Indoors without flash & Action shots without blur

[OjaiAnna]

I am able to photograph indoors without flash with no problem; and can photograph outdoors with sports or movement without blur with no problem. The problem occurs when I try to take action (or sports) pictures indoors without or even with flash. The pictures always come out blurred. Can anyone give me some guidance on what setting I would need to use in order to do both indoors and action without blur? (BTW --- I have tried the auto sports setting indoors and it doesn't help.)

I have a Nikon D60 with a 18 to 55mm lens.

Thank you for any help you can give. This is driving me crazy

[zona5101]

Hi,
So the blur is because the camera is picking a slow shutter speed (staying open longer to let in more light). To increase the shutter speed you need to either let a greater volume of light in (larger aperture opening) , increase the sensitivity of the recording media (increase the ISO setting), or supplement the amount of light available (add flash or static lighting). Or a combination of all three. You can also eliminate the blur induced by you by using a tripod but since we're talking about action pitures thats not really relevent here.
So increasing the volume of light: Your lens, if I’m not mistaken, is variable fstop f3.5-5.6 When you are shooting at 55mm the largest aperture you can achieve is f5.6 and unfortunately that is pretty small. When shooting at 18 the maximum aperture is 3.5 and that isn’t all that large either. Think of your aperture like the diameter of a fire hose, the narrower the hose the less water gets in. Just zooming from 18 to 55 you lose about a stop and ½ of light. The fix for this is a "faster" lens. Max aperture 2.8, 2,1.8, 1.4, or even 1.2
Increase ISO is a good option if your camera renders high ISO without becoming too grainy. Part of what will define “too grainy” is what you plan to do with the pictures. You can experiment and see if increasing your ISO will work for you. At some point however, increasing the ISO will result in an unusable picture with unacceptable levels of noise and grain.
Finally you can add supplemental light in the form of a flash or continuous light.
That was kinda of a wordy answer but I hope it makes sense. It isn't as easy as changing a setting as there is more in play than just the aperture and shutter selections you make. Good luck – have fun!

[Doug Pardee]

There's no magic in your camera. A camera makes a picture by capturing light, and when light is limited the process necessarily becomes noticeably imperfect.

You merely get to choose what kind of imperfection. If you slow the shutter speed you get motion blur and camera shake. You can only open the aperture as far as your lens will go, and at wide apertures focus becomes a problem. If you increase the ISO setting you'll see more noise in the image.

The best way to deal with motion blur indoors is to use flash. It increases the amount of light and the short duration of the flash freezes action. Range is limited, though, especially if you bounce the flash to reduce that "flash look", and in some cases flash is inappropriate or simply forbidden.

If you're shooting indoor sports, you're doing one of the most challenging kinds of photography that there is. The lighting sucks and the action is fast. The pros generally mount slave flash systems in the rafters to light up the entire venue when they snap their pictures. If that's not possible, they use (expensive) fast lenses and rely on the sophisticated autofocus systems of their pro cameras to provide accurate subject tracking and focus.

With the equipment that you have, you're going to struggle with indoor sports. About the best that you can do is to open the lens all the way, set the ISO all the way up, prefocus at a spot where you expect the action to move to then switch to manual focus, then wait for the action to get to that spot and try to snap the picture at a point when things are slow (a basketball player at the peak of a jump, for example). You might also try continuous-fire and rip off about three shots at a time in the hope that one of them will be better than the others.

Caution: many indoor sports venues use gas-discharge lighting (fluorescent, mercury vapor, sodium, etc.). This lighting flickers at twice the power-line rate. To avoid the resulting variance in exposure and white balance, you need to keep your shutter speed down to 1/120 or preferably 1/60 (1/100 or 1/50 in places with 50 Hz power). This will hamper your ability to freeze the action.

[inkista]

You don't need better settings. You need a faster lens.

Your 18-55 kit lens has a maximum aperture of f/3.5-5.6. You need to understand what this means.

@18mm, the widest the lens can be opened is f/3.5. @55mm, the widest the lens can be opened is f/5.6. This is small and slow.

To shoot available light indoors without a flash, handheld, you typically need f/2.8 or wider. You're able to get away with less with non-moving subject matter. But when the subject matter moves (as in sports), you need a faster shutter speed. Period. VR cannot get you that--VR is like a tripod or a monopod--it can only let you use longer shutter speeds--it can eliminate camera shake blur, but NOT subject blur.

If you were a Canon shooter, I'd tell you to just get a fast prime, like the el cheapo 50/1.8 or 85/1.8, but since you're on a Nikon D60, you also have the added hurdle of the focus motor issue, so not sure really what to tell you, other than maybe try a 50/1.4, or consider saving up the pennies for a 70-200 f/2.8 VR or upgrading to a used D80.

[OjaiAnna]

Oh Oh ... I should have asked before I ordered a 55 - 200 mm zoom lense which has minimum / maximum aperature of f4 - f5.6. It is on its way to me as I write this. Oh well, I will remember to ask before I buy next time and will be saving my pennies for a better lense. Thanks for the info.

[LoveDSLR]

Originally Posted by OjaiAnna

Oh Oh ... I should have asked before I ordered a 55 - 200 mm zoom lense which has minimum / maximum aperature of f4 - f5.6. It is on its way to me as I write this. Oh well, I will remember to ask before I buy next time and will be saving my pennies for a better lense. Thanks for the info.

Sigma has a number of D60 compatible lenses with HSM (source:Sigma - News)

10-20mm F4-5.6 EX DC
12-24mm F4.5-5.6
17-35mm F2.8-4 DG
50-500mm F4-6.3 DG

--- You can consider these two lenses.
APO 50-150mm F2.8 EX DC HSM
70-200mm F2.8 DG MACRO

80-400mm F4.5-5.6
100-300mm F4 DG
120-300mm F2.8 DG
300-800mm F5.6 DG
14mm F2.8 EX
30mm F1.4 EX DC HSM
150mm F2.8 EX DG
180mm F3.5 EX DG
300mm EX DG
500mm EX DG
800mm f5.6 EX DG

[Trader]

Originally Posted by OjaiAnna

. . . . . . . minimum / maximum aperature of f4 - f5.6 . . . . .

That is not the minimum and the maximum aperature, that means when you are shooting at the 55mm setting the widest aperature you can set to is f/4. When you are at the 200mm side the widest aperature is f/5.6. That is not a fast lens at all. Hope that helps.