Sports Day

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sting

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Name
Neil
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Hi it is my boys sports day today and I want to get some good shots. Last year I did not get any decent photo's but had really only just started out had my 450d with Sigma 70-300 in sports mode. Today I will be using my canon 70-200mm F4 still with my 450d and was thinking of the following settings

AV mode F4
ISO 200
Ai servo
continuious shooting

It is bright and sunny today does this seem ok to get some good shots. Last year the main issue was they were very blurry photos.

Thanks
 
In natural day light ISO noise doesn't look so obvious. I would put my D60 around 400-800 iso. Your D450 and probably go a little higher

If you think there is a visible ISO a simple trick is to overexspose your images slightly. It will also give a bright happy look to your images.

When working with telephoto I use the rule that your shutter speed should be 1/(focal length*crop factor) so around 1/300th of a second.

Hope that helps

Stuart
 
Its not about these settings will work it is a case of getting the shutter speed to freeze the action if thats what you want and it usually is in sports photography.

So if your shutter speed is down at about 1/100 your probably going to get blur. So you want it to be as high as you can but getting the correct exposure so if its bright your ISO can be lower if pants then up the ISO. You will want it to blur the back ground so have it wide open. Maybe stop it down to increase sharpness its all about knowing what effects different settings have on the exposure. have a play to help you understand things a little before your kid starts.

You can fix exposure and noise to some degree but can't fix blur so make sure you have the shutter speed fast enough so don't be worried about upping the ISO.
 
Neil

I was in the same boat last week and saw a post on here (cant remember who from) that gave good advice and the pics turned out OK.

Manual mode.
Shutter at 1/640
Aperture wide open
Spot metering
Continuous burst
AI servo

and ISO as required.

Worked for me. Can post up an example if required.
 
dmcaloney said:
Neil

I was in the same boat last week and saw a post on here (cant remember who from) that gave good advice and the pics turned out OK.

Manual mode.
Shutter at 1/640
Aperture wide open
Spot metering
Continuous burst
AI servo

and ISO as required.

Worked for me. Can post up an example if required.
Click to expand...

Thanks all for you replies, Dave will try this but is over exposing at the moment so will increase shutter speed to suit.
 
I played with the ISO's til it worked for me Neil, but I had a bit of a grey cloudy day to cope with.

As you said, if you have bright sunshine you might just need to tweak it a little.
 
Hi well it did not go well many blurry photo's again, here is an example and I have many more. My son is in green by the way

4809137060_2a39fcdeed_b.jpg


Link to full size

http://www.flickr.com/photos/31783321@N08/4809137060/sizes/o/

Although this one is side on I have the same problem with him running straight at me. Any help appreciated
 
Neil, at this tiny size I cannot see any blurring. The link to the Flickr page is coming up as "private" and there is nothing to see.

The small image also has no EXIF embedded, but if you were shooting at f/4 and 200 ISO then I would expect your shutter speed here to be somewhere in the range from 1/1600 to 1/3200, which should not give any blur for practical purposes. Maybe you have a focusing problem, with focus on the spectators rather than your son, but again, at this small size there is no obvious problem.

If you were using the centre AF point only and aiming at the green vest it may well be that there is insufficient contrast for the AF system to work out what to do. In situations like this you should aim to focus on a point of strong contrast such as the edge between the green vest and the white t-shirt.
 
tdodd said:
Neil, at this tiny size I cannot see any blurring. The link to the Flickr page is coming up as "private" and there is nothing to see.

The small image also has no EXIF embedded, but if you were shooting at f/4 and 200 ISO then I would expect your shutter speed here to be somewhere in the range from 1/1600 to 1/3200, which should not give any blur for practical purposes. Maybe you have a focusing problem, with focus on the spectators rather than your son, but again, at this small size there is no obvious problem.

If you were using the centre AF point only and aiming at the green vest it may well be that there is insufficient contrast for the AF system to work out what to do. In situations like this you should aim to focus on a point of strong contrast such as the edge between the green vest and the white t-shirt.
Click to expand...

Hi I have changed the size hopefully it is more obvious now, the exif data is

Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/1000)
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 154 mm
ISO Speed: 200

I was using AI servo and auto focus point as I read this was required for AI servo.
 
