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Photography Question 

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Canon ELan 7 w/a Tamron 75-300m; 1:4-5:6


Alright...I take pictures for a local high school on Friday night and my pics aren't coming out good at all. This one guy told me that my appeture or something was too small or too big. My camera just won't take good night action shots for anything. It'll focus on some areas, but not the action. Any tips on what the setting should be on. Any help will be taken with high praise given unto you.
My next game is in 2 days.
Oh yeah, it takes great action shots in the day time.
And a lil' FYI for Internet shoopers:
If you want to buy something off the web, buy it. But let a company tell you that they have something better for a cheaper price because you'll get the wrong lens, like I did.


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October 16, 2002

 

Jon Close
  The autofocus needs more light and/or contrast. An add-on flash will have an near-infrared AF assist light, but it will probably be ineffective at any distance (like at a football game). You can get more light to the AF sensors with a big aperture lens (f/2.8 or f/4), but these are much more expensive than your Tamron. 300 f/4, 100-300 f/4, or 70-200 f/2.8 will be $700-1200+ new, and 300 f/2.8 will be another 2x that. Canon has a great 70-200 f/4L that's about $550-600.

I wouldn't say you that got "the wrong lens" because for the price you paid the Tamron is not bad, and there isn't much difference between the competitive offerings from Canon and Sigma. They're all f/4-5.6. In dim light you'll have to either use a flash or manual focus.

Using higher speed film of 800 or 1600 ISO won't help the autofocus, but it will let you use faster shutter speeds. This will (1) stop action, (2) stop blur from camera shake, and/or the faster film will allow you to use f/8 instead of f/5.6, which will improve the sharpness of your pictures (most lenses get best performance stopped down 1 or 2 stops from maximum).


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October 17, 2002

 

Pamela J. White
  Also you may want to try using 3200 speed film. But if you do your own developing, make sure you use T-Max developer, I learned that the hard way. I was also a yearbook photographer, and they didn't teach us anything about our set-up. I really wish they would have, because I later worked in a camera store and learned all the features that the camera had, and I could have done so much with it. I suggest going to a camera store and asking one of the sales associates (you may want to call first) they should have an Elan7 there to model with. They are really an impressive camera. Good luck.


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November 15, 2002

 
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