Disappointed Newbie

[feb]

I have never used a real camera like this before, always just the point and shoot cameras but I got a Sony A35 camera for Xmas and went to use it for the first time at my son's basketball game. Suffice to say I was pretty disappointed with my results. I had both the prime lense and a 75-300mm lense. Since I'm new to this I had everything on auto mode except I chose the Sports Action setting for a few pictures and the 7 frames per sec setting for a few pictures.

Many pictures are blurry and grainy. I was expecting to be able to "stop" the action in each picture but I really don't think the camera performed any better than pocket digital cameras I've always used.

Since it was at a game I did shut off the flash and it wasn't the brightest inside the gym, maybe that had something to do with it?

Just curious what people would suggest I try next. I plan on taking some classes to get better at taking all types of pictures and get away from the auto settings modes but I am looking for tips and suggestions to make the next game's pictures better.

Thanks.

[NathanFranke]

Can you post some of the pictures with the EXIF data? Your manual will have instructions for how to find the EXIF info (shutter speed, aperture, ISO, etc). This will help us track down why they came out the way they did.

[tsy72001]

I am new to this as well, but did you use a tripod? I find my indoor shots are much better with one.

[sk66]

probably just didn't have enough light to get a fast enough shutter speed.

[Aegea]

As Nathan says the EXIF would help a lot, but I'd guess that the lighting conditions were too dim to get the kind of pictures you want. I'm not familiar with Sony, but kit lenses are usually slow (do not have a lot of light gathering ability), which forces the camera to use slow shutter speeds (which makes for blur) and high ISO (which makes for a lot of grain).

[feb]

I dod not use a tripod but will try one today when I take some more.

I've uploaded a picture to: [URL="http://i1136.photobucket.com/albums/n494/fbozek/DSC00276.jpg"]

It is a good representation of my results. I don't have the manual with me at work but was able to get this data off of the camera when looking at the picture. I hope this is what you are looking for, much of it is foreign to me at this time.

F4.5
ISO1600
1/50s
+/- 0.0
AWB
Focal Length 75mm

thank you.

[zona5101]

yup - needed a faster shutter speed.... solution is to up your iso even more, get a "faster" lens, add more light (with a flash)

[feb]

Other than walking into the camera store and asking for a faster lense, what specifically would I be looking for? I have the Sony 75-300mm lense now. It also says 3.5-5.6 on it.

What criteria do I look at to make sure it is faster than what I have now?

Is the 1/50s datapoint from my picture the shutter speed? Is that what I need to concentrate on? I noticed in some of the tutorials here that sample pictures state a shutter speed of 1/300 or higher. One had a beautiful shot of a motocycle racer, zoomed in, and there wasn't a hint of movement or blur.

thanks.

[Aegea]

I think you've just discovered why professional sports photographers have several thousand dollars worth of equipment hanging round their necks.

The F4.5 means the lens was almost certainly as wide open as it could be, letting in the maximum amount of light. (Incidentally, smaller numbers mean larger aperture, it's an inverse relationship).

The ISO 1600 means that the sensitivity of the sensor to light was cranked up pretty high. This will make for a grainy picture.

And the 1/50 second was the shutter speed needed to get a proper exposure,given the other two factors (to understand this better,you will have to read up on the exposure triangle).

However, 1/50 second is pretty slow for two reasons:

First, the rule of thumb is no slower than 1/FL if you are hand holding (and don't have a stabilized lens) - since your FL was 75mm, this is problematic.

Second, 1/50 won't freeze fast motion. During that fiftieth of a second a running or jumping person will move a few inches, causing blur.

As others have said, for those conditions you'll need a faster lens, or to use flash, or both. Higher ISO will just increase the grain.

EDIT - I see our posts crossed. Since the lens has a maximum aperture of 3.5 at 75mm, I'm surprised the camera wasn't using this. That would have let the shutter be a little faster. You can control this by using aperture priority on the camera, which will let you force the lens to be wide open. If you can tolerate more grain, you could also bump the ISO up a step.

[feb]

Is shutter speed a manual setting as well or is it something that is determined by other manual settings?