OK. Now I see the problem is with focusing. You do not have a problem with blur, so your shutter speed is OK. Several members of the crowd are sharp, and the lad in the yellow vest is sharper than your lad. Basically the camera is focusing behind your boy.

In order to use AI Servo, which is the correct mode to be using, you absolutely do not have to use automatic focus point selection. You can use any one AF point of your choosing, or the whole lot (automatic selction) if that makes more sense. If you do choose to use automatic AF point selection you need to understand that the camera must first lock focus with the centre point. It will then hand over AF duty the one or other of the outer points if the subject moves off the centre point and the camera can still figure out what the subject is. This does not work in the same way as automatic AF point selection in One Shot mode. In One Shot mode the camera will use any available point to focus on the nearest subject with sufficient contrast. AI Servo does not work that way. You must identify the subject with the centre AF point, before the camera can figure out what to track.

By the look of things, either you started focusing with the centre point over the crowd, instead of your son, or the camera simply got confiused and lost sight of the subject. Your results would probably be more assured if you stuck with using the centre point only. At least that way the camera is not left to guess whereabouts your subject may be. Complex backgrounds such as you have here make things even more tricky for the AF. Stick to one focus point and the camera will not be so easily confused.
 
Hi thanks for the reply makes perfect sense I have had a look at the ones coming straight at me which I changed to center point focus and they are better. I think even with these though I should have made sure I was focusing on the face. I seem to have trouble with getting sharp images and always tend to shoot wide open which I do not think is actaully best in all situations.
 
For sure the face is the most important thing to have sharp, but the reason I recommend the centre AF point rather than an outer point is that I think it will have the most assured performance and be most able to latch on to whatever contrast exists. The outer points may work perfectly well too, but in more demanding situations they might struggle. Of course, if you were to aim the centre point at someone's face then your composition is likely to be disappointing, so to focus on the face you may prefer to use an outer point as befits the composition you want. If the camera struggles then centre point will probably improve your fortunes.

Personally I think that shooting at f/4 should be fine for this sort of thing. Professional sports togs are probably shooting at f/2.8 as often as not, especially when trying to highlight a single sportsman from the field. I've shot indoor basketball at f/2.8 with my 70-200 and mostly had ample DOF for my needs. I think increasing DOF is not the right approach to possible AF problems. The right approach is to figure out how to make the AF work as well as you possibly can.

It's a bit late for sports day now, but maybe take your son off for some practice runs and experimentation with settings. While the camera and lens have their part to play, so does the photographer, and practice usually improves results. :)
 
dmcaloney said:
Neil

I was in the same boat last week and saw a post on here (cant remember who from) that gave good advice and the pics turned out OK.

Manual mode.
Shutter at 1/640
Aperture wide open
Spot metering
Continuous burst
AI servo

and ISO as required.

Worked for me. Can post up an example if required.
Click to expand...

That was me! :D

Generally speaking this will work out fine for most sports, and is a good starting point for a number of others (such as cricket where you're going to want to be a bit faster with the shutter speed, and probably 1 stop off wide open with the aperture).

However, Sting...I've noticed you mentioned Auto AF point. The problem with having "auto AF" is that it will generally pick the easiest point. Canon's AF system works by identifying areas of contrast and colour difference. Meaning that a polar bear on an iceberg will be much more difficult to focus on than a sunflower with a blue sky. When you use Auto AF, it will pick the focus on whichever it finds easiest...so if your son was wearing green and there's a green background, it will be more difficult to focus on.

The way to overcome this is by forcing the camera to focus with the centre (or any other manually selected) AF point.

The AF system will sometimes have to work harder, and it might frustrate you with it's apparent inefficiencies sometimes, but it is certainly better than entrusting the camera with the task.

In addition, i know it's not always easy (and too late for this year), but the less cluttered your background is then the easier it will be to acheive focus. The shot posted above would be a nightmare for the camera, as there's a lot of similar coloured clothing with very little physical distance between them (ie. the kids stood watching are very close to your son running)...the camera won't have a chance! And that's not just the 450D (before anyone starts!)...that's any camera!

As for the settings posted, as I said, these are a good start...sometimes you'll have to adjust a bit to get them properly exposed, but thats fine, they are a good starting point, and (certainly with the shutter speed) are the minimum you should go for!

Drop me a PM if you want any more advice.
James.
 
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