Setting For Night Sports Photography With a Nikon D80

[thebobwire]

I've recently tried to get back into photography and have started by taking photographs of my teenage sons playing sports, basketball and lacrosse. I've also tried a few night time football games. I am shooting with the following;

Nikon D80
Nikkor AFS VR f/2.8 70-200mm zoom
SB-800 Speedlight
ISO 800-1000
Exposure 1/200-1/400.

I have shot both JPEG and Camera RAW. I run my photos through Lightroom and also have Photoshop but am a very novice user.

The question I have is what should I have my camera set on? Any special techniques? Whats the best way to improve my photos in post processing?

I greatly appreciate any help and insight.

Bob


BlazersFootball-20091002-55.jpg

Horizon-DesertRidge-20090127-69.jpg

[OsmosisStudios]

2 things strike me: the focus in these seems off. It could very well be because the action is so fast, but the focus is off. The other thing is that the images are still underexposed and still have motion blur.

Doing night sports and indoor sports is quite possibly the hardest thing to do, especially with an older crop-sensor (DX) camera body. It's possible, just very hard.

[Drkranger]

With your equipment, the aperture should be set to the lowest possible setting (f/2.8) and the ISO should be set as high as possible (1600 or Hi1-3200). Then, set the shutter to as high as you can while still maintaining proper exposure. Typically, football and basketball need 1/500 if not 1/1000 for higher levels, like HS that you're shooting. You have the equipment to do these types of photos. Your only challenge will be getting the ISO high enough on the D80 body.

Take a look at this article for more information: Photography Technique: How to photograph sports

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by Drkranger

With your equipment, the aperture should be set to the lowest possible setting (f/2.8) and the ISO should be set as high as possible (1600 or Hi1-3200). Then, set the shutter to as high as you can while still maintaining proper exposure. Typically, football and basketball need 1/500 if not 1/1000 for higher levels, like HS that you're shooting. You have the equipment to do these types of photos. Your only challenge will be getting the ISO high enough on the D80 body.

Take a look at this article for more information: Photography Technique: How to photograph sports

Clearly you've never shot a D80 at 1600 or 3200 iso... 1600 is useable, but what I would consider emergency-only and 3200 is flat-out useless.

[Taallyn]

A few things come to mind.

First, you need a shutter speed of 1/1000th of a second or faster to really freeze action.

Second, the less light you have the more you will need to use wider apertures.

Third, the less light you have the more you will need to bump up your ISO.

Fourth, VR can introduce blur or slow down focus at shutter speeds faster than 1/500th of a second. Many pro sports photographers I've read on line suggest turning VR off when shooting fast action to avoid this issue.

Fifth, flash will only help you when the action is very close and their is little ambient light to affect your exposure. The more ambient light you allow in via your exposure settings, the more blur you will get in the shot. Also realize that a shoe mounted flash is not going to have the power to reach across a football field.

[OsmosisStudios]

Originally Posted by Taallyn

Fourth, VR can introduce blur or slow down focus at shutter speeds faster than 1/500th of a second. Many pro sports photographers I've read on line suggest turning VR off when shooting fast action to avoid this issue.

I remember thinking at one point that I had an issue with my 70-300 VR but it turned out to just be the way the VR system works with the AF.

[Taallyn]

Yeah, under certain conditions VR can be a liability. Those conditions seem to be when using fast shutter speeds. When you think about everything that has to happen when you press the shutter release, i.e. registering and locking exposure, focusing on subject, following subject if it moves, white balance, etc., it is a miracle that we can capture anything at all. Throw that each of those steps I mentioned have several substeps, and it is even more mind boggling that today's cameras can get out of the photographer's way. For instance when focusing, the camera and lens are communicating distance information and other parameters until the subject is in focus. It is a very small bandwidth of data that is used. Add in the effect of VR and more things can start to go wrong. Everything has to happen in a certain sequence. At the faster shutter speeds the VR system can actually interfere with the rest of the focusing system causing loss of subject tracking and blurring images. At least that is my understanding of it from reading various technical articles around the net.

Unfortunately, I didn't stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night ...

[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!

[Drkranger]

Originally Posted by OsmosisStudios

Clearly you've never shot a D80 at 1600 or 3200 iso... 1600 is useable, but what I would consider emergency-only and 3200 is flat-out useless.

You're right, I haven't, which is why it was a suggestion.

[nokiN]

Originally Posted by thebobwire

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!

Of the two, D90 or D300, the D300 has a far superior AF module (the same one the D3/D3X has) for shooting sports and with a Nikon vertical grip attached can shoot up to 8 frames-per-second (7 fps without the grip).

Even better is getting the new D300s because of the improvements to the EXPEED image processor, dual card slots (backup) and video too.

If you can justify the additional expense the ISO capabilities of the D700 surpasss the D90/D300/D300s, but since it's a full size sensor you would loose the 1.5x crop factor of a D300/D300sand would have to crop images made with your 70-200 f/2.8 even more than you do now.

The 70-200 f/2.8 is really to short for field sports, but many balk at the price jump to get to a 400mm f/2.8 ($9000+).