Now that the sports are starting to move back outdoors and into the daylight, I have a question about what shutter speeds to go for. For field sports like soccer or lacrosse, on a nice day, a higher ISO setting can get ss up very high, and in some cases bump up against the maximum my camera is capable of. Is there any advantage to going much beyond 2 times 1/focal length? For example, shooting at F4, if I can get 1/2000 at ISO 400, will the shots look any better at 1/4000 and ISO 800?
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Shutter Speeds for Sports
- Thread starter jh2bh
- Start date
For example, I still sometimes see motion blur even in soccer when shooting a 400mm x 1.3 at 1/2500 second especially at the moment of impact when a ball is kicked or when the ball is spinning.
For baseball, again with a 400mm x 1.3 lens with close cropping, you're gonna need 1/3200 or higher to freeze the ball right as it's been hit, depending on the angle your shooting from. That ball can be moving laterally across the frame at well over 100 mph and will streak at lower speeds.
For motocross if you want to freeze the spokes then your up in the 1/4000 to 1/8000 range. On the other hand, many folks like to see the motion of the wheels to give a feeling of speed.
For baseball, again with a 400mm x 1.3 lens with close cropping, you're gonna need 1/3200 or higher to freeze the ball right as it's been hit, depending on the angle your shooting from. That ball can be moving laterally across the frame at well over 100 mph and will streak at lower speeds.
For motocross if you want to freeze the spokes then your up in the 1/4000 to 1/8000 range. On the other hand, many folks like to see the motion of the wheels to give a feeling of speed.
Now that the sports are starting to move back outdoors and into the
daylight, I have a question about what shutter speeds to go for. For
field sports like soccer or lacrosse, on a nice day, a higher ISO
setting can get ss up very high, and in some cases bump up against
the maximum my camera is capable of. Is there any advantage to going
much beyond 2 times 1/focal length? For example, shooting at F4, if
I can get 1/2000 at ISO 400, will the shots look any better at 1/4000
and ISO 800?
lbuclk=
Veteran Member
Without sounding rude, I think you need to study photography basics. find a book or web site for more instructions. you get, and learn more. too many people ignore the basics of film/digital shooting & are often disappointed with their results.Now that the sports are starting to move back outdoors and into the
daylight, I have a question about what shutter speeds to go for. For
field sports like soccer or lacrosse, on a nice day, a higher ISO
setting can get ss up very high, and in some cases bump up against
the maximum my camera is capable of. Is there any advantage to going
much beyond 2 times 1/focal length? For example, shooting at F4, if
I can get 1/2000 at ISO 400, will the shots look any better at 1/4000
and ISO 800?
25 years as a freelancer,(news,magazine, wedding photography) camera equip. over the years: Practica MLT, Canon A1, Minolta 9xi, 7xi, Dimage Z1,Fuji 5200,Canon S2,Pentax K100D,Olympus 380,Canon SX 10 ( http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v104/Buckl/ )
http://mainstreets.blogspot.com/
Chad Marek
Senior Member
That's too bad, because it is good advice.or, at best, not helpful.
Your needed shutter speed is dependent on the type of sports you are shooting, the distance between you and the subject, the direction of the movement, and what your artistic vision of the scene is.
--
My dry sense of humor is completely mis-interpreted when put in writing as proven by the post immediately following this one.
Have you noticed that there's a method to see, on the back of a good digital camera, a report on what settings were used for a photograph?
Sometimes you find a button that says display, or informtion, and sometimes you can use a push to the top or bottom of a thumb-based controller.
I know that beginners love to find easy ways to do things -- they think there are rules and that talent can be forgotten, just as long as someone answers a question.
Unfortunately, there's no answer to your question.
Go find some sports events, or just a kid who can run.
Take fifty pictures, at different shutter speeds, of the kid runnng indifferent directions, close and far away, across the frame and obliquely and straight at you.
Connect your camera to your television -- a cord to do this probably came in the box -- and look carefully at every picture, and pop the shooting info up on the screen and see what settings you used -- how did the shutter speed freeze, or blur, the action, and how did the aperture provide lots of depth of field, or not enough, or just right.
Photography is hard.
BAK
Sometimes you find a button that says display, or informtion, and sometimes you can use a push to the top or bottom of a thumb-based controller.
I know that beginners love to find easy ways to do things -- they think there are rules and that talent can be forgotten, just as long as someone answers a question.
Unfortunately, there's no answer to your question.
Go find some sports events, or just a kid who can run.
Take fifty pictures, at different shutter speeds, of the kid runnng indifferent directions, close and far away, across the frame and obliquely and straight at you.
Connect your camera to your television -- a cord to do this probably came in the box -- and look carefully at every picture, and pop the shooting info up on the screen and see what settings you used -- how did the shutter speed freeze, or blur, the action, and how did the aperture provide lots of depth of field, or not enough, or just right.
