Night Time Baseball Suggestions

Hi all,


I'm looking for advise shooting with my Nikon 5700 at night games at Petco
Park (in San Diego) without a tripod or any telephoto lens. Does anyone have
any luck shooting under these tough conditions (i.e. low light and action
shots)? If so, what were your spec's?

I look forward to your feedback!

Chris

Chris Naples wrote:
I'm looking for advise shooting with my Nikon 5700 at night games at Petco
Park (in San Diego) without a tripod or any telephoto lens. Does anyone have
any luck shooting under these tough conditions (i.e. low light and action
shots)? If so, what were your spec's?

Are you asking for settings specific to the 5700? Or just in general?

I have an Oly C2100UZ that I've used extensively at BankOne Ballpark for
night games. I've generally used ISO 400 and forced my white balance to
fluorescent. Depending on my mood, I'd occasionally use shutter-priority
and force my shutter speed to 1/125th, or I'd use Oly's sport mode. The
IS on the lens does a commendable job of making long focal lengths (up to
380mm equivalent) usable at slower shutter speeds.

You'll have to play with your settings and see how you do. The lack of IS
on the 5700 is a drawback, but its 800 ISO option means you'll be able to
use some fast shutter speeds even in low light. You should be able to get
away with 1/250th much of the time.

The drawback of the higher ISO is a noisier image, but if the choice is
between getting a noisy, properly-exposed image and a blurry or dark
image, I'm choosing noisy-but-properly-exposed.

I've found that for online use, I can shrink the 1600x1200 image taken by
my C2100UZ to 800x600 and eliminate most of the noise. For your use, with
a 5 MP camera, shrinking the image size down for online use (email or web
or whatever) should also allow you to reduce or eliminate much of the
noise you'll get at 800 ISO.

BTW: There is *no substitute* for sitting close to the action. And any
time you can shoot in sunlight, your shots will look better. The
best-looking baseball shots I've ever gotten with the C2100UZ are from an
AZ Fall League game on a Sunday afternoon. I got some great shots from
behind the third-base dugout.

If you can't score great seats to a game at Petco Park for an afternoon,
you may want to try going to a college game or two.

Good luck.

--Paul
** Note "removemunged" in email address and remove to reply. **

Chris Naples wrote:
I'm looking for advise shooting with my Nikon 5700 at night games at Petco
Park (in San Diego) without a tripod or any telephoto lens. Does anyone have
any luck shooting under these tough conditions (i.e. low light and action
shots)? If so, what were your spec's?

Are you asking for settings specific to the 5700? Or just in general?

I have an Oly C2100UZ that I've used extensively at BankOne Ballpark for
night games. I've generally used ISO 400 and forced my white balance to
fluorescent. Depending on my mood, I'd occasionally use shutter-priority
and force my shutter speed to 1/125th, or I'd use Oly's sport mode. The
IS on the lens does a commendable job of making long focal lengths (up to
380mm equivalent) usable at slower shutter speeds.

You'll have to play with your settings and see how you do. The lack of IS
on the 5700 is a drawback, but its 800 ISO option means you'll be able to
use some fast shutter speeds even in low light. You should be able to get
away with 1/250th much of the time.

The drawback of the higher ISO is a noisier image, but if the choice is
between getting a noisy, properly-exposed image and a blurry or dark
image, I'm choosing noisy-but-properly-exposed.

I've found that for online use, I can shrink the 1600x1200 image taken by
my C2100UZ to 800x600 and eliminate most of the noise. For your use, with
a 5 MP camera, shrinking the image size down for online use (email or web
or whatever) should also allow you to reduce or eliminate much of the
noise you'll get at 800 ISO.

BTW: There is *no substitute* for sitting close to the action. And any
time you can shoot in sunlight, your shots will look better. The
best-looking baseball shots I've ever gotten with the C2100UZ are from an
AZ Fall League game on a Sunday afternoon. I got some great shots from
behind the third-base dugout.

If you can't score great seats to a game at Petco Park for an afternoon,
you may want to try going to a college game or two.

Good luck.

--Paul
** Note "removemunged" in email address and remove to reply. **