I don't know if the A350 has an auto iso feature, and if so, how it's implemented.

On nikon bodies, it's pretty powerful: you set the camera in manual mode so you have full control over the aperture and shutter speed, and the camera will adjust the ISO to get the exposure right.

In rapidly changing environments, it's a godsend, at least to me, where the split second I need to change settings to match the exposure means I'd have lost the shot.

Or you can put the camera in shutter priority, then stick to 1/500 or whatever and the camera adjusts aperture first, up to the maximum aperture then if it still needs more exposure, starts upping the ISO

edit: I'm not saying it's easy, I've never done sports stuff before although hoping to have a chance through work to get some arsenal shots. If it happens, I'll no doubt confirm how hard it is to get right!

Edited 31 January, 201016 yr by tfboy

Yep, the camera has auto WB, I had it on "Sunny", and Shutter Priority. I will try Manual mode next time, and have a play with the aperture. WHat aperture settings would you use for say 1/1000 shutter speed, and a fair bit of zoom shooting from the sidelines?

WHat aperture settings would you use for say 1/1000 shutter speed, and a fair bit of zoom shooting from the sidelines?

I'm affraid, it's not quite as simple as just telling you the numbers........ Different lighting conditions will require different settings, shooting in manual, unless you have consistent lighting you have to be prepared to keep making changes to your settings on the go. If it's sunny and the sun keeps dipping in behind clouds, you need to be aware of that and adjust your settings to compensate. I think you should follow soccerc's advise and get yourself a copy of Understanding Exposure.

That being said, shooting sports, you want as large an aperture as possible ( i think f4 was your max wasn't it?) and adjust your ISO and shutter speed accordingly to acheive the correct exposure. Using a large aperture will help to isolate your subject from busy backgrounds, and give your picture a bit more impact..... I shoot mainly equine sports, show jumping and cross country events, but i have shot a couple of football matches for my own enjoyment. when shooting football, i found metering from the grass to get the exposure right worked well for me. Maybe soccerc will confirm if that's a good method as it's his speciality........

Keep practising, but definitely get a hold of that book........ Understanding Exposure

l, i found metering from the grass to get the exposure right worked well for me. Maybe soccerc will confirm if that's a good method as it's his speciality........

Keep practising, but definitely get a hold of that book........ Understanding Exposure

Metering from the grass can be problematic due to weather conditions and the many shades of green. (An example where the meter is fooled is wet grass with low sun shining on it. It is also not really practical under flood lighting)

I tend to set WB with ezybalance and adjust accordingly or just go with auto and spot meter the exposure on the subject. With sports and the fast movement you could lose the money shot so any further adjustments would be carried out pitchside during post processing before transmitting.

Well, rugby comp - DONE!! Wen't really well and got some cracking shots, but a lot of sifting through and tweaking of well over 1000 shots!! How you pro's coped in the pre-digital days i don't know!!

Edited pics appearing here soon!

That's great news!

Aha, the photos from the tournament at last!

Touch Rugby Tournament - Manchester Chargers Feb 2010

Please accept the fact I am trying to be helpful here.

I'm sorry but I don't think most of the action images are worthwhile. Many are out of focus or blurry due to to slow shutter speed. From what I can see from earlier posts I gather that you have equipment limitations regarding lenses. Perhaps upping the iso to increase shutter speed may have been an option available to you. A noisy picture can be rectified a blurry picture is always a blurry picture.

The cropping of many shots needs to be rethought there is far to much blank space showing, you need to crop in tight on the action not the grass growing.

Low angles are generally far better in sports shots than high angles. A Try taken from waist height (photographer kneeling) looks much better than one taken from above.

The colours seem to lack "pop". It's all very dark. This may well be the lighting conditions on the day but perhaps so playing with contrast and saturation may bring out some colours and make things stand out a bit more.

