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Indoor Sports Photography - D70s w/ 80-200mm f/2.8d

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lkjones

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I am having difficulties getting good indoor sports photography action shots using my D70s (ISO pushed to 1600), Nikon 80-200mm F/2.8D lens and aperture set to 2.8 (aperture-priority). Action shots are blurry due to still too slow a shutter speed. What is the next step? Is this a case, where I need camera (e.g., D300) to be able to go to an even higher ISO? It's certainly appears to be cheaper than buying an even faster piece of glass. Suggestions?
 
What are you trying to shoot? Have you tried to shoot in manual mode and make the shutter faster and underexpose a bit?

The 80-200 should work fairly well, unless you are shooting high-speed cars, bikes or the like. In a case like that, you will need to learn panning.

--



http://photography.leung.us
 
Low light shooting is the domain of shutter mode or M mode. Shooting in A mode is something you do outdoors in good light.

FIRST you have to control your shutter speed before you can get artistic with depth of field. Chances are, you won't get beyond f2.8 ANYWAY so using A mode is sort of a waste of control.

Í recommend starting to use, S mode to see what shutter speed you need and or can get. If the pictures become simply too dark, then you need to consider flash and or f1.8 lenses. Then you can also try M mode, but don't get ambitious with changing aperture too much, since it will probably never get beyond f2.8 unfortunately.

Guy Moscoso
 
Higher ISO or add light to the scene!
(you are not going to do much better than F2.8)

Or, wait for better low light ccd sensors.....
(at a reasonable cost, of course)
 
There are 2 gyms in which I have tried taking photos of the grandkids......in one gym 2.8 is plenty fast enough but in the other F1.8 is barely acceptable , even though the lighting looks similar in both gyms......
F2.8 just may not be fast enough in your gym.

Also a photo with the exif included may be some help. It may well enable someone to decide what lens, ISO you need.
--
Gene from Western Pa

http://imageevent.com/grc6
http://grc225.zenfolio.com/
FZ10....20 and 30 and FZ18

D50 ....D80 - 18 to 200VR- 50mm 1.8 - 80 to 400 OS



Just trying to learn and it's slow going!
 
Thanks for your response. I was trying to shoot an indoor high school volleyball tournament that was taking place in the gym of an 70+ year old high school in Newport Beach, CA. I did not try manual mode as you suggested. I will try it next time and see what I get. In manual mode, I assume that you would set aperture to 2.8, speed to 1/250 or 1/500 and ISO to automatic; and, if the picture is underexposed, I could then adjust the exposure in CS2. Please confirm. I also had some difficulty with the white balance. I tried the fluorescent light preset, since the lighting appeared to be fluorescent, as well as auto and neither seemed to give a good result. Would you shoot in raw and adjust the WB afterward? I really appreciate your help.
 
Thanks for your response. I will try it next time getting the shutter speed right and PP the exposure if necessary.
 
Thanks for your response. Unfortunately, my D70s does not go any higher than ISO 1600 and adding light to the scene isn't practical since I was trying to shoot a high school volleyball match in a poorly lit gym.
 
Thanks for your response. When you shoot indoor sports, do you shoot in manual mode? How do you set the ISO? I am interested in how you achieve some good results.
 
lkjones said:
I am having difficulties getting good indoor sports photography
action shots using my D70s (ISO pushed to 1600), Nikon 80-200mm
F/2.8D lens and aperture set to 2.8 (aperture-priority). Action
shots are blurry due to still too slow a shutter speed.
Click to expand...
What shutter speeds were you getting with iso 1600 & f2.8, that should give some idea what you might be able to push shutter to in M or S.

I would not underexpose by more than a stop, so if the best you were getting in A was 1/60 or so double would still be slow, if 1/125 you might be ok going under by a stop and push in PP.
lkjones said:
What is the
next step? Is this a case, where I need camera (e.g., D300) to be
able to go to an even higher ISO?
Click to expand...
At least an iso3200 capable camera, of which the D300 looks best
lkjones said:
It's certainly appears to be
cheaper than buying an even faster piece of glass. Suggestions?
Click to expand...
Depends on the prime you buy, an 85mm f1.8 will gain you a stop, a 50mm f1.4 will gain you 2 stops, either of which may be enough in your situation and both a lot cheaper than a D300.

As long as the focal length is usable of course :)

--
Gerry,
http://gerryd.smugmug.com/ discount code on homepage

 
I have shot a lot of basketball this year. As stated in a previous post its hard to get a feel for the light until you take some shots. I use the 80-200 2.8f AF-S, 1600 iso, as fast a shutter speed as you can (probably 250-500 if lucky), Manual and pump up the exposure to +1.33 to 1.66. You just have to play with it till you get it right. My first game or two I took about 200 pics and got about 2. A Pro working the games gave me a pointer or two and it helped. Try and catch them at their peak or anticipate where the action will happen. Its very hard to chase the action. In really bad light I shoot Raw so I can work with the exposure. Try and work on one thing each time, you will be surprised at how quickly you catch on. Good luck.
--
http://gary.bunk.zenfolio.com
 
If you don't own an SB-800 yet I suggest getting one. I shoot in a gym with a much darker 70-300VR at ISO 800 on my D70. Please take a look at my smugmug basketball shots. I do have to clean up some red eye in post processing. Also I shoot raw so I can recovery any exposure issues. Also I shoot manual about 1/250th of second. I like to stop down some to increase the DOF.

Some say I'm a bad person for flashing the players but have never received a complaint. I think that is carry over from the old days of flash bulbs. Electronic flashes are so brief the players and fans barely notice.
Paul
--
A bad day of train chasing is better than a good day at work.
http://peterzpicts.smugmug.com/
 
Maybe someone already covered this.. but I had a huge improvement when I switched to spot metering and the camera quit trying to compensate for the darkness in the background.

I'm anti-flash in sporting events.. you don't want to flash in their eyes and make them miss the ball!
 
Hi,

what do you think of these?
http://www.pappa-razzo.com/hsc/hallenkreismeisterschaft
http://www.pappa-razzo.com/hsc/damlagenc

They were shot with a D70 @ 1600 ASA, manual exposure, f2,8 and mostly 1/250 second. I use an AF-S 2,8/80-200.

And (don't tell anybody) three oncamera flashes. 2 SB 25 plus 1 SB 24. All three are connected to SB-8 batterypacks. Set to 1/2 power the flashes can follow the D70 @ 3 fps.

I use indirect lighting, 1 flash set to 35mm, the other to 85mm and a lower angle. I also use a kind of reversed better bunce card to shield straylight from the players' eyes.

They absolutely don't notice the flashes in the heat of the game. Yesterday some kids asked me, how strong the 3 flashes were. Then I showed them ;-)

HTH,

greets
Ralf C.
 
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