Camera Labs

HELP!! Im desperate to find the right setting for my sports shots-I just got a new 2.8 Canon lense, but dont know the BEST mode and settings to get really great pictures of evening soccer games-it is a 70-200 zoom, and I have the XSI.
Anyone who's had great success with you sports pics, can you give the EXACT settings and directions, as I am just learning.
Thanks MUCH!
Diane Gorrick
my pictures are on a website, but I also dont know how to post it here, so-you can go to devalamom.myphotoalbum.com and the pics are under Barry and Kraze soccer-thanks again!

Spot meter, crank up the iso so you get a shutter of about 1/200 to freeze action and use the 2.8....

try that

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It seems not.

Earlier there was an identical thread started which had a URL in it that led to a site on which you only got to see a general page with lots of links and no photos and which looked very much like a 'Made For AdSense' site. With the current trend to make spam look more like real postings your suspicions need to be aroused very quickly these days.

But the URL in this thread does lead to what at first glance looks like a genuine photo page. Maybe there was a typo in the URL the first time which made us land on one of those many scraper sites registered on URLs very similar to genuine sites and which are explicitly meant to catch people mis-typing a URL.

Such scraper sites are the bane of the web and are purely parasitical sites that pollute the internet so you should NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER!!!!!!!! click on any link on those scraper sites.

In which case however.....


Welcome to the CL forum Diane. I don't shoot sports myself but there are many here that do so I expect someone will come around very soon to help you with your questions.

I mean in addition to alex168 of course.

Ben
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When in doubt..... Press the shutter.

Hello Diane, and welcome to the friendly Camera Labs forum!
Finally your link is ok and I made it work directly from your post. So now you're in the right section and should get some advice here.
From my side it's just:
- use Aperture priority and set the aperture to f/2.8.
- crank up the ISO to 400, 800 or even 1600 if you feel comfortable with the amount of noise/grain that your camera produces at these settings
This will give you the shortest shutter speeds you can get and the highest chance to produce an image without motion blur of shake.
Just try it out before some real important event comes up

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Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

sorry diane! welcome.

Welcome to the forum Diane.



Hmm. Spot metering might work; I prefer centre-weighted. I do a lot of indoor ballroom photography - essentially low light sports. You have it easy with soccer/football as it's well lit with floodlights. What you will need to do is put your camera in a continuous AF mode (the vast majority of your images on your website are out of focus), continuous firing, and in manual.



Use manual. I've given this advice a few times before on the forum. You're just going to be using the lens wide open - why leave the camera to control your shutter speed with a fixed aperture when you could be controlling the shutter to what you want it to be.

ISOs will inevitably need to be pushed a little. Depending on how your camera handles ISOs, that will dictate your settings. 800 is a good ballpark with the bright floodlights in soccer/football.



1/200 isn't enough in sports. 1.200-1/250 is what's often quoted to be the minimum speed to capture action. Faster moving sports will require faster speeds, and here I'd be thinking 1/640 and above for crisp action shots.

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Thank you to Thomas, Alex 168, and Cam-I-Am for your very helpful and prompt replies to my questions about shooting sports outside at night. I have already printed out these replies, and am studying the settings you have given me For the game on Wednesday, I used my AV setting, and had the ISO at 1600, but my F stop only went down to a 3.5? is that right? Or do I need to do something more? Thanks again, and anything else you have to say about my shots, to help me improve, I will be very grateful!
Diane