Night Football

I will be shooting my nephew's football game in Nashville on Saturday. It
starts at 5:30 p.m. I am afraid I am a bit ill-equipped. I have a 400 5.6
lens with my Canon 5D. I am guessing that I will be shooting a lot of 800
and 1600 iso shots and getting some blurry images due to trying shutter
speeds on the slow end of acceptable to get a decent exposure. Any pointers
would be helpful, like where I can rent a 400 f/2.8 in Nashville.

Eric Miller
www.dyesscreek.com

On Nov 8, 3:30 pm, "Eric Miller"
wrote:
Any pointers would be helpful, like where I can rent a 400 f/2.8 in Nashville.

Expect poor lighting. The outstanding low-noise performance of the 5D
should allow you to shoot at 1600 ISO with no problems.

Depending on where you are on the field the 400 might be too much. I
think a 300 f/2.8 would be better. When I shoot night games I usually
go for the 70-200 f/2.8 due to it's wide aperture. But then I'm
shooting with a 1.6x crop factor sensor, so with the 5D you might
wanna go for the 400 f/2.8L after all. Or go with the 300 f/2.8L.
You can always crop.

Eric Miller wrote:
I will be shooting my nephew's football game in Nashville on Saturday. It
starts at 5:30 p.m. I am afraid I am a bit ill-equipped. I have a 400 5.6
lens with my Canon 5D. I am guessing that I will be shooting a lot of 800
and 1600 iso shots and getting some blurry images due to trying shutter
speeds on the slow end of acceptable to get a decent exposure. Any pointers
would be helpful, like where I can rent a 400 f/2.8 in Nashville.
'
Tough drill, Eric. I shoot night FB with a 5D and the 24-105 ƒ4 IS lens,
and a 20-200 ƒ 2.8 usually with a 1`.4 converter, and flash. Without
flash I am dead. I set to 1/200th or 1/160th and wide open, at 400 or
800 depending on how dim the field is. Hand held or monopod for the
bigger lens.

So, the lens you have with a modern flash should be pretty useful on the 5D.

--
John McWilliams

Eric Miller wrote:
I will be shooting my nephew's football game in Nashville on
Saturday. It starts at 5:30 p.m. I am afraid I am a bit ill-equipped.
I have a 400 5.6 lens with my Canon 5D. I am guessing that I will be
shooting a lot of 800 and 1600 iso shots and getting some blurry
images due to trying shutter speeds on the slow end of acceptable to
get a decent exposure. Any pointers would be helpful, like where I
can rent a 400 f/2.8 in Nashville.

I had to go with the 70-200 f2.8L IS, wide open, with a monopod... and
sometimes it was still too dark. My son played in a league of smaller
schools, and it seems the smaller the school the poorer the lighting.
Unfortunately, his school had the poorest lighting in the league. :-(

I shot at 1600 and was still able to get some good shots, though.

Rita Ä Berkowitz wrote:
Eric Miller wrote:

I will be shooting my nephew's football game in Nashville on
Saturday. It starts at 5:30 p.m. I am afraid I am a bit ill-equipped.
I have a 400 5.6 lens with my Canon 5D. I am guessing that I will be
shooting a lot of 800 and 1600 iso shots and getting some blurry
images due to trying shutter speeds on the slow end of acceptable to
get a decent exposure. Any pointers would be helpful, like where I
can rent a 400 f/2.8 in Nashville.

Too bad you're not around Baltimore. I would let you shoot with the Fab
500/4L IS for the evening with the option to buy. The thing is a bit long
on the Mk III for sideline action but should be nice on the 5D. Yes, I
would try to rent a 400/2.8 if I were you. Your 400/5.6 will be worthless,
even with flash. Good luck.

It's not ideal, but hardly worthless. "Rita" has a problem stating
anything except in the extreme.

--
john mcwilliams

Any pointers
would be helpful, like where I can rent a 400 f/2.8 in Nashville.

Eric Millerwww.dyesscreek.com

Shoot in Shutter Preferred, Tv, so you are not trying to salvage lots
of blurring on the computer when editing and fixing up things.

Bob AZ

On Nov 8, 10:39 pm, Bob AZ wrote:


Shoot in Shutter Preferred, Tv, so you are not trying to salvage lots
of blurring on the computer when editing and fixing up things.

