Football Photography Help!

robeves

robeves

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Rob
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Hi guys,

My name is Rob and I am 15 years old. I recently got into photography and have pretty basic kit, which consists of:

Nikon D3000 & Kit Lens. Tamron 70-300.

I have done a few freiendly matches of Southend United, but am not really pleased with the results. A lot of them come out blurry and strange colours. Is this likely to be due to my equipment or technique?

I would love some help on this,

Thanks Rob
 
robeves said:
Hi guys,

My name is Rob and I am 15 years old. I recently got into photography and have pretty basic kit, which consists of:

Nikon D3000 & Kit Lens. Tamron 70-300.

I have done a few freiendly matches of Southend United, but am not really pleased with the results. A lot of them come out blurry and strange colours. Is this likely to be due to my equipment or technique?

I would love some help on this,

Thanks Rob
Click to expand...

Hi Rob, well...you're in the right place to ask certainly. My first advice (and it's a bit of a plug) is to look at the 2 tutorials in my signature. They should give you a pretty solid grounding in what you want to know.

My second advice, would be to send some images to me via PM (you can't post them due to Football League licensing limitations) and I'll take a look at them for you!

James.
 
Probably a bit of both.
To prevent blur you need your shutter speed to be high up about 1/500 should work faster is better, the problem there is you need light to be good or a decent lens with a large apperture or a camera with decent ISO prformance to get your shutter speed high enough. Its all good fun a nice sunny day in the park you will get 1/1000 probably higher but inside a football stadium your going to need a bit of help from your kit.

This is why you see football togs at the side of the pitch with 1D's 3D's and 300mm and 400mm f/2.8 lenses.

Technique is the part you get from experiance so go to the park and track a few players to see how you can improve.
 
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Without seeing the images I'm fairly sure the blurry problem will be either too low shutterspeed or focus not set to AI Servo (or Nikon equivalent). Your lens may also be too slow (f5.6 at 300mm?). The strange colours maybe due to incorrect white balance set so worth checking that.
 
We could really do with a Sports Talk section for all these sport related threads ;)
 
Sports talk? .. Well its been a week.. I am sure they will be coming to a decision soon :) lets not rush them :)
 
Cant tell from that what focus setting you used also how sharp the image is as its obiously reduced for the web. Colour looks slightly blue on my monitor but that can happen when the camera "sees" a mixture of warm sunlight and slightly cooler shade. A little bit of adjustment in CS should take care of that.

Back to the sharpness issue you say you have can you confirm your camera was set to continuous focusing? Was this issue constant throughout the lenses focal range? Shutterspeed was 1/320th sec which is okish if you have a steady hand but ideally alot higher would be better. Pro shooters use f2.8 lenses which apart from the better quality glass enable them to use higher speeds.
 
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Right then...I've had a look at the photos on your flickr and while I don't know much about the various Nikon settings but here goes:

1. You're using sport mode for some. That won't really work. Try using Aperture Priority mode. Set the aperture to f/5.6 (which is the widest you get when you're at 300mm) and ISO speed adjusted to give you a shutter speed of at least 1/640.

2. You're also using AF-A which I believe is the Auto AF point selection...presumably this means the camera will focus on whatever it thinks is easiest. That isnt always what you want to be the subject in focus! Try the spot mode or the spot-plus surrounding mode.

3. In some, you have a very low shutter speed. This might be where you're hitting the limit of your equipment. The f/5.6 aperture may be limiting you under floodlights.
 
Been on holiday since you replied, thanks a lot mate, that is very helpful! Will give those tips a go on Saturday! :)
 
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