Shooting dark and light players on bright sunny days...

Set ISO, choose aperture, meter the field, lock shutter speed and shoot away?

Gary Elliott said:

Well, it's lacrosse season and here I sit again trying to find that setting(s) that will give me detail in the dark uniforms and under those helmets without blowing out the home team's (usually) bright white uniforms. Throw in those shiny helmets, and, well...

Anyone having better success? Feel like sharing?

I'm using a D500 and usually shoot aperture priority with center weighted metering. I can find a lot of suggestions for bright sunny days but not much related to the lacrosse and football situation where the players wear contrasting colors and are all mixed together on the field during the action.

Thanks. Gary

Click to expand...

Meter for the white uniforms, and then push the shadows in RAW. Most decent modern sensors can do it just fine.

Oh wait you're using a DSLR so you can't actually see how it meters, right... Well then you can just meter it once and lock the exposure, somehow... I've never used one of those before.

It's a dynamic range issue that no one combination of settings will remedy in a single shot; Multi/Matrix metering and shoot RAW so you can turn up the shadows a bit for the dark players/turn down the highlights a bit for the bright players in post.

Janoch said:

Set ISO, choose aperture, meter the field, lock shutter speed and shoot away?

Click to expand...

Yes, if there are no shadows over part of the field, and no scattered clouds sometimes covering the sun, this can be the way to do it. The idea is that you do not meter individual shots because the lighting isn't changing from shot to shot.

Let me suggest a couple of refinements:

Use M, not A mode.

The ISO should be set to the camera's base value, unless this gives you too slow a shutter speed.

Set your camera up before the game and take test shots of one of the white uniforms after having metered the field. Check histogram and/or blinkies. If highlights are being blown, set negative exposure compensation. Repeat.

On really bright days you might find the dynamic range of the scene is wider than your camera can handle. If that's the case, you are going to have to choose between blown highlights and blocked shadows.

If you are shooting JPEGs, you can use your camera's tone curve adjustment feature (ADL in Nikon).

Thank you all for the input. Yep, I agree it's the dynamic range limitation but hadn't thought of metering the white uniforms ahead of time - I'll definitely give that a try.

I usually shoot jpeg due to the large number of shots to process, but I've been reading up on RAW and it's about time I give it a try. Maybe one card RAW with jpeg to the other.

Who would have thought too much light would be the problem

Gary

Gary Elliott said:

Thank you all for the input. Yep, I agree it's the dynamic range limitation but hadn't thought of metering the white uniforms ahead of time - I'll definitely give that a try.

I usually shoot jpeg due to the large number of shots to process, but I've been reading up on RAW and it's about time I give it a try. Maybe one card RAW with jpeg to the other.

Who would have thought too much light would be the problem

Gary

Click to expand...

Some cameras have an increased dynamic range feature that works on jpegs, which is equivalent to pushing shadows when post processing raw. I wouldn't know what is it called on a Nikon but you can try that if you still want to shoot Jpeg.

Just remember always in bright sun you rather under expose it than over. You have way more room in the shadows than trying to recover the highlights. If the condition keeps changing just do like -2 EV constantly or something.

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Janoch said:

Set ISO, choose aperture, meter the field, lock shutter speed and shoot away?

Click to expand...

Try this post some pictures show us how you went,

Gary Elliott said:

Thank you all for the input. Yep, I agree it's the dynamic range limitation but hadn't thought of metering the white uniforms ahead of time - I'll definitely give that a try.

I usually shoot jpeg due to the large number of shots to process, but I've been reading up on RAW and it's about time I give it a try. Maybe one card RAW with jpeg to the other.

Who would have thought too much light would be the problem

Gary

Click to expand...

Hi, light is always the problem in action photography. Well. that and a lens that will focus when the light gets low.

As SoCalWill stated below use matrix metering and then check your blinkies for whites being blown and bring up the shadows in post. Shoot raw, set camera manually with your aperture where you want it and if the sun is going in and out of clouds set your auto ISO at the lowest setting that will allow decent shutter speed. Your shutter speed is what you use to quickly adjust for lighting changes, the auto ISO will take care of the rest. If you keep an eye on the blinkies and chimp you can merely turn the thumb wheel to change shutter speed and adjust. If shutter speed drops too much when the light dims bump up the auto ISO. It can all be done with the wheels without taking your eye off of the viewfinder.

With a little experience you will learn the little tweaks that work for your camera/lens combo. You will find out where your camera is strongest and what you have to keep an eye on. From all accounts the D500 is an excellent piece of equipment so learn it and you will enjoy it,

1. I always shoot sporting events on manual. If you shoot on automatic, your exposures are going to be all over the place. The backgrounds and jerseys are often wildly different.

2. If possible, I find I get more consistent results by shooting on the "shady" side of the players (backlit) so I'm shooting against the shady side of the stadium. It is easier to correct the images when you aren't fighting fried highlights.

3. Finally, if the light is really contrasty, it might be worth shooting raw instead of jpegs. You can correct the highlights/shadows/exposures much better with raw.

Don't worry about blowing out highlights in the uniforms as long as you're not blowing out highlights on faces. Faces are what matter to people no one but OCD photographers even notices blown out highlights in uniforms.

Here's an example - faces look good but not blown out. No one cares about the uni highlights

Gary Elliott said:

Well, it's lacrosse season and here I sit again trying to find that setting(s) that will give me detail in the dark uniforms and under those helmets without blowing out the home team's (usually) bright white uniforms. Throw in those shiny helmets, and, well...

Click to expand...

This is the same problem you might get with a bride in white and groom in a black tux. Use an incident meter and meter the light striking the subject, not the light bouncing off them. If all other options fail meter off the (hopefully green) grass and open up half a stop.