# Help -- Shooting night football



## dcmoody23 (Sep 17, 2010)

I'm shooting football tonight for my high school, but I'm worried it'll be extremely difficult with the poor lighting..I haven't done any sort of event with lighting like this, so I'm looking for tips here..
I'll be shooting with a 7D (which can shoot up to 8 FPS) and a sigma EX 70-200mm 2.8, and I want some clear action shots so I want my shutter speed up. I don't have a monopod so I'll be shooting handheld.

Can anyone give me tips that'd get me shots with good lighting where I can maintain that freeze frame look?  I don't really care about DOF tonight since it's my first night shooting --

Also I know that every scene's setting is a different, but can anyone supply a starting point for me to use in terms of aperture and shutter speed?

Lastly, I have a 4 gig card.. I know shooting in raw would allow me tons more room to edit, but I also want to take a lot of pictures (Large) so I'm contemplating just shooting in JPEG ..  Thoughts?

Thanks.


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## Derrel (Sep 17, 2010)

Try and get a decent white balance before the game starts...that can boost image quality...crank the ISO up fairly high, like 3,200...most HS football fields have very poor lights...use the lens at f/2.8...stay 10-12 yards in front of the line of scrimmage, and do your best. When the team gets down to within 40 yards of the goal line, move farther ahead of the action, or down to the end-line,standing outside the goal line, waiting for a score.

Lights vary a lot from stadium to statdium...you'll be lucky to get f/2.8 at 1/250 at ISO 3200, unless the team plays at a local area college field, as some HS teams do in some places....still, f/2.8 at 1/400 at ISO 3200 will probably be the top speed yuo can expect.

Do not shoot JPEG!!! Shoot fewer, better frames.


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## Sw1tchFX (Sep 17, 2010)

like derrel said, get a good WB reading before the game and i'd actually pump that iso up to 6400 or whatever it takes to get around 1/500th of a second. I shoot sports in jpeg usually, but they're daylight events and i get a custom WB before had so there's not really a whole lot i'd be doing in RAW anyway. Saves time and space ten fold.


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## bigtwinky (Sep 17, 2010)

I was shooting pro soccer a few months ago and at ISO 800, f/2.8 I was shooting 1/500.  This is under pro lights.

HS will had worse lights.  I agree with Derrel, crank up the ISO.  The 7D handles 3200 well enough.  However, there will be noise.  Due to the low light issues, you will probably have to do some processing to get the image where you want it...noise reduction, exposure adjustment,... so shooting RAW is a must.

Only a 4GB card?  You can get an 16GB Sandisk for like $65.  At 4GB, you are storing what, 200 images?  Seeing as you mentionned the 8 fps shooting speed, you will fill that up pretty damn fast.

Considering anything can happen at any time, you wont have that much free time to go through the shots and delete the misses


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## dcmoody23 (Sep 17, 2010)

I had a 16 gig until it was lost by a family member who got some prints off of my card and swore up and down they put it in their purse, so the 4 gig, my "backup card" is now my primary, temporarily.. but that's a whole different story..
Anyways, my internet connection didn't want to work this afternoon so i didn't get to check this before the game.. 
I ended up shooting most of my shots @ ISO 800 (my big fault, I was too afraid of the noise to bump it up) 1/250 to 1/400 at 2.8 .. The lighting completely sucked, & was unbalanced so I got maybe 10 decent shots of the 130 that i took.. most were either too dark or had this weird red tint to them..

Anyhow, thank you all for your comments .. I'll certainly be using them next time I shoot a football game, or any poorly lit sports game for that matter.
I greatly appreciate all of your tips and advice.


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## LaRoo (Oct 2, 2010)

bigtwinky said:


> I was shooting pro soccer a few months ago and at ISO 800, f/2.8 I was shooting 1/500.  This is under pro lights.
> 
> 
> 
> Only a 4GB card?  You can get an 16GB Sandisk for like $65.  At 4GB, you are storing what, 200 images?  Seeing as you mentionned the 8 fps shooting speed, you will fill that up pretty damn fast.



I stored 800 images on a 4GB card, and I was shooting in burst mode.

Where are you getting only 200 from, if I may ask?


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## KmH (Oct 2, 2010)

I also only get about 200, 12-bit, uncompressed, RAW data files from a Nikon D300 (12.3 MP) on a 4GB CF card.

What file format/camera are you using to get 800 image files on a 4Gb card? Since you got 4 times as many, it sounds like you were using the 8-bit, lossy, compressed, JPEG print ready image file format, and not a RAW data file format.


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## LaRoo (Oct 2, 2010)

Well, KmH, you're right that I do shoot JPEG.  It's good for doing sports, because you have to shoot fast and you don't want to run out of memory.

But is there any chance we can *not* get into yet another endless, pointless brawl about "which is better"?
:roll:

http://enticingthelight.com/2010/06/01/raw-vs-jpeg-an-end-to-the-war/


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## KmH (Oct 3, 2010)

LaRoo said:


> Well, KmH, you're right that I do shoot JPEG. It's good for doing sports, because you have to shoot fast and you don't want to run out of memory.
> 
> But is there any chance we can *not* get into yet another endless, pointless brawl about "which is better"?
> :roll:
> ...


 Absolutely!

You made it sound like you were less than informed, and I was just trying to answer your question (see below):



LaRoo said:


> I stored 800 images on a 4GB card, and I was shooting in burst mode.
> 
> *Where are you getting only 200 from, if I may ask?*


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