Night pictures

[wickedcurveball]

Any suggestions on how to get good pictures at night when you can't use your flash? Especially pictures with movement such as batting and/or pitching. I have the Canon 40D camera. My pictures do not look good under the lights and no flash....

thanks

[Guest iamoz]

You will need a lens that lets in as much light as possible. Look for lens with maximum apertures around f2.8. CoachT has an 80mm prime lens that opens up to f1.8.

 

You will still get some blur, but the pictures will at least be usable.

 

http://keh.com/

[aubie7]

What settings are you using on the camera? That makes a big difference too, although the lens is one of the most important things.

 

Also, use a monopod. You need as little camera shake as possible.

[Swildcat1967]

Some good sugestions already. Deffinitly get the monopod. We could help you alot more if you would tell us some more details besides camera. What lens do you use. What settings. App., speed, ISO, etc. Like has already been said a fast lens, f 2.8 or better. There are some really good primes, but if your going to shoot sports seriously in low light, a Canon 70-200mm F2.8 is the lens most photographers would have as one of their main lenses. A 300 or 400mm 2.8 is my dream lens, but $$$$$ lol. I got lucky and got a good deal on my 70-200mm used. These lenses are anywhere between $1000 - 1600 new, depending if you get the model with IS(Image stabilization) or not. You can get a good used one for around $750-900. The good lowlight primes are also pretty expensive, but like has already been said, lenses are very important, especially for lowlight sports photography.

With no flash you will have to crank up your ISO for sure, which I hate to do myself, but the 40D is supposed to be prettygood at higher ISO's and there are some good programs to clean up the added noise.

It would be alot easier to help you, but your settings and maybe seeing a couple of your photos would help alot. /thumb[1].gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":thumb:" border="0" alt="thumb[1].gif" />

 

Philip

www.sweetwaterwildcatfever.com

www.mvpvisions.com

[wickedcurveball]

Some good sugestions already. Deffinitly get the monopod. We could help you alot more if you would tell us some more details besides camera. What lens do you use. What settings. App., speed, ISO, etc. Like has already been said a fast lens, f 2.8 or better. There are some really good primes, but if your going to shoot sports seriously in low light, a Canon 70-200mm F2.8 is the lens most photographers would have as one of their main lenses. A 300 or 400mm 2.8 is my dream lens, but $$$$$ lol. I got lucky and got a good deal on my 70-200mm used. These lenses are anywhere between $1000 - 1600 new, depending if you get the model with IS(Image stabilization) or not. You can get a good used one for around $750-900. The good lowlight primes are also pretty expensive, but like has already been said, lenses are very important, especially for lowlight sports photography.

With no flash you will have to crank up your ISO for sure, which I hate to do myself, but the 40D is supposed to be prettygood at higher ISO's and there are some good programs to clean up the added noise.

It would be alot easier to help you, but your settings and maybe seeing a couple of your photos would help alot. /thumb[1].gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":thumb:" border="0" alt="thumb[1].gif" />

 

Philip

www.sweetwaterwildcatfever.com

www.mvpvisions.com

[wickedcurveball]

I have the Canon 70-200mm lens and the Canon 1.4 Extender. I have tried various settings on the camera. My son pitches and the action shots during the day are great but once the sun goes down and the flash is not allowed my pictures are blurry and I sure don't get the action shots. Same thing with the kids batting-great pictures during the day but blurry bat at night. My daughters play soccer and same scenerio.

[3-6-3]

I have the Canon 70-200mm lens and the Canon 1.4 Extender. I have tried various settings on the camera. My son pitches and the action shots during the day are great but once the sun goes down and the flash is not allowed my pictures are blurry and I sure don't get the action shots. Same thing with the kids batting-great pictures during the day but blurry bat at night. My daughters play soccer and same scenerio.

 

 

can you get an f stop of 2.8?? or is this the cheap version of the lense - a good 2.8 lense will run at least $1000 and you can't use extender on the lense because that runs minimum fstop up to 1.5 times or so higher than 2.8 - you need at least 1/500 but as close as you can get to 1/1000 shutter speed to stop fast action like swinging a bat

 

also - what is your iso set at?? some camera's you can crank up iso to 3200 even 6400 (nikon d3) and get great shots with workable noise

[wickedcurveball]

can you get an f stop of 2.8?? or is this the cheap version of the lense - a good 2.8 lense will run at least $1000 and you can't use extender on the lense because that runs minimum fstop up to 1.5 times or so higher than 2.8 - you need at least 1/500 but as close as you can get to 1/1000 shutter speed to stop fast action like swinging a bat

 

also - what is your iso set at?? some camera's you can crank up iso to 3200 even 6400 (nikon d3) and get great shots with workable noise

 

So it sounds like I need to take the extender off at night and I need to manually get the camera's iso to 3200 and work down from there. I think I have only had the iso to 1600 but I can manually raise it. Yes, I have the expensive lens and they were out of the lens with the built in stabilizer and I didn't want to wait-wish I would have now. I'll let you know how it works out. The Germantown Baseball pictures on Coach T's site are taken by me and you can see the difference in the day and night pictures. Thanks for all the advice!!

[score3]

That built-in stabilizer wouldn't of done you and good for sports. Even at what we sports shooters consider "low" shutter speeds.

[wickedcurveball]

And the guys at the camera store were just insistant that I needed the extender. We have a double header tonight so I am ready to try out everyone's suggestions

[score3]

The extender is GREAT for daytime use especially in baseball. Just not night time...

[Swildcat1967]

Score is right, it would be pretty much a waste to have got the Image stabilizer, unless you take photos other than sports action. Never use the extender at night. Even in daylight it will soften your photos some. Without good lighting on the field, it will be hard to get consistantly good photos at night, even with a more expensive pro camera. The 40D is a good camera, but try not to crank the ISO up past 1600 if it is possible. If that is the only way it will work, then you will want to invest in a real good photo program for noise. Noise ninja is a good one that comes to mind, there are 3 or 4 more that work real well, and I will try to remember some of the others later.

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Oh and there is nothing wrong with having an extender, they can come in handy, but some Camera store employees will try to sell you extras, and when they keep trying they are probably working on commission. So try to find a store that you feel comfortable with, and helps you but doesn't keep pushing you to buy, buy, buy.

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The best way to learn is to find a good experienced pro or semi pro in your area and make friends with him. There are some good websites that you can learn alot from also. Try sportsshooter.com - You can also try flickr.com, I still use it, I used it alot more when I first started though. There are some good sports photographers on the site that will be happy to help you, you just join groups that deal with sports photography, canon cameras, or whatever else you are interested in. You can learn alot from other photographers who can look at your photos, and also look at your exif data which tells all of the settings you used for that particular photo they are looking at. Some of the groups are very large and you can get several photographers opinions and ideas in just a few minutes if you ask a question. - Some good groups to join and learn from are: sports photography, sports photographers, Digital sports/Photojournalism photography, Sports action, Canon DSLR user group, and many more. There are also many groups that will score, rate, or comment on your photos.

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If you do use flickr, the only thing I would advise you to do is resize your photos before you download them, because people can download your photos if your settings are set for them to. I usually resize to 700-1000 pixils at the largest. You can also hide your exif data, but that makes it harder for people to help you. It's free to join, or you can pay if you want to be able to download an unlimited amount of photos every month. If you checkout flickr.com look me up, my name is: philip_moore_wildcat