Night Sports Shooting

[EdwardKeys]

I will be shooting a high school football game tonight. I do it a bit differently. I use a D2H and shoot available light at 3200. Last season, I had a 180 2.8 lens but this time I have a 70-200 2.8. The lights at the stadiums that I go to aren't the greatest but I can usually shoot at 1/250 or a bit faster at 2.8. Using Noise Ninja (now Neat Image) I have gotten some very nice shots...and I can shoot at 8 frames a second instead of the single shots with flash. If you are fortunate enough to have a D2Hs, you probably don't even need the software to clean up the shots.

[Dennis_Stiff]

I can usually get a 4 shot burst with the D2H and SB800...this of course depends on how close...etc.

Dennis S

[Dennis_Stiff]

Not sure how you get away with 1/250 without flash to stop the motion blur and a lens wide open. At 3200 I shoot at a minimum of 1/400...no matter how steady you hold the camera a running back comming toward you can't be panned and the result is some motion blur at slower shutter speeds...when the back cuts the corner, no time to pan especially with sequence shooting. All the newspapers use flash unless at most college or Pro games. 1/250 is fine...it all depends on who is the final editor of your files...mine go up to made into prints for sale...sometimes at poster size. Anyway...if someone asked me for high ISO night time fooball without a strobe advice from the 100 or so games I've shot I would say don't go below 1/400. But I don't know everything.

Dennis S

[MC_Whitcher]

What I want to know is how you guy's get away with using flash at a sports event? Doesn't anybody ever yell at you that you're blinding the players? If I tried that at a night game at Giants Stadium I'd have my credentials yanked in a New York second.