A few questions ..... VR and shutter speed

doublemint76

doublemint76

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I can't seem to find a great deal of information on this and would like to hear peoples opinions or experiences.

I was recently photographing my son and his friend playing football at the park on a nice sunny evening. I was using a D600 with the Nikon 70-200 2.8 VR1 (hoping to upgrade to VR2 soon). I was shooting in manual and to freeze them and the ball etc I chose a high shutter speed of at least 1/2000 and either f2.8 or f4 and then let auto iso do its thing. I basically just rolled my shutter up and down between 1/2000 & 1/4000 and did the same with my aperture f2.8 and f4. Here is a link to one of the pics from that evening

Now my main question is i had VR switched off, would you have done too? I have read that you shouldn't have it switched on if your shutter speed is over 1/500 as is not effective and can do funny things to your pictures? Is this true?

Also, what would you have done differently settings wise compared to me? The iso is quite high in some of these, but the camera can deliver not bad results, should i have set a lower iso? i only chose auto as i didn't want to be faffing about changing iso and missing shots.
I want to get better at taking these sort of pictures so would love to hear opinions/experiences.
My son loves his football and my daughter is a dancer so its always a challenge getting decent in focus/sharp shots of them both in action.....

Thanks
 
Kodiak Qc said:
I never used VR, so even your move to VR II… :confused:
Click to expand...

Moving to the VR2 model is not for the extra stop of vr, its purely for better optics, nano coating and less vignetting. The improved VR is just a bonus.
 
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I tend to use VR only when really needed (and when I remember I have it). I do believe it can mess up some shots, I'm certain I have seen it in some of my images. But even with extensive testing I can't say when/if it will occur. In your situation I would not have used it... your SS was more than adequate for hand holding the FL.

When I care equally about the SS and aperture I will shoot in manual with auto ISO, but that is usually only when I am trying to force a slower SS. Normally I shoot in aperture priority with auto ISO (set with min SS and max ISO limits for the situation/subject).
 
doublemint76 said:
I chose a high shutter speed of at least 1/2000 and either f2.8 or f4 and then let auto iso do its thing. I basically just rolled my shutter up and down between 1/2000 & 1/4000 and did the same with my aperture f2.8 and f4..... Now my main question is i had VR switched off, would you have done too?..... Also, what would you have done differently settings wise compared to me?
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I think your approach was basically sound. I can't help wondering whether your shutter speeds are a bit on the fast side, especially for children who don't move as fast as adults; and it's not obvious to me why you're switching between f/2.8 and f/4. If the ISO values you're getting are low enough not to have to worry about noise, then none of this matters, but if you're using ISO 4000 then perhaps it's worth asking whether a slightly slower shutter speed or a slightly wider aperture might not be a bad idea.

Hopefully you've studied the results to see whether you can see any difference between the shots taken with various settings, so you know what's best next time.

As far as VR is concerned: at 1/2000th it's almost certainly offering no benefit and may even be (slightly) on harmful. But here's a thing. You know, or should know, that the point of VR is to help compensate for the photographer's inability to hand hold the lens at certain shutter speeds. So here the question: with a 200mm lens, at what speed does camera shake start to affect you? And if you don't know, why not? It's not hard to test.
 
StewartR said:
I think your approach was basically sound. I can't help wondering whether your shutter speeds are a bit on the fast side, especially for children who don't move as fast as adults; and it's not obvious to me why you're switching between f/2.8 and f/4. If the ISO values you're getting are low enough not to have to worry about noise, then none of this matters, but if you're using ISO 4000 then perhaps it's worth asking whether a slightly slower shutter speed or a slightly wider aperture might not be a bad idea.
Click to expand...

Thanks for your reply, sound words.

I mainly switched between f/2.8 and f/4 as i haven't used this lens a great deal and i'm still testing the difference in sharpness between the 2 apertures. I think i will try some slower shutter speeds next time, just so the iso doesn't keep getting pushed. I'm guessing i wouldn't want to drop my ss below 1/1000 ?
 
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