Setting For Night Sports Photography With a Nikon D80

[Dr_Drill]

Originally Posted by thebobwire

Thanks for your input. I'm beginning to wonder if I've reached a limitation of the D80. I have tried a higher ISO and the noise is too great. As a result I have to shoot at slower shutter speeds like 1/200 - 1/400, with the lense wide open. Also when increasing my exposure in Lightroom the image quality will also begin to break down so I usually end up being a stop or two low. Unfortunately I'm trying to shoot action photography in the two worst places, a poorly lit football field and an equally poor gymnasium. I will try shutting down the VR to see if that helps, good suggestion, thanks!

I'm wondering if the D90 or D300s would be a good upgrade. They both use a CMOS sensor instead of the CCD on the D80. Have any of you shot low light action photography with a D90 or D300s??

Thanks again!

I had the same issues with my D80 and lower light sports photography with my 70-300VR. Basically, all my higher ISO images were way too noisy with the D80. I borrowed my friend's D90 the last time I got on the field at WVU and it was cloudy and darker out, and I was amazed at how much better it performed at higher ISOs. Here is an image I took (granted it was not night, but it was cloudy and to get my shutter speed above 1/1000, I had it set at ISO 1600):


EXIF:
Camera: Nikon D90
Lens: Nikkor 70-300 VR
Focal Length: 210mm
Shutter: 1/1250
Aperture: f/5.3
ISO: 1600

The other recommendation I have is to invest in some good noise reduction software. I use Lightroom as well, and I was using their noise reduction, but thought I would download the trial copy of noise ninja. I was so impressed I bought it (and used it on the above picture). I hope this helps, I am not a professional; just a guy with a camera that likes to take pictures, so take any of this with a grain of salt, but hopefully it helps!

[Nikon Newbie]

Hi all, I was just curious about a few things, especially concerning sports photography. I'm new to the SLR scene, but am one of those people that just has to have pictures of everything, and alot of the info on this thread has already helped me out quite a bit.

My main concern is lighting. For sports I spend most of my time at Snowboarding competitions, and a lot of them are at night. The lighting for the events are usually great, so my question is, do I rely on ambient lighting, up the ISO, and forget about the flash? Flashes usually don't help much anyway due to the extreme distance most snowboarders travel up in the air.

I have the following equipment, and I am also curious if there are better distance lenses in a amateur's very low budget.

My DSLR Body is a Nikon D3000 (as a newbie, I figured anything higher end would be lost on me till I learned the settings well enough.)
I have three lenses, which are the following.

the 18-55mm DX AF VR
the 55-300mm DX AF VR
and the 35mm prime F1.8 DX AF VR

I also have an SB-400 speedlight, which I primarily use to bounce the flash for better night time portraits of the family.

I have mostly used my DSLR for distance nature photography, but with the winter months coming up (and that means snowboard season) I'm curious about sports photography. Any information provided would be greatly appreciated.