Photography is hard.
BAK
S
slarti bartfast
Guest
jh2bh.
For tennis a shutter speed of 2000 will freeze everything pretty much. But total freeze can lack involvement with the viewer at times as well. Any creative attempt with slow shutter speeds and tracking can convey a lot more at times, but you have to shoot a lot more in order to capture it when it all comes together.
Getting the right amount of motion blurr and freeze is the trick in my book, as different parts of the body are moving at differemt speeds at capture.
The first thing you have to accept is that your going to see a lot of page one images go past you in the viewfinder that you missed. Actually, knowing it was a 'page one' moment is good sign that you know when something is special. The good thing is you can show your ability with a 'nobody' swinging a racquet, it doesn't have to be roger federer.
Unfortunatley, a slow lens that pulls in the background and can be a disadvantage when you need to seperate the subject, so money can come into it as well.
All of my above statements refer to my practices for my own use. If you were being paid other factors may curtail some of the above.
For tennis a shutter speed of 2000 will freeze everything pretty much. But total freeze can lack involvement with the viewer at times as well. Any creative attempt with slow shutter speeds and tracking can convey a lot more at times, but you have to shoot a lot more in order to capture it when it all comes together.
Getting the right amount of motion blurr and freeze is the trick in my book, as different parts of the body are moving at differemt speeds at capture.
The first thing you have to accept is that your going to see a lot of page one images go past you in the viewfinder that you missed. Actually, knowing it was a 'page one' moment is good sign that you know when something is special. The good thing is you can show your ability with a 'nobody' swinging a racquet, it doesn't have to be roger federer.
Unfortunatley, a slow lens that pulls in the background and can be a disadvantage when you need to seperate the subject, so money can come into it as well.
All of my above statements refer to my practices for my own use. If you were being paid other factors may curtail some of the above.
allinsky
Well-known member
Hi Jh,
Although nothing can substitute for experience I do believe you can use some guidelines to help you get going. My business is 90% sports and I've been shooting professionally for about 6 years now. My customers love my photos so I guess that means I'm doing something right.
In general:
1. Use the lowest ISO that will still garner you a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the action, or "mostly" freeze the action, depending on what you do.
2. In good outdoor lighting you should be able to use your lowest ISO settings and still have plenty of shutter speed. Pushing up your ISO to 400 may be necessary in certain sports and that shouldn't hurt your quality much if at all. I wouldn't push up my ISO more unless it was necessary to have even faster speeds. In that case I would push my ISO up though because the blurring would not be acceptable.
3. The camera you are using will also affect how much you can push your ISO and still have acceptable quality.
4. The level of play will affect how fast your shutter speed needs to be, even whether it is girls or boys. Huge difference between Pop Warner, High School, College and Pros for example.
5. In indoor lighting you will always have some challenges. Fast 2.8 lenses or even faster and top recent cameras that can you can really push on the ISO will make your life much happier, if not your bankbook thinner. If the lighting is typical high school gyms you will be probably shooting at shutter speeds that aren't optimum but you don't want to be underexposing so something has to give. For me it's usually opening up all the way to sacrifice depth of field but get the fastest shutter speed.
6. The sports I do a lot of are soccer, track and field, football, baseball, water polo, indoor volleyball and basketball, softball, cross country, some tennis and probably a few more that slip my mind at the moment. Both girls and boys, mostly at the high school and intermediate level.
7. The most important thing I've found for me is it's important to know your sports so you can anticipate the action, enjoy being out there, and love producing great images.
Have fun!
Coach Al
--
Al Linsky
Proud FCAS Member, Sports Photography
D300, D200, D70, 18-70mm AF-S, Sigma 24mm 1.8, Nikkor 50mm 1.8, Nikkor 85mm 1.8, Sigma 70-200mm 2.8 HSM, Sigma 100-300 4.0 HSM, Sigma TC 1.4, Nikkor 135mm 2.0 AIS, Sigma 120-300 2.8, Sigma 24-60 2.8, Nikkor 70-200 2.8, Nikkor 17-55 2.8
Although nothing can substitute for experience I do believe you can use some guidelines to help you get going. My business is 90% sports and I've been shooting professionally for about 6 years now. My customers love my photos so I guess that means I'm doing something right.
In general:
1. Use the lowest ISO that will still garner you a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the action, or "mostly" freeze the action, depending on what you do.
2. In good outdoor lighting you should be able to use your lowest ISO settings and still have plenty of shutter speed. Pushing up your ISO to 400 may be necessary in certain sports and that shouldn't hurt your quality much if at all. I wouldn't push up my ISO more unless it was necessary to have even faster speeds. In that case I would push my ISO up though because the blurring would not be acceptable.
