 M Sierra |
Shooting Evening Sporting events I am photographing baseball players at home plate at night with stadium lights. I am positioned behind the dugout, to the outside of the backstop. I am using a 35mm camera with a zoom lense up to 300 on a tripod with an additional flash. 800 asa film. Auto-focus. My pictures are coming out slightly out-of-focus and are grainy. The subjects are either still or moving. What should I be doing diferently? If I change to Manuel mode, what should my settings be?
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Pete H |
1)What speed is your lens? My guess it's a little too slow for low light. At a minimum, a good sports lens at 200mm is f/2.8 or better. 2) ISO 800 (will) be grainy. Period 3) Remember the reciprocity rule..If your shooting at 200mm, your speed should be no slower than 1/200th 4) How far are your subjects? Your flash may not be making it. All the best, Pete
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Bob Chance |
To concur with Pete, any lens slower than 2.8 is not a good choice for low light shooting. Any film over ISO 400 is going to be grainy and the faster you go the worse the grain. I don't know that the reciprocity rule holds for tripod mounted cameras. I was always of the understanding that it was a good rule of thumb to go by if you were hand holding the camera. And chances are, your flash is falling short. Flash pictures outside are a whole different ballgame, pardon the pun, then from inside, because you loose so much light. There are no walls or ceilings for the light to bounce from. It just goes out and keeps going. There is also another rule too. It's called the inverse square law where by every doubling of distance from flash to subject, you are actaully cutting the amount of light by a quarter. I don't know of any other tricks that would help in your given situation other than a faster lens. And any lens of a long focal length and large aperature is going to be expensive. You didn't specify what kind of flash you're using or how powerful, so it's hard to say whether a more powerful flash unit would do the trick. Plus, would also need to know how far away from your subjects you are? Just as Pete had asked. I know my Sunpak will easily reach 60' or so inside, I have no idea what it would do outside without anything to reflect some of the light back with. Give us some more specific info and maybe we can help. Bob
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Pete H |
That's what I meant Bob..hand holding for the reciprocity rule. ..and by the way, nice eagle shots..my favorite bird..we have a few American Eagles here, but I really wanna' head west just to shoot the Bald Eagles; with a camera that is. LOL We should probably all change the way we speak.."Shoot still life and photograph people and wildlife: :) Sorry to say MS, "fast glass" as many call them, are quite expensive in either prime over 100mm or zooms. All the best, Pete
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M Sierra |
Thank you both for your responses. I'm sorry for being ignorant, but how do I find the lense speed?
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Bob Chance |
Point made Pete. Just wasn't sure if you caught the part in the original post that the user was using a tripod. Anyhow, lens speed is basically a measurement of the maximum aperature of a lens. Case in point, under the same lighting conditions, a lens with a maximum aperature of f/4.0 won't allow to shoot with as FAST a shutter speed as a f/2.0 lens. Generally speaking, any lens with an aperature larger than f/2.8 is considered a fast lens. Generally you won't find really fast lenses too far away from the 50mm normal focal length. There are a few as short as 24mm with an f/1.4 aperature and about 85mm is the longest you'll find with an aperature less than f/2.0. The fastest you will see in a zoom is generally f/2.8. Keep in mind too, the further away the lens focal length is from normal, the more costly it will be for the larger aperature lenses. Mostly these high speed lenses use aspherical lens elements to correct for lens aberations at the larger aperatures. This glass is very expensive to manufacture and thereby makes the lens very expensive as well.
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Justin G. |
I found the lens made just for you! Well it's made for Canon and it's $3500. Not too bad. lol. It's a 200mm f/1.8. It's the fastest lens in it's class! haha i'm kinda joking here but hey some people have the money to blow. Sure wish I had this lens. You can click the picture.
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Bob Chance |
Now that's a piece of glass! However, if I had that kind of money to begin with, and had the option, I think I would opt for more megapixels and a full frame sensor. LOL
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Justin G. |
a full frame sensor with low MP's like 8-12 would do wonders for high ISO settings. Have you been able to see some of the 5D's ISO pics? Some guy over on PN has some 1600 and 3200 pics with 100% crops and MAN where they GORGEOUS. it was the deciding factor that told me if I had the money I'd be buying a digital right now. I've been waiting for a full frame, decent reso, beautiful high ISO performance and they made the 5D and now I'm sold. Just wish I had the budget to be sold! Give me a 5D with a 17-40 f/4L, 85 f/1.2L II, and a 200mm f/1.8L and I'd be happy! Shoot I'd be happy just to have that money, $9,000, whew.
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Bob Chance |
Wouldn't we all. LOL Actually I was just reading on Canons' site today and was actually surprised to learn that it's almost better to have fewer megapixels on a full frame sensor. Supposedly, doing it that way they are able to make the pixels bigger which makes them more sensitive to light, leaving less room for noise. Check out the following link for the technical scoop: http://photoworkshop.com/canon/CMOS/technology-e/size.html Bob
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Jeffrey S. Langloss |
Justin I know you were joke on that lens but I shoot night sports with no flash and a 70-200 IS f/2.8 and most time can go with ISO 400 and speeds of 1/250 to 1/500 and get nice photos out of it for printing to about 11x14 prints. MS I cannot tell but behind the dugout seems pretty far for flash out doors. The wider the aperture and higher the ISO the less a flash goes out. So lets say you are set at f/11 and ISO 800 a standard build in flash will reach about 20 feet and above flash may get you 40 feet. In either case not enough from were you say you are.
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Justin G. |
You got it right Bob! Bigger pixels are better! Not more, but bigger! That's why digi cams have such horrible noise, even at 400. They cram 6 MP in an extremely small sensor and usually just stinks beyond snapshots. I wouldn't go above 5-6 on a digicam. Those 8MP ones gotta be horrible!
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Bob Chance |
The thing I still don't quite understand though Justin, is that according to what I've read on Canons site, it's easier for them to make the bigger sensor. So if it's easier, than why are full frame DSLR's so damn expensive? You'd think easier would mean cheaper. Overall, I've been quite pleased with the results my 20D has given me at 8.2 megapixels. I've printed out cropped 13x19" prints that look pretty sharp to my eye. Of course, it's always hard to call unless you have something else sharper right there to compare it to. Canon has made strides in their CMOS technology as far as greatly reducing grain & noise. Supposedly by using larger microlenses and moving them closer together on the chip. Microlenses BTW - are just what the name implies. Microscopic lenses that focus the light onto the pixels. There is one for each pixel. Now theres' a multi-lens camera for you. LOL!
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