Newbie question:Dark shots at 1/2000 with c5060

I know its's to do with the amount of light(i think) but can someone tell me how to get light shots at a high shutter speed as i want to take soccer pics in the summer. Thanks in anticipation
--
Learn from your dog. Never pretend to be someone you're not

Gary P said:

I know its's to do with the amount of light(i think) but can
someone tell me how to get light shots at a high shutter speed as i
want to take soccer pics in the summer. Thanks in anticipation

Click to expand...

Ummm, if there isn't enough light, you will get dark shots. You can try boosting the ISO up as far as it will go (ISO 400 in most Olympus cameras), and if there is enough light, deal with the noise.

Some 'solutions' include (not all are serious):

1) Have your teams play at high noon, only on sunny days.

2) Rent a couple of high output lights like they use on movie sets and a possibly a generator to power it (or very long extension cords).

3) Convince your town to light the stadium properly.

4) Use a high powered flash, and deal with the recharging time (and possibily whether you can achieve a focus lock if the light is low). Note depending on your camera, you might need to use a slower shutter speed like 1/200.

5) If you need a faster recharge period, and/or are going to go snap happy, get a couple of Alien Bees and a Vagabond battery system (or the long extension cord once again). However if your camera has a slower flash sync rate (most DSLRs) there isn't much you can do about it.

6) Get a DSLR that can do ISO 1600, and get some appropriate f/1.4 or f/1.8 prime lenses and deal with not being able to zoom in/out with primes. Depending on when the games are held, even this may not be able to record at the speed you want.

Are you convinced you can't get the stop action from 1/1000th? I would think this would be sufficient.

Are you shooting shutter priority and letting it control aperature. If not, go to manual and try opening your aperture.

--
'Everything has its beauty but not everyone sees it.'
Confucius
http://users.arczip.com/gstallones

I don't think you need 1/2000 for soccer, but to get the fastest shutter speed possible, use the widest (smallest F-number) aperture available. The down-side with that is you'll have shallower depth of field so the accuracy of your focus becomes more important. Also, you can boost your ISO up to gain further advantage, but at the cost of more noise in your shots. Basically, there ain't no free lunch.

But as I said, 1/2000 seems like overkill unless you're trying to stop the fastest action -- like a hard hit ball heading toward the goal. But in that scenario, I think some motion blur on the ball would be much more effective. Frozen in time it's hard to tell where the thing is going never mind with how much speed, etc.

For example, this was taken at 1/320:

http://upload.pbase.com/image/16273701

Gary P said:

I know its's to do with the amount of light(i think) but can
someone tell me how to get light shots at a high shutter speed as i
want to take soccer pics in the summer. Thanks in anticipation
--
Learn from your dog. Never pretend to be someone you're not

Click to expand...

Inigo Montoya said:

... For example, this was taken at 1/320:

http://upload.pbase.com/image/16273701

Click to expand...

I agree that 1/320 is OK for soccer. When my son used to play soccer,
I would keep myself entertained by shooting the game with my 2020.
In bad light, I would use 1/320, aperture priority. Sometimes as illustrated
below, there was not enough light. Since the 2020 was at full zoom, the
aperture was f2.8. Even though the original uses color values only in the
range of about 0-128, after expanding to use the full 0-255 with a levels
adjustment the picture looks great. What you see below is only a
thumbnail, but the adjusted 2MP image made a great 8x10.



--
Roy F.

You should find 1/500 more than adequate for soccer. If you used a flash gun, it probably wouldn't fire any faster anyway.

Don't ask what you would need 1/2000 for. To catch a slow bullet perhaps.

nickoly said:

You should find 1/500 more than adequate for soccer. If you used a
flash gun, it probably wouldn't fire any faster anyway.

Don't ask what you would need 1/2000 for. To catch a slow bullet
perhaps.

Click to expand...

Or to shoot on a very bright day without a ND filter. I have had some days where I was just barely able to shoot at f/8 and 1/1000 (my camera's top speed and narrowest aperture) even with my polarizing filter on.

Michael Meissner said:

Or to shoot on a very bright day without a ND filter. I have had> some days where I was just barely able to shoot at f/8 and 1/1000> (my camera's top speed and narrowest aperture) even with my> polarizing filter on.

Click to expand...

Golly, at ISO 80 that's over EV 15 on the Weston Master. One more stop and you're off the dial.