That won't work if there isn't enough light.
Better to shoot in Av mode and choose the max aperture and let the
camera give you the max shutter speed available.
Assuming the lighting doesn't change he could always just find his
settings and shoot in manual mode. However, most schools have better
lighting in the middle of the field than near the end zones.

It might also be a good idea to do a Custom White Balance beforehand
or use something like a WhiBal to get the colors right.

On Nov 8, 3:30 pm, "Eric Miller"
wrote:
I will be shooting my nephew's football game in Nashville on Saturday. It
starts at 5:30 p.m. I am afraid I am a bit ill-equipped. I have a 400 5.6
lens with my Canon 5D. I am guessing that I will be shooting a lot of 800
and 1600 iso shots and getting some blurry images due to trying shutter
speeds on the slow end of acceptable to get a decent exposure. Any pointers
would be helpful, like where I can rent a 400 f/2.8 in Nashville.

Eric Millerwww.dyesscreek.com

Okay, a few tips.

First, go talk to the team and see if you can get on the roster as the
photographer (you'll have to share your pictures). In return, you get
to me on the sideline. That solves a lot of problems.

Next. An f2 lens is nice, but not for shooting at f2. It will allow
a quicker, better focus you if you shoot a running kid and a flying
ball at f2, you DOF is pretty narrow. Use the f2 lens, but use it at
f4 or 5.6

A bigger lens is nice, but a bigger flash is better. Go beg, borrow
or steal the best flash you can get your hands on. Shooting 2
together might also be helpful.

If you're NOT on the sidelines, you need to go make a piece of
equipment. Piece of cardboard and cut and glue it until you have a
square "cone" with the smaller end taped to your flash and the bigger
end maybe twice that size and sticking out 6". Line the inside with
white reflective tape paint the outside black so it doesn't look like
a piece of cardboard. That will help to focus your light and extend
your flash -- but you need to try it before you use it to get the
proportions right -- so you need to do this tonight. Use trial and
error. But even with this,you need a BIG flash.

Dusk is bad because you have a bad combination of ambient and flash
light. I usually stop it down and use mostly flash, but if you do
want more ambient light, go with second curtain sync to help the look
of the blurs.

Otherwise, go in full manual mode with your shutter set to the highest
sync speed (usually 1/200 or 1/250), your lens about f4, your ISO at
1600, and a couple of sets of fresh batteries.

Oh, and put your camera in single shot mode because the second picture
won't come out anyway because your flash will have already fired.

Good luck with it.

Annika1980 wrote:
On Nov 8, 10:39 pm, Bob AZ wrote:

Shoot in Shutter Preferred, Tv, so you are not trying to salvage lots
of blurring on the computer when editing and fixing up things.

That won't work if there isn't enough light.
Better to shoot in Av mode and choose the max aperture and let the
camera give you the max shutter speed available.

No. No, a thousand times no. Doing so will give you a speed way too slow
to get much but blurs if you're shooting action.

Manual: shutter speed 1/200 and wide open. The ETTL flash handles the rest.

Assuming the lighting doesn't change he could always just find his
settings and shoot in manual mode. However, most schools have better
lighting in the middle of the field than near the end zones.

It might also be a good idea to do a Custom White Balance beforehand
or use something like a WhiBal to get the colors right.

Never hurts, but shooting in RAW is preferable. There's not a lot of
color balancing to do for those fast night shots.

--
John McWilliams

Annika1980 wrote:
On Nov 8, 10:39 pm, Bob AZ wrote:

Shoot in Shutter Preferred, Tv, so you are not trying to salvage
lots of blurring on the computer when editing and fixing up things.

That won't work if there isn't enough light.
Better to shoot in Av mode and choose the max aperture and let the
camera give you the max shutter speed available.
Assuming the lighting doesn't change he could always just find his
settings and shoot in manual mode. However, most schools have better
lighting in the middle of the field than near the end zones.

I tried every variation of Av that I could think of and still had too
many blurry photos. I had my best luck shooting Tv, in RAW, and
adjusting in PS afterward as best I could.

Av was good for sideline shots or the players lined up ready to snap,
but didn't work well for me for any kind of moving action.