Photographing Turkey Bowl Game

[jrdchicago]

Hello,
I am a high school student with a passion for photography. Very soon I will be taking photos of our school Turkey Bowl. For those who don't know, it is in the spirit of Thanksgiving where students get to play two touch football. There will be a lot of teams and I am hoping to put my new 70-300 lens to good use.

On to my question. If the game is in the afternoon, what settings should I use? I have a Canon XSi camera. I played around with the AV, manual, and TV modes. I found that I had trouble catching motion effectively using the AV mode. I then tried using TV mode and had better luck. Any advice or guidance would be appreciated.

[ccting]

I am new to lighting and i know anything about your camera. Nethertheless, i think if I am you,

a) If will go the field and survey the lighting condition for the event time

b) Survey a few best positions to capture the game. Perhaps a few pictures near the goal A, a few pictures near the goal B, a few pictures for the middle field. Test the reach of your 300mm.

c) Plan your shooting process flow.

As i am noob, so.. I just guessing...

[RichardTaylor]

If the light is relatively low. (not after dark)

Know how to read a histogram, remove any filters from your lens and use a lens hood.

(1) Shoot RAW (this will give you maximum control when post processing, including noise reduction and colour balance.

(2) Maximun ISO

(3) Aperture priority, or manual, with the lens wide open.

Take what ever shutter speed you can get.

If the pics are too dark or blurry due to subject or camera motion then you will need a faster lens (a mono pod may hep with camera motion)

If the pics are ok then you may be able to close your aperture down a bit to give you more DOF and/or reduce the ISO (to give you more DOF and reduce noise)

Focussing in low light may be a problem.
I use centre focus point only active and focus tracking (AI servo for Canon) on.

[homank76]

Try to shoot in continous tracking, this way you'll be able to follow the person you want to shoot and be in focus. Since you like shooting in shutter priority or time value as Canon calls it, I would start out at 1/500 and see if you have any signs of motion blur.

Adjust from there your ISO for the correct exposure.