help for a newbie

[jnipper]

My son's last year of high school was the excuse to finally take the big leap and purchase a DSLR. I have SO MUCH to learn but I'm willing to explore and practice. I have a Canon T3i and purchased a more expensive lens than was offered with the package deals, so I have the 70-300 mm lens but did not purchase an external flash. My specific questions are about the best settings for sports at night under field lights. I've only used the sports setting so far but am still unhappy with the amount of blur I'm getting. From what I'm reading on the internet I think my problem has to do with lighting. Could someone suggest some specific things to try to improve the pictures? I'm afraid the built in flash is not powerful enough to improve the situation. I am open to going to manual mode and experimenting with specific ISO and f/stop settings. Advice welcome and thank you!

[MattUK]

Well flash is only going to help if you're able to set it up so the flash is right next to the action. Unless you're there in an official capacity, or it's a non official event, it's unlikely you can do that.

You'll probably need to just use T mode (shutter speed priority) and let the camera handle the aperture, and keep the ISO high to capture night sports

[markgozz]

I take it that the blur you have is motion blur and not out of focus blur so you need to up your shutter speed to compensate like Matt said try shutter priority and set the speed to something like 1/1000 sec to start with and make sure the ISO is set to auto , If you still have problems up the speed a bit more until you have a sharp image .
Good luck and let us know how you get on .

Mark

[jet_kit]

Hi and welcome,
Matt just about summed it up. You can forget the flash on your camera: Indoors it will do you up to 15 Metres or so at something around the ISO 400 mark. Outdoors, you will lose at least one stop which means about 8 Metres.
Your options are to set the shutter speed to suit the action which will depend on whether the participants are running towards you or across your path and how tight your filed of view is. As a rule of thumb try ISO 800 (I wouldn't recommend anything higher because of the noise problem), then if they're running towards you a shutter speed of 1/250 should be enough. If they're running across you'll need a higher shutter speed of 1/500 or greater if you can. The other technique to master is panning; following the action with the camera and firing the shutter on the move. It is important to follow through otherwise you stand a chance of stopping the pan before you fire the shutter, which makes the pan worthless.
Another limitation will be the 70-300. I'm guessing that the max aperture @ 300mm is f5.6 and you are going to struggle to get a high shutter speed at that. You might like to consider hiring a fast prime telephoto lens for these occasions.
However, all is not lost. If you haven't got a tripod - get one immediately. A little bit of blur, or speed motion can be quite appealing but everything else must be crisp and sharp, therefore a tripod is a must.
Have another go with these settings and see how you get on, then come back to us with some examples.

[Cathus]

I shoot professional nPower League soccer and amateur American football under floodlights during the winter.

Unless your camera can handle ISOs in excess of 2000 and higher, you're pretty much on a loser to get good stop-action shots.

I often have to go as high as ISO 8000 to get shutter speeds higher than 1/800 and ideally faster than that on a 300mm or 70-200mm lens., and they're both f2.8 lenses, if your maximum aperture is f5.6 you may well find your equipment just won't cut it.

for daylight in bright light I want shutter speeds between 1/1500 and 1/2500, at night I can't get this as easily so want at least 1/800.

I also use manual settings keeping my aperture at f4, only reducing it to f2.8 if I can't maintain a really fast shutter speed. I want the subject player in sharp focus but everything else blurred so I never go above f4.

Of course, if you want arty panning shoots showing movement in the limbs then you can go for much slower shutter speeds, but the papers aren't interested in that sort of thing, they want high speed stop-action shots so my settings are dictated by the need to sell pictures to the papers, you might have a bit more leeway in your settings.

[wave01]

I assume this motion blur not sure what 70-300 lens you have. Its already been said about fast shutter speeds which means large aperture settings(small f number). Have you tried a mono pod this will give you more stable base. I think flash will not help to much as the distance to subject will be to great.

[MattUK]

Another one question wonder