3. The camera you are using will also affect how much you can push your ISO and still have acceptable quality.
4. The level of play will affect how fast your shutter speed needs to be, even whether it is girls or boys. Huge difference between Pop Warner, High School, College and Pros for example.
5. In indoor lighting you will always have some challenges. Fast 2.8 lenses or even faster and top recent cameras that can you can really push on the ISO will make your life much happier, if not your bankbook thinner. If the lighting is typical high school gyms you will be probably shooting at shutter speeds that aren't optimum but you don't want to be underexposing so something has to give. For me it's usually opening up all the way to sacrifice depth of field but get the fastest shutter speed.
6. The sports I do a lot of are soccer, track and field, football, baseball, water polo, indoor volleyball and basketball, softball, cross country, some tennis and probably a few more that slip my mind at the moment. Both girls and boys, mostly at the high school and intermediate level.
7. The most important thing I've found for me is it's important to know your sports so you can anticipate the action, enjoy being out there, and love producing great images.
Have fun!
Coach Al
--
Al Linsky
Proud FCAS Member, Sports Photography
D300, D200, D70, 18-70mm AF-S, Sigma 24mm 1.8, Nikkor 50mm 1.8, Nikkor 85mm 1.8, Sigma 70-200mm 2.8 HSM, Sigma 100-300 4.0 HSM, Sigma TC 1.4, Nikkor 135mm 2.0 AIS, Sigma 120-300 2.8, Sigma 24-60 2.8, Nikkor 70-200 2.8, Nikkor 17-55 2.8
Shanghaid
Forum Enthusiast
http://www.sportsphotoguy.com
He has a lot of good advice for settings for different sports. I literally took up photography seriously 5 months ago and my sports photos are coming along. I did a team DVD for baseball that came out rather well. Now I am learning indoors:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1014&message=31171616
Definitely lots of shooting and reading go together well. I think 1/500-1/800 for people sports is a good range for freezing motion and allowing a little artistic blur.
Baseball - a 5 year old's bat swing can take 1/2000 or more. So I stay around 1/640 to 1/800 in auto ISO mode, biut try to keep the ISO below 400.
Soccer - around the same as baseball.
Indoor basketball, you can read my post above.
--
Steve
http://www.shanghailights.com/
He has a lot of good advice for settings for different sports. I literally took up photography seriously 5 months ago and my sports photos are coming along. I did a team DVD for baseball that came out rather well. Now I am learning indoors:
http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1014&message=31171616
Definitely lots of shooting and reading go together well. I think 1/500-1/800 for people sports is a good range for freezing motion and allowing a little artistic blur.
Baseball - a 5 year old's bat swing can take 1/2000 or more. So I stay around 1/640 to 1/800 in auto ISO mode, biut try to keep the ISO below 400.
Soccer - around the same as baseball.
Indoor basketball, you can read my post above.
--
Steve
http://www.shanghailights.com/
jdjdjd
Forum Enthusiast
agreed, it was good advice.
besides, what's the point of having a pro forum if it gets filled with elementary questions? there are plenty of other places on dpReview for posting questions like this.
besides, what's the point of having a pro forum if it gets filled with elementary questions? there are plenty of other places on dpReview for posting questions like this.
That's too bad, because it is good advice.or, at best, not helpful.
Silverwind
Senior Member
It may seem elementary to you, because you are a pro who has experience in this aspect of photography. Those who want learn ask a pro in hopes they will get a helpful answer without getting slammed, humiliated or otherwise put down.besides, what's the point of having a pro forum if it gets filled
with elementary questions? there are plenty of other places on
dpReview for posting questions like this.
That's too bad, because it is good advice.or, at best, not helpful.
Not all pros do this, but there appears to be a fair amount who believe they are the cats meow. By the way, when/how did you start? Did you go to school and get a degree? Maybe you didn't. Maybe you picked up a camera one day and found a person willing to apprentice you. But you know what . . . you were once an amateur. Now you are a pro. That means a long the way, someone (who was a pro) had to answer your elementary questions and give their time to teach you. So is it really that hard to ask you to return a favor without making us who are not pro feel like fools for asking questions?
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him." Somehow this quote applies.
Thankfully, when I had similar questions years ago, there were pros who gave me a little bit of their time to answer my "elementary" questions - knowing they were furthering my knowledge and allowing me to achieve that goal. All without asking anything in return.
Just an amateur's 2 cents.
