New to photography - Help!

[jaylitz000]

First of all my name is Jay and I just bought a Canon t1i with the kit lens 18-55 and a Tamron 18-270 3.5-6.3 DI II with VC.

I took some pics of a HS soccer game and during the day they came out bright and clear but as the evening came on and they turned on the lights - my pics all became dark.

Again, I'm a complete ROOKIE but no matter what I tried to change I didn't seem to have any better luck.

So - I was looking in popphoto.com and they had some reviews on some economical flash units....having just spent a bunch on the camera and lenses.....how much would a flash help with evening shots of a soccer game with my 18-270 lens?

[tingeliM]

I don't think a flash would have that much lighting power if you're far away. It would have to be quite a flash...everyone near you would go blind But if you'd be standing right at the edge of the field and taking photos of people running by you, then maybe...

I would suggest to learn to use your camera properly before you go and spend any more money on a flash.

[Christian Michael]

Hay Jaylitz000 and welcome to the site. Ms Tingelim is correct. A flash wouldn’t help in this particular situation. But learning the fundamentals of the camera would help tremendously. Learning how to get the right shutter speed, ISO and aperture will help you get the lighting right without a flash and with a little practice and balance of settings eliminate blur.

There are many threads in here on the topic to get you started and there is zero substitution for practice! Don’t wait till your next game to practice, play with the camera now, learn the settings and be ready to take great shots at your next game :0)

Once again welcome to the site

Warmly

Christian

[inkista]

You're probably limiting the shutter speed to "freeze" action, and that only leaves you two other controls to jack up the exposure and grab more light: you can either increase your ISO, or you can open up your aperture.

But your 18-270 has a maximum aperture of 3.5-6.3. What that means is that the widest you can open the lens @18mm is f/3.5, and @270mm, the widest it can go is f/6.3.

That's not particularly wide. So you can't get a shutter speed that's particularly fast without underexposing and getting dark images.

You've got two options here. 1) blow money on a faster lens. A 70-200 f/2.8 lens is the usual go-to for folks shooting sports in low lighting conditions. These can be really expensive, but there are third-party options from Sigma/Tamron/Tokina that are in the $700-$800 range, rather than the $1500 range.

Or 2) if you've maxed out your ISO, shoot RAW, underexpose, and then increase the exposure in post-production. This will drastically increase the amount of noise you'll have in an image, so you'll probably also want to invest in some noise reduction software.

Cameras tend to need more light to see by than our eyes do.