bad lighting - advice plz

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rich315

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Hi,

2 problems here - i have been asked to do some badminton photos for my local club, i did a trial run last night, the lighting is terrible for photography. it has green walls and floors, with only 6 strip halogen lights between the courts (4 of) and fairly high. i was mostly using the nikon 70-200 vr2 on my D300, the settings i went for were iso - 800, F2.8, shutter 1/80 or 1/120, and exposure +5!!

they still were fairly dark, not as bright as i would have hoped, i have a single flash gun i tried but even with diffuser and bouncing light off roof or side wall it still created very strong shadows, of course on match nights the question of flash it out unfortunately.

any advice on what i can do? the hsots were coming out grainy and lacked the sharpness, maybe due to no natural light etc.

the next one (sorry to bore you) is i shot them on my 3rd choice memory card, which this morning has decided it does not want to be recognised on either of my pc's i use card reader into USB and it wont acknowledge it, even when i tried connecting it through my camera (able to view in camera)

Thanks, Rich
 
If you are setting ISO, Aperture AND exposure time, you are on Manual.. correct? Exposure compensation does absolutely nothing in Manual mode :shrug:

ISO 1600 should be pretty good on the D300, I'd definitely raise ISO even as far as 3200 if you can't use flash.

A couple of noisy keepers is better than a truckload of blurry throwaways.
 
yer i was in full manual, would you say go to maybe aperture priority and then up the ISO a lot more, i got up to 800, but the D300 is bad for noise above that, but taking on board what you said its better to have noisy keepers than rubbish dark shots, exposure comp would benefit then wouldnt it?
 
Put it on Av, lowest f/number, ISO as high as you dare, and then a bit higher. Whatever shutter speed that shows is as good as it gets - nothing you can do about it. Cameras need light, or at least a bit! Do what you can about noise in post production.
 
crank it to iso1600, the D300 is fine at that. Aperture wide open, see what kinda shutter speed you're getting, you don't want any slower than 1/120th really...

also, make sure you white balance, sports halls are gross lighting...
 
To be honest if you can get a well exposed shot, even at high ISO's, at reasonable print sizes they will look fine.
Noise will only really get terrible if you underexpose the high-ISO's and have to push the exposure afterwards.
 
yer i toyed aroudn with white balance, i tend to set to just auto, but i will change that in camera rather than in PP, wouldnt be too bad if the light reflected off light walls but its all one colour! will try go for higher iso and just get exposure spot on then sort noise later like you have suggested, for some reason i couldnt get it going right.

any tips for the memory card?
 
As high an ISO as you need... noise reduction software seems pretty damn good these days.
 
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