D300 Settings for a Football match?

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Drpepper99uk

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Hi,

I have on Saturday a work based football match which I have offered to take some photo's of the event. I'm pretty familier with my D300's controls for the usual type of photography I perform(portrait and occasional landscape) however taking fast moving action shots with it is something else.

I haven't tried out the 3d focus tracking mode yet properly and so i'm not sure of this would be worth using, I have been opting for using just the central AF point with Continous focus and a fast lens(70-200 f2.8) and the continous high mode for a fast frame rate(8fps) Has anyone found any other focus settings to useful?

Another thing I've toyed with is the 3 different AF point selections(9,21,51) to utilize.

Mike.
 
Hi Mike your on the right track with Centre AF point and continous shoooting.

The other thing you need to think about is using AI Servo(or the Nikon equivilant) and AV or Manual.

If its a cloudy overcast day, you will be fine to shooting in manual. For day games i tend to go for an apperture of f/3.5 and a shutter speed of 1/800th but this is not set in stone, if you want to use a higher shutter speed you can. I would be wary of going below 1/250 1/320 though as you will encounter motion blur.

Start off at 400 ISO and adjust to suit the conditions. Your best bet is to point the camera at the grass and take a meter reading from it, then take a few test shots of each team. You will find you may have to adjust your shutter speed by 1/3 or 2/3 to expose the kits correctly.

With a 70-200 you will need to think carefully about positioning. Your best bet is to sit on the touchline between the half way line and level with the edge of the box. and stay there for the full game, this should give you good action of both teams.

Hope this helps

Andy
 
Mike - I can't remember if the D300 has 51pt 3D - but if it has - USE IT! It's brilliant - get the focus point on the player and then just follow the action and shoot - on continuous focus 'C'. It is superb on the D3 - and I suspect you do have it on the D300. Shoot in bursts too.
 
Hi,

Thanks for your replies, I was half expecting to have replies telling me to read the bloody manual ;-)

I have the 3D focus tracking, So I might give this a try pending the results on the day which I'll check there on the screen. Another thing is I have managed to borrow is a Nikon tele convertor(x1.4) which will give me an additional 70mm of reach although I'll lose one stop of light by using it(from f2.8 to f4) so I'll have to see how that works out on the day.

Thanks for the tips of location, I was debating on whether to stay static or run around like a headless chicken around the perimeter of the pitch...the latter sounds like hard work and would probably result in fewer"keep" shots taken.

Mike.
 
I did read somewhere (probably here) that it,s best to have your focus points set to 21, as 51 is over the top, it may have been Diego Garcia on here who mentioned it, as he used to shoot a lot of football and rugby games on the D3, with some excellent results.
 
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