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#1 |
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Join Date: Aug 2009
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I'm a new dSLR owner. I just bought the Nikon D5000 so I could get some decent personal use shots of my son's high school football games. All games are at night so the light dimineshes throughout the game.
I shot pictures all of Friday night for the first time. As it got darker, my action shot pictures got more and more blurry. I was shooting in the sports mode with ISO at 400. As for all other settings...well again I am a newbie to the max and I have no idea where anything else was at. I'm hoping somebody can lend a few tips to improve the quality of these types of shots in these conditions. Lens: Nikkor AF-S DX VR Zoom 55-200mm f/4-5.6G IF-ED Please suggest some practial settings to help improve my shots. |
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#2 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Taylor Mill, Kentucky
Posts: 2,398
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#3 |
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Join Date: Aug 2009
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Yeah, the lens upgrade just isn't in the cards. For this year I am stuck with what I have as I broke the budget on my upfront purchase.
I think I can get aperture down to f4.0 with ISO settings up to 3200 if I do it manually. These are max settings for the current set up I believe. What settings would you suggest to make the best with what I have? |
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#4 | |
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Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Taylor Mill, Kentucky
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#5 |
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Join Date: Apr 2009
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While I don't own the D5000, when you are shooting at night with a relatively slow lens (the 55-200) is somewhat slow when it in full telephoto mode, you want to increase the ISO speed. Obviously ISO 400 isn't fast enough for the photos you want. I'd probably increase it to ISO 800 and see how that turns out. If not, you can always push it to 1600, although you risk some digital noise at that speed. I'm sure others will suggest various other camera tweaks, that's the first thing that comes to mind. I shoot my daughter's tennis matches at night. When I'm not using a fast (f2.8) lens, I will push my D90 out to at least 800.
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#6 |
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Join Date: Oct 2005
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You are in a very tough shooting environment so you will need to make sacrifices. The main is going to be noise, get that ISO up to 3200 (I'm not sure how the noise looks if you go higher), but even so under most conditions I've shot with flood lights I would only expect you to get about 1/80-1/160s or so with a proper exposure (this is key to high ISO shooting, if you under expose then when you bring it back the noise is even worse).
The limitation is the speed of the lens. If you had f2.8 then you are allowing 4 times more light in which is huge and would give you 1/320-1/640s in the same conditions as above, however as you say this is not an option due to cost currently. Practise panning, keeping your subject in the same part of the frame as you shoot, this will help freezing the important parts but you are still going to get blur in the ball, arms, legs etc. I'm sorry to say that it isn't better news but this along with indoor sports are some of the most kit intensive environments. |
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#7 |
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Join Date: Aug 2009
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PopPhoto review ( I think ) said the D5000 grain is low up to 1600, at 3200 noise becomes apparent.
2nd option until you acquire a fast lens, shoot flash/buy a dedicated flash unit. Try shooting at top camera flash sync, probably 200th of a second, on shutter priority.
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Nikon D600, D90, D70, N90s, FM2, Canon S3 1S, Panasonic FZ35; Nikon 18-105 VR, 28-70 2.8 Sigma, 35-70 Nikkor, 70-200 2.8 Sigma, 70-300 4-5.6 Sigma, 85 1.8D Nikkor, 55-300 4-5.6 Nikkor, Sigma 17-50 2.8. |
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#8 |
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Join Date: Oct 2005
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Nothing is really going to help without an external flash so would still only be an option if spending the cash on a SB-600 or larger. Also you want to be in manual when shooting with flash in these environments rather than Av or Tv.
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#9 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Oregon, USA
Posts: 18,143
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Is flash allowed? That might be your only "save" in this situation that you describe.
Sarah Joyce |
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#10 |
Super Moderator
Join Date: Oct 2005
Posts: 7,456
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Generally at all football games flash is allowed but it doesn't help with the price issue as on board flash isn't going to do the business.
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