# need help with getting more lighting or exposure into the camera.



## Mashburn (Jun 26, 2014)

the pictures at camp. these were shot on around F5. (if I go to F3 or lower, you cannot get everything in focus that you want). ISO had to bite the bullet and move up to 500. And that was to get my shutter speed up to 1,000. 
- It is very important to have the fastest shutter speed. I wish I could have 4,000 with my ISO at 100 and my F around 4.5-7
- It was crazy bright that day. so it makes no sense why I had to do those setting like that. It was 4:00 and just a couple clouds in the sky, but they were casting no shadows.
- I forgot to change my metering. but it was set to "spot". 


The pictures at the dome I had to pull my F to the lowest it would go 1.8, ISO 100 (I hate pushing my ISO up because it starts to make it look grainy.). and my shutter speed averaged 60-150 in shutter speed. 
- I know the lighting in there was a factor. because it is flurescent lights. but why that much? I tried even changing my metering and it seemed to not really help at all. (then again I am not sure if I am doing metering right or if that even has a factor on it. on metering on my D7000 I would change to Matrix and it seemed to not help at all.).

Is there a setting that I can change? or maybe something I have selected that should not be?


picture order.
1) F5.0 116MM 1/1250 ISO 400  (Where he is running)
2) F5.6 155MM 1/1250 ISO 400 (where the running backs are carrying the ball coming at me and jumping over the pads)
3) F5.3 122MM 1/1250 ISO 400 (all in a group. they were fighting)
4) F2.8 11MM (tokina ultra wide lense) 1/100 ISO 100 (Inside the dome has underarmour in it)
5) F4.0 50MM 1/60 ISO 450 (two girls jumping).


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## Braineack (Jun 26, 2014)

> ISO had to bite the bullet and move up to 500.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 26, 2014)

Mashburn said:


> the pictures at camp. these were shot on around F5. (if I go to F3 or lower, you cannot get everything in focus that you want). ISO had to bite the bullet and move up to 500. And that was to get my shutter speed up to 1,000.
> - It is very important to have the fastest shutter speed. I wish I could have 4,000 with my ISO at 100 and my F around 4.5-7
> - It was crazy bright that day. so it makes no sense why I had to do those setting like that. It was 4:00 and just a couple clouds in the sky, but they were casting no shadows.
> - I forgot to change my metering. but it was set to "spot".
> ...



Well I guess it would depend on your noise tolerance but depending on the camera ISO 500 seems awfully low.  I can easily go to ISO 1600 on my D5200 with zero noise reduction and the differences are barely noticeable.  If I need to go higher than that, that's where noise reduction software comes in handy.

If you can't increase your aperture settings for whatever reason then you'll have to either lower your shutter speed or raise your ISO.  The only other option that exists is to add more light.  You can increase your depth of field using a lower Fstop by moving further away from your subject, so that might be an option to explore as well.


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## Mashburn (Jun 26, 2014)

It's cloudy right now. but tomorrow it will be sunny. I will take a couple pictures of ISO 100, 600, 1600, 2200. 
- but for the training camp pictures, I have to crop the pictures sometimes to zoom in a lot. just because sometimes those nice catches are over half way across the field. 

It's just weird to me that it can be crazy bright and I have to move my iso up so I can take a fast shutter.


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## robbins.photo (Jun 26, 2014)

Mashburn said:


> It's cloudy right now. but tomorrow it will be sunny. I will take a couple pictures of ISO 100, 600, 1600, 2200.
> - but for the training camp pictures, I have to crop the pictures sometimes to zoom in a lot. just because sometimes those nice catches are over half way across the field.
> 
> It's just weird to me that it can be crazy bright and I have to move my iso up so I can take a fast shutter.



Well the human eye is capable of a dynamic range and lowlight performance that stomps the finest camera ever made into the dirt.  Just out of curiousity, what sort of camera/lens combination are you working with?


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## Mashburn (Jun 26, 2014)

robbins.photo said:


> Mashburn said:
> 
> 
> > It's cloudy right now. but tomorrow it will be sunny. I will take a couple pictures of ISO 100, 600, 1600, 2200.
> ...



Nikkor 50MM 1:1.8D & Nikkor 80-200MM 1:4.5-5.6D


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## Designer (Jun 26, 2014)

Mashburn said:


> Is there a setting that I can change? or maybe something I have selected that should not be?



ISO can go higher.


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## Mashburn (Jun 26, 2014)

I'm starting to wonder if I am just a chicken to move my ISO up. I just thought I could shoot at 100 ISO with a shutter speed of 4000 on a really bright sunny day. 