LiveM
Veteran Member
I think you will find that the shutter speed doesn't reduce motion blur over about 1/500 second. Perhaps someone would be interested to expand on the matter, but I believe the effect of higher speeds is to reduce exposure, nothing more.Now that the sports are starting to move back outdoors and into the
daylight, I have a question about what shutter speeds to go for. For
field sports like soccer or lacrosse, on a nice day, a higher ISO
setting can get ss up very high, and in some cases bump up against
the maximum my camera is capable of. Is there any advantage to going
much beyond 2 times 1/focal length? For example, shooting at F4, if
I can get 1/2000 at ISO 400, will the shots look any better at 1/4000
and ISO 800?
jdjdjd
Forum Enthusiast
Hi Silverwind, don't get so heated up. We were all amateurs once and we all understand the quest for knowledge. The key is to ask the question in the appropriate forum, of which there are many at dpReview, but this is not the one.
If you go back to the index page, you'll see this description:
"Welcome to the Pro Digital Talk Forum, the place where professionals can talk to other professionals and advanced amateurs can ask questions."
If you have, say, a Canon 450D, you can go to that forum on dpReview, ask the same question, and get plenty of good responses -- without a single complaint about the appropriateness.
If you go back to the index page, you'll see this description:
"Welcome to the Pro Digital Talk Forum, the place where professionals can talk to other professionals and advanced amateurs can ask questions."
If you have, say, a Canon 450D, you can go to that forum on dpReview, ask the same question, and get plenty of good responses -- without a single complaint about the appropriateness.
It may seem elementary to you, because you are a pro who hasbesides, what's the point of having a pro forum if it gets filled
with elementary questions? there are plenty of other places on
dpReview for posting questions like this.
That's too bad, because it is good advice.or, at best, not helpful.
experience in this aspect of photography. Those who want learn ask a
pro in hopes they will get a helpful answer without getting slammed,
humiliated or otherwise put down.
Not all pros do this, but there appears to be a fair amount who
believe they are the cats meow. By the way, when/how did you start?
Did you go to school and get a degree? Maybe you didn't. Maybe you
picked up a camera one day and found a person willing to apprentice
you. But you know what . . . you were once an amateur. Now you are
a pro. That means a long the way, someone (who was a pro) had to
answer your elementary questions and give their time to teach you.
So is it really that hard to ask you to return a favor without making
us who are not pro feel like fools for asking questions?
"You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those
who can do nothing for him." Somehow this quote applies.
Thankfully, when I had similar questions years ago, there were pros
who gave me a little bit of their time to answer my "elementary"
questions - knowing they were furthering my knowledge and allowing me
to achieve that goal. All without asking anything in return.
Just an amateur's 2 cents.
Silverwind
Senior Member
Thank you for the kind reply. Didn't want to sound too heated. Blame me for responding while watching a TV program late at night while tired. Lesson learned.Hi Silverwind, don't get so heated up. We were all amateurs once
and we all understand the quest for knowledge. The key is to ask the
question in the appropriate forum, of which there are many at
dpReview, but this is not the one.
If you go back to the index page, you'll see this description:
"Welcome to the Pro Digital Talk Forum, the place where professionals
can talk to other professionals and advanced amateurs can ask
questions."
If you have, say, a Canon 450D, you can go to that forum on dpReview,
ask the same question, and get plenty of good responses -- without a
single complaint about the appropriateness.
I know very well there are kind people in this forum who are more than willing to answer questions and share knowledge.
Perhaps I didn't state my question very well. Or maybe some of you responders didn't read it.
I am a "pro" but not in the habit of bragging about it. I know how to shoot sports, know how fast my shutter needs to be to freeze action, how use marginal shutters speeds to introduce some motion blur into my shots, and how to use the very slow shutter speeds for panning to get a frozen subject in front of a blurred background. I really just wanted to hear what some other photographers thought about using a shutter speed that is plenty fast enough to freeze action as opposed to a much faster speed at a higher ISO setting.
Thanks to those who tried to give some useful information, you know who you are. The rest you condescending clunkheads can go take a hike. Your presense adds nothing to this forum.
I am a "pro" but not in the habit of bragging about it. I know how to shoot sports, know how fast my shutter needs to be to freeze action, how use marginal shutters speeds to introduce some motion blur into my shots, and how to use the very slow shutter speeds for panning to get a frozen subject in front of a blurred background. I really just wanted to hear what some other photographers thought about using a shutter speed that is plenty fast enough to freeze action as opposed to a much faster speed at a higher ISO setting.
Thanks to those who tried to give some useful information, you know who you are. The rest you condescending clunkheads can go take a hike. Your presense adds nothing to this forum.
Now that the sports are starting to move back outdoors and into the
daylight, I have a question about what shutter speeds to go for. For
field sports like soccer or lacrosse, on a nice day, a higher ISO
setting can get ss up very high, and in some cases bump up against
the maximum my camera is capable of. Is there any advantage to going
much beyond 2 times 1/focal length? For example, shooting at F4, if
I can get 1/2000 at ISO 400, will the shots look any better at 1/4000
and ISO 800?
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