 2005-04-19 15:58:00. |
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04/19/2005 04:12:39 PM · #12 |
To your original question..I had a nice conversation with a high-school sports photographer the other day about this issue and he always chooses to use aperature mode and sets it to 4.0. This keeps distractioning background elements to a minimum and generates more sales of the photos for him. At the same time he keeps his AF to focus only on the center spot on keeps it on AI Servo while focusing on the subject\'s chest.
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04/19/2005 04:34:07 PM · #13 |
Originally posted by bod:
Full manual always when shooting motorsports.
Auto metering is going to give different readings depending on what part of a scene I point at, resulting in under and/or over-exposed shots. If the lighting conditions aren't changing every 2 seconds then I'm going to want everything to be taken with the same settings.
At the track I work out several aperture/shutter combinations before a race, rattle off a few test shots and check the histograms. Now I'm covered for freeze frames and blurred shots in both sunny and cloudy conditions, and I know that if a white car comes into the frame it isn't going to blow out & spoil the shot. |
Great post bod...couldn't agree more!!!
When I went to a Blue Jays game the other week I had it set to aperture priority and was finding photos ranging from under to bang on to over exposed and I was getting pissed. Between the second and third innings I finally switched to manual and determined the best exposure (with a few shots) and from there on in, my pictures were bang on. You may want to determine the best results for a few different f/stops and then use manual setting.
Message edited by author 2005-04-19 16:34:54.
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04/19/2005 05:07:24 PM · #14 |
Originally posted by SDW65:
Let me as a hypothetical question:
Lets say you are using a Canon 350XT with a 70-200mm f/4.0 "L" lens and the sun is to your back but low in the evening. You are sitting in the right field seats [some distance away from home plate]. Using the Aperture priority and you wanted to frame the pitcher, catcher, batter, and umpire as the the batter swings. What would be the best setting under AP? |
Can't answer exactly because the light is vague, but I think you should try to use max aperture, f4, and adjust the ISO to get an acceptable shutter speed. You will be zoomed out to 200mm, and likely wishing you had more reach. You might get a decent shot at 1/160 or 1/200 if you have a steady hand and are content to have some motion blur in the bat; you'll want at least 1/500, or more, if you want to freeze the bat; and at least 1/1000 if you hope to freeze the ball. I'd say to focus on the plate. At that distance even your shallowest depth of field will get the ump, catcher, & batter in focus, the pitcher might be a little blurry but not bad. Using a DoF calculator will give you a more exact answer. You could probably do better by using a tripod and focusing manually to get them all in focus, but they don't usually let you set up a tripod in the stands.
Just my two cents, hope it helps.
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04/19/2005 05:12:16 PM · #15 |
Originally posted by coolhar:
Originally posted by SDW65:
Let me as a hypothetical question:
Lets say you are using a Canon 350XT with a 70-200mm f/4.0 "L" lens and the sun is to your back but low in the evening. You are sitting in the right field seats [some distance away from home plate]. Using the Aperture priority and you wanted to frame the pitcher, catcher, batter, and umpire as the the batter swings. What would be the best setting under AP? |
Can't answer exactly because the light is vague, but I think you should try to use max aperture, f4, and adjust the ISO to get an acceptable shutter speed. You will be zoomed out to 200mm, and likely wishing you had more reach. You might get a decent shot at 1/160 or 1/200 if you have a steady hand and are content to have some motion blur in the bat; you'll want at least 1/500, or more, if you want to freeze the bat; and at least 1/1000 if you hope to freeze the ball. I'd say to focus on the plate. At that distance even your shallowest depth of field will get the ump, catcher, & batter in focus, the pitcher might be a little blurry but not bad. Using a DoF calculator will give you a more exact answer. You could probably do better by using a tripod and focusing manually to get them all in focus, but they don't usually let you set up a tripod in the stands.
Just my two cents, hope it helps. |
Thank you for your in depth response coolhar. The reason I asked is because the only place you can get a shot of the action without the fence being in the way is from the outfield. They will not let you stand next to the fence down each base line. |
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04/19/2005 05:33:55 PM · #16 |
Aperture priority too. I generally have an idea of what shutter I need to get the shot, but always want the ability to go for aperture over shutter to get the whole subject in focus. I will frequently adjust ISO and aperture to give me the best chance of sharp shots. (A lot of the time I work in very poorly lit indoor arenas.)
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04/19/2005 06:01:13 PM · #17 |
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04/19/2005 10:51:02 PM · #18 |
Originally posted by alansfreed:
I'll add to the folks who say they use Aperature priority. I use it 99.9% of the time for shooting football games for the reasons that have already been stated.
NovaTiger... to give the easiest answer to your questions, I'd have to say, "Get a DSLR!" Unfortunately that's probably the only real answer to those questions. |
I HAVE a DSLR... |
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04/19/2005 11:00:36 PM · #19 |
I use aperture priority in simple light conditions. Otherwise manual mode.
Occasionally for panning shots I'll use shutter priority mode, but again typically just manual exposure and spot metering to work out the exposure (mostly from the palm of my hand if the lighting is the same)
For focus, I use AI servo quite a lot and also follow and zone focus. I typically put the autofocus on the rear * button so that I can manual and auto focus at the same time. Depends a lot on the sport.
Message edited by author 2005-04-19 23:03:06.
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04/19/2005 11:49:56 PM · #20 |
| I use aperture priority in decent light as long as I can keep my shutter speeds at 1/320" faster with it. If I'm in low light and able to use my flash, I shoot in manual mode. |
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04/20/2005 01:26:08 AM · #21 |
Originally posted by NovaTiger:
I HAVE a DSLR... |
A Sony DSC-F717 is a DSLR...??? |
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04/20/2005 02:29:49 AM · #22 |
Originally posted by alansfreed:
Originally posted by NovaTiger:
I HAVE a DSLR... |
A Sony DSC-F717 is a DSLR...??? |
I am confused here. I thought an SLR camera is one where the viewfinder sees what the lens sees--there's not a separate view from the viewfinder that causes parallax. The F717 is like that. Is this not what Digital Single Lens Reflex is?
Message edited by author 2005-04-20 02:30:19. |
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04/20/2005 07:17:20 AM · #23 |
| Sorry... the Sony DSC-F717 is NOT a DSLR... it's not going to have the zippy handling of a DSLR. |
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04/20/2005 07:53:01 AM · #24 |
Although a SLR viewfinder does avoid paralax there is more to it's definition than that. A Sony 717 has an EVF, an Electronic View Finder. There is lots of confusion around the term SLR, and now DSLR. It has (somewhat inaccurately) morphed into a term used to describe a certain level of quality and/or feature set in cameras that doesn't necessarily reflect what kind of viewfinder system a camera has. A lot of the confusion can be attributed to advertisers wanting to make lesser cameras sound like better ones. Even manufacturers sometimes call prosumer models "SLR like". Perhaps, as technology advances, digital cameras that have an EVF will equal or surpass the de facto standard that the term SLR has become. That would compound the confusion further. For more info about digicam veiwfinders read this: Viewfinder article from DPReview.com's glossary.
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04/20/2005 08:00:51 AM · #25 |
I think the term 'Single Lens Reflex' is fairly categoric in the last word reflex.
In what most term a [D]SLR it's the reflex of the mirror that defines how it works. F717's and prosumers don't have this mirror reflex, and hence are NOT [D]SLRs.
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