I'll still post pictures tomorrow when it is sunny. and not edit them.


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## Ysarex (Jun 26, 2014)

Mashburn said:


> I'm starting to wonder if I am just a chicken to move my ISO up. I just thought I could shoot at 100 ISO with a shutter speed of 4000 on a really bright sunny day.



ISO 100 on a really bright sunny day with your subject in full sun correct exposure = EV 15, which is: 1/4000 sec., f/2.8

Joe


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## Mashburn (Jun 27, 2014)

I went and took a few pictures and analyzed them. at ISO 100 I can get to 600-1000 on a bright sunny day. when I get to ISO 500 then I can bump it over 1000 on shutter speed. 

Basically I am finding out that I am just a chicken. thanks for trying to help me everyone. I'm glad to know that my camera is fine.


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## Braineack (Jun 27, 2014)

really, none of the shots you posted look really under-exposed.  Maybe the first indoor one, but you might have metering on the bright signage.


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## astroNikon (Jun 27, 2014)

On my d7000 I regularly go up to ISO 800 without issues.

It's been hard for me pushing ISO but so far no problem.  I remember the days of film when I used to buy ASA 200 or 400 film ONLY.  So and ISO for anything above that used to freak me out.  But I've also been at ISO 1600 too on my d7000 now.

Put your camera on auto ISO for a few minutes and shoot away at various parts of the field, then review what the camera did.

then determine a max ISO that you like, and set up the ISO Max to that number.  Then just use Auto ISO (which will now have a max limit)  for a while and see how it goes.


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## JohnnyWrench (Jun 27, 2014)

What camera are you using? This was shot at ISO 4000 at night under stadium lights on my D700. At that rating I still only got to 1/640.


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## gsgary (Jun 27, 2014)

For low light sports you need to be at ISO1600 +

iso3200 F2.8 you have to use the settings to gets the shot


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## Overread (Jun 27, 2014)

Noise you can deal with, you can use noise reduction software to clean it up - you can use sharpening to then counter softness caused as a result and you can use layermasks to isolate both effects to the areas you want them to. 

As an example often you'll see more noise in background areas that are blurry; whilst at the same time those areas don't need any sharpening. So you'd use layer masks to apply a strong amount of noise reduction to the background, a weaker or no amount to the sharp in focus detailed areas and then again another mask to sharpen the in-focus areas. 

Also remember that resizing for the web and printing hides a lot of noise; it just doesn't appear so you can get away with more than you think.



You can "fix" noise - you can't fix motion blur (at least in practical terms - a good artist might be able to or you could do extensive cloning and copying from the same and other shots - but at that point you're looking at hours of work for marginal gain).


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## imagemaker46 (Jun 27, 2014)

After everything that you wrote my first impression is that you should remove the "photography" watermark. Being blunt here, you still haven't got a grasp on the relationship with using your camera settings and the available light. If you are working outdoors on a sunny, or cloudy day, use the iso that works in relationship with a fast shutter speed and an fstop between 5.6-8. I generally try and keep the shutter speed between 640-1000, f-stop 5.6-6.3, when the light goes away, I move the iso up until I can keep shooting in that range. The indoor light of a dome should be consistent. Forget the iso 100, 200,400 and use what the camera offers.

At higher iso's 3200-4000 I add a little grain to the images in photoshop as I find they start to look a little mushy, the grain gives them a little sharpness.

I'm guessing the images you posted were just test grab shots? The exposures on the "action" looked fine to me.  It does look like you used a blur tool for the entire background on the action shots as well.


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## Mashburn (Jun 28, 2014)

gsgary said:


> For low light sports you need to be at ISO1600 +
> 
> iso3200 F2.8 you have to use the settings to gets the shot


Thanks. that is what I am trying to get at. 

So going to 1600 is not as bad as I think. 

is this cropped at all? because if not, what camera and lense did you have?


I'll go and take a picture of something moving today in low light like this. and show you how it turns out.


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## Mashburn (Jun 28, 2014)

astroNikon said:


> On my d7000 I regularly go up to ISO 800 without issues.
> 
> It's been hard for me pushing ISO but so far no problem.  I remember the days of film when I used to buy ASA 200 or 400 film ONLY.  So and ISO for anything above that used to freak me out.  But I've also been at ISO 1600 too on my d7000 now.
> 
> ...


agreed. and thanks.

