BetterPhoto Q&A
Category: Night Photography Tip

Photography Question 

Chris G. Laner
 

Exposure Settings for Low-Light Action Shots


I have a Minolta Maxxum 7D with a Tokina AT-X Pro 80-200 zoom f1:2.8 lens. I am attempting to shoot night football games from the sidelines. As it gets darker, I have a challenge having crisp, clear action shots with a fast enough shutter speed that allows enough light. I use f2.8 and I try to adjust the EV but find that in doing that, it often picks too slow of a shutter speed to allow the light it needs. I am shooting with manual settings for the most part. What settings should I be using to get the clear, crisp action shots without blurring, especially when I can't always use flash? Thank you in advance.


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September 14, 2005

 

Jon Close
  To keep the shutter speed as high as possible, shoot in aperture priority with the lens wide open. If it is a small field with small stands or openings, then you may be getting dark/black backgrounds that fool the meter into longer-than-necessary shutter speeds. Once the sun is down and all light is coming from the field lights, take a meter reading off the grass (which is close to 18-percent gray toned), and simply set that exposure in manual.

Otherwise:
(a) Set the ISO higher.
(b) Shoot in RAW, which records greater detail in otherwise underexposed images that can be brought out in post-processing.


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September 14, 2005

 
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