Overall I think that you have been very brave to have taken the project on and it's a good start. My suggestion is that if you want to continue with this sort of photography get out in the weekends and just shoot local games. Shoot any game that is going on. Practice low angles, experiment with higher iso to get less blurry images and be a bit more selective about what action you shoot. Get shots of what is happening near you rather than over the other side of the field.

One again I am really trying to be constructive here. I hope that you take this in the spirit that it's offered.

Edited 23 February, 201016 yr by K1W1

Not to hijack the thread too much, but I've recently been asked to do a few sport pics of games around my Uni league. And the difficulty I'm having is with focusing. I'm using the lowest aperture I can (2.8 in this case) to isolate the subject from the background. Obviously though this reduces my dept of field and makes it harder to pinpoint the focus. I'm currently getting best results from center-spot focusing and re-composing in one-shot mode. I've tried AI-Servo on the Canon, but can't really get to grips with it, so I'm missing a lot of shots.

Anyone got any tips, or wants to tell me how/what settings they use for focusing on action-oriented sports with lots of movement?

Here's a couple of shots from recent games:

Not to hijack the thread too much, but I've recently been asked to do a few sport pics of games around my Uni league. And the difficulty I'm having is with focusing. I'm using the lowest aperture I can (2.8 in this case) to isolate the subject from the background. Obviously though this reduces my dept of field and makes it harder to pinpoint the focus. I'm currently getting best results from center-spot focusing and re-composing in one-shot mode. I've tried AI-Servo on the Canon, but can't really get to grips with it, so I'm missing a lot of shots.

Anyone got any tips, or wants to tell me how/what settings they use for focusing on action-oriented sports with lots of movement?

Hi, which canon are you using, and what lens?

You definitely want AI Servo for what your shooting! What model Canon have you got? Unless your using a 1d you definitely should stick with the center point for your focussing, the outer ones do tend to be a fair bit less sensitive and will be a bit hit and miss (i use a 40d and have to stick with the center point, a 7d may fair better but i have no experience with one)....... I would try and focus on the upper chest area as you have plenty of contrast there with the numbers on the players shirts.

Another thing to be aware of is, the area of the focus sensors are actually slightly larger than what is indicated through the view finder, so there is a possibility that something like the players arm swinging back and forth across their body as they run could just throw the focus off slightly.....

I have a 50d, using a 70-200 f/2.8 L IS for the sport stuff. Can't afford anything longer :(

I just find AI-Servo really counter intuitive. If I want to frame the subject off-center then I can't use it. Or have to shoot wider and crop in post. Perhaps it's just me not being used to sports?

I have a 50d, using a 70-200 f/2.8 L IS for the sport stuff. Can't afford anything longer :(

I just find AI-Servo really counter intuitive. If I want to frame the subject off-center then I can't use it. Or have to shoot wider and crop in post. Perhaps it's just me not being used to sports?

Yeah, i use the 40d and 70-200 f2.8 IS myself......... Yes it can be a pain, but your likely to get an awful lot of out of focus shots using one shot, as by the time focus locks your subject will have already moved before the shot is taken...... Unfortunately though, the outer points just aren't up to the job though either for using AI Servo..... :(

Must not add that to the list of reasons to upgrade to a 7d haha

Cheers for the info, guess it's just practice and experience-gaining on the cards for me then. I'll figure it out some day!

Hi Kiwi, thanks for the honest feedback. I can't really be compared to experienced pro's, not had the experience, yet!

It was cloudy and light very changeable (used Auto WB for that very reason) and kept trying to get the ISO right as one minute it would underexpose, then over expose!

I was limited by my kit, and also the venue, not much space along the sidelines and behind the trylines and trying to cover 2 games at once. Some of the distance ones were of my team (they wanted the pics) and a mate's team who got a couple of tries against the eventual winners (tries were very hard to come by against the winners, so the pics are for posterity!)

I don't think ALL the pics are blurred, but always room for improvement :yes:

Touch Rugby is one of the fastest and most unpredictable sports there is, much faster than Union, League or Football, but practice will make perfect!