I am just a chicken. I'll go and find out my "max" ISO


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## Mashburn (Jun 28, 2014)

Overread said:


> Noise you can deal with, you can use noise reduction software to clean it up - you can use sharpening to then counter softness caused as a result and you can use layermasks to isolate both effects to the areas you want them to.
> 
> As an example often you'll see more noise in background areas that are blurry; whilst at the same time those areas don't need any sharpening. So you'd use layer masks to apply a strong amount of noise reduction to the background, a weaker or no amount to the sharp in focus detailed areas and then again another mask to sharpen the in-focus areas.
> 
> ...



I need to learn how to mask. and I need to print out some of the pictures when I feel the noise is bad, and see how it looks. 

thank you everyone for your help. I'll be posting an update later


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## Mashburn (Jun 28, 2014)

imagemaker46 said:


> After everything that you wrote my first impression is that you should remove the "photography" watermark. Being blunt here, you still haven't got a grasp on the relationship with using your camera settings and the available light. If you are working outdoors on a sunny, or cloudy day, use the iso that works in relationship with a fast shutter speed and an fstop between 5.6-8. I generally try and keep the shutter speed between 640-1000, f-stop 5.6-6.3, when the light goes away, I move the iso up until I can keep shooting in that range. The indoor light of a dome should be consistent. Forget the iso 100, 200,400 and use what the camera offers.
> 
> At higher iso's 3200-4000 I add a little grain to the images in photoshop as I find they start to look a little mushy, the grain gives them a little sharpness.
> 
> I'm guessing the images you posted were just test grab shots? The exposures on the "action" looked fine to me.  It does look like you used a blur tool for the entire background on the action shots as well.


I added my unedited ones. I don't know why I selected the edited ones.

also the reason I have such a huge watermark. because my pictures were stolen a couple years back. And I had to go through a bunch of hoops stopping the person and etc.


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## Braineack (Jun 28, 2014)

Using spot didn't help. But didn't look that sunny out. Appears overcast.


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## gsgary (Jun 28, 2014)

Mashburn said:


> Thanks. that is what I am trying to get at.
> 
> So going to 1600 is not as bad as I think.
> 
> ...



No not cropped I never crop, 5Dmk1 + 300f2.8L


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## Mashburn (Jun 28, 2014)

Braineack said:


> Using spot didn't help. But didn't look that sunny out. Appears overcast.


Yet it wasn't. it was super bright. blinding bright.


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## Mashburn (Jun 28, 2014)

All shots are 50MM @ F5.0 I took a role of black tape and spun it around about the same speed. 
- This was taken about 7:30 in georgia. That light was decent. and in the second picture, that was about how bright it was actually)
 (unedited) ISO 2000 1/2000
 EDITED. noise I jacked up to 55 in lightroom. (is that ok? I guess if it looks fine to me. then it is ok) ISO 2000 1/2000. this stopped it with very little blur. this is how I like it.
 (croped edited) ISO 2000 1/2000. I did this to show myself that noise was not as bad once I adjusted it on lightroom.
 (Unedited) ISO 100 1/250. Could have brought the shutter down for more exposure. but it would have trailed to bad.
 (unedited) ISO 640 1/800. Was decent. but just a little bit of blur. But Noise was able to be brought to 40. 
 (unedited) ISO 1600 1/2000 when I edited I pretty much was very close to the picture above that was ISO 2000 1/2000

 ISO 2000 1/2000. came out as the other picture that had the same settings. Just the other one was on Matrix. and the was on spot metering. (Does metering not matter if it is not dark behind the subject? and if it does not matter, then would it be best to leave it on spot?



Thank y'all for helping me out. I believe I am now ok with jacking my ISO to 1600. If it is ok to bring noise up to 55. 
Now I am wondering about Metering. I know what it does and have taken the difference meter trypes with the sun behind it but when there is nothing bright behind the subject, then does it matter?

Also I stated what lense I use for my long shots (in football usually). what is a lense that has a good range from 70-300 (+ or -)? And something that will not break the bank. maybe around 300-500$?


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## imagemaker46 (Jun 28, 2014)

Shooting sports and looking for a long lens in that price range.  I'd save my money and then try and find a good used 300 2.8.


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## Overread (Jun 29, 2014)

You've also the Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 OS in about the same price bracket as second hand 300mm f2.8 primes. 

As for the ISO remember if you raise the brightness/exposure in editing you'll show far more noise than if you used a higher ISO and got the bright well exposed photo in-camera.


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## Mashburn (Jun 29, 2014)

Overread said:


> You've also the Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 OS in about the same price bracket as second hand 300mm f2.8 primes.
> 
> As for the ISO remember if you raise the brightness/exposure in editing you'll show far more noise than if you used a higher ISO and got the bright well exposed photo in-camera.


Well that explains when i was doing night photography with light painting. 

Thanks


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