Night shooting at football games

[RJaswal]

I was curious if somebody would give me recommendations of settings for taking pictures at night at a football game setting (great big over head lights that seemed to mess with the pictures without actually helping that much) without a tripod. Not necessarily taking pictures of the football game itself, but other people around and things like that. I have a Cannon T3i.

I tried various different modes and had varied degrees of success (success being described as pictures that weren't blurry).

I tried some in auto mode, Aperature priority, and flash off settings. I tried using night portrait for a couple of shots, but seemed to have issues with the auto focusing taking an extremely long time and then missing the shots I was trying to take.

Thanks

[Krusty79]

No replies? You could try sending a PM to Jim Bryant. I hope he doesn't mind me telling you this.

[RichardTaylor]

This is from shooting people singing on a football field at night, without a flash..

Pre requisite - know how to read a histogram and how to shoot in manual exposure..

(1) Remove any filters from your lens.
(2) Use a lens hood.
(3) Shoot RAW (gives you more control when PPing,)
(4)Maximum ISO.
(5) Lens wide open
(6) I use centre focus point only and for the spectator shots.
If you find focussing a problem, and some lenses focus better then others, then switch to manual focus.
(7) Take what ever shutter speed you can get.

If you have more light than you need then consider reducing your ISO amd/or aperture.
If you find you are shooting at too slow shutter speeds then consider using a mono pod.
If you can't use a mono pod then you will need a faster lens. (I was using F2 lenses). It can also make focussing easier.

[RJaswal]

Thanks for the replies

That helps. Getting better at the day time picture taking in the non-auto mode shooting, but still have troubles in the night time settings.

Just have to keep practicing and working at it I guess.

Thanks again for your help.