I was trying to use single shot AF and focus on the ball carrier, as the Continuous AF on my Sony A350 is not that fast and struggles to lock when I find the shot I want.

I see what you mean about the cropping, will re-crop this wknd and bear in mind for framing the pics when I take them in future. I only had time to do basic light and contrast tweaks, but once this week is over, I can have more of a play with these, plus the saturation.

The client was really happy with the pics, so hopefully he will be doubly happy next time!

If any pro sports photographers are over here, I'd love to shadow you for a day :yes: , its the best way I learn

if anyone fancies helping shoot a National Touch Rugby tournament in June here in Manchester, let me know!

Picassa may be a bit at fault it does some fairly nasty image compression at times.

I did download a couple of shots from Picassa and try re cropping them to see how they came out. I can post them if you want but I will only do so with your okay.

Yes please Kiwi, that would be great! Cropping is something I always struggle with!

Cheers dude!

Yes please Kiwi, that would be great! Cropping is something I always struggle with!

Cheers dude!

Here is my go at it. I just randomly picked a couple of pictures and haven't done anything much except crop to the way I would of if they were mine.

Pic 1. Yucky tennis court in the background. Wind screen falling down. Blah.

Cropped. Get rid of most of the background distractions and concentrate on the players. Players are slightly left so they appear to be running into the space on the right.

Pic 2. A great landscape of the houses surrounding the field and one of the light towers. Oh, and some people as well. :-)

Cropped. Three guys playing Rugby. Once again the ball carrier is running into the photo.

As I said you really need to get in as tight as you can. I tend to be a lazy photographer so I set my focal length a bit wide, keep the subject in the middle and shoot then use the larger photo like the ones you posted to allow me the luxury of cropping using a PC rather than making a split second decision. By keeping the subject in the centre you will also improve your focus accuracy. Obviously you need to make your own decisions here and if you do want wider shots that's fine, they have their place.

Just to show you that I don't always follow my own advice here are links to some sets I have. Cricket, 2009 Soccer, Australian Rules Football.

I'd agree with all that k1w1 has said, though i will just add, that you really need to tackle getting the basics of getting your exposure right in the first place. Image number 27 in the gallery for example was shot at f20.0 - 1/1000 sec @ ISO400 I would guess that picture was vastly under exposed before you rescued it in post processing, which has resulted in the awfully noisy shot you have now. This now makes it near impossible for you to crop it to the ideal that K1W1 has shown you, as the noise will be further accentuated after cropping............. if the picture had been exposed correctly (or near correct) you'd have no issues with cropping.

Please don't take the criticisms the wrong way, just trying to help, and believe me, my own photos can be far from perfect at times too..... There's always room for improvement.

Well, some time has passed and the big rugby tournament went really well! Below are links to some of the edited shots from the day, let me know what you guys think!

Manchester NTS Edited 1

Manchester NTS Edited 2

Manchster NTS Edited 3

Enjoy the footy - COME ON ENGLAND!!

Enjoy the footy - COME ON ENGLAND!!

Well first of all condolences on the come on England part.

Overall I think the shots are very good from a framing and cropping point of view. You have kept the action shots fairly tight and also added some that give a more expansive view of the overall play. I'm not sure about the quality because I have a crap monitor here at work and Picasa isn't the best viewing option available but compared to the test shots there seems to be a big improvement in the exposure.

It's amazing that where ever there is any sort of Rugby event anywhere in the world there is always some NZ or obviously Polynesian players and it's also amazing that a couple of the players (guys) actually dared to put on the boots. Were there coronary care ambulances on standby?

A wee update, a rugby contact of mine has asked me to do a sports celeb cricket match in a couple of weeks! Woohoo!

Never done cricket before, but he who dares, as Del Boy would say! And also some of my sporting heroes might be there too playing, so will take autograph book too!