Lens Extender

Shoot in Manual Mode

Don't be afraid to set your own shutter speed and aperture for sports.  You'll have much more control over the appearance of you photos.   My strategy is to set an appropriate aperture to capture in-focus action with nicely blurred backgrounds with enough shutter speed to reasonably stop motion.  My Nikon D800 has an Auto ISO setting that I engage to insure proper exposure particularly when outdoors shooting sports partially in sun and shade.  Auto ISO allows me to get proper exposure.

 

Nikon D800, Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 lens, Aperture setting f/4, Shutter speed setting 1/1600s, ISO 500 (Auto ISO)

Increase your camera's ISO for indoor sports photography

As described at Yahoo Answers, your camera's ISO setting controls how sensitive the camera is to light.  A lower ISO requires more light to properly expose a photo than a higher ISO. Thus, a setting of ISO 200 needs twice as much light to properly expose a photograph as ISO 400.  Your camera's ISO setting is important for sports when there's not a lot of light to maintain the fast shutter speeds necessary to clearly photograph action.  Boosting your camera's ISO to 800, 1600, 3200, or even 6400 can dramatically increase the ability to properly expose your sports shots with a fast enough shutter speed to stop the action.  The downside to higher ISO settings is the introduction of more noise in your photos as ISO increases. Regarding noise, not all camera's are created equal.  Some camera's introduce unusable noise at ISO settings as low as 1600.  Others produce very good photos at ISO 6400.  If you want to take action shots indoors or in other low light situations, having a camera that performs well at higher ISO settings can be very useful.

The photo below was shot at the Pontiac Silverdome (the old home of the Detroit Lions).  While the lighting in the Silverdome is very good, this shot still required an ISO setting of 4000 to properly expose this photo at aperture f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/1250s.

A Review of Camera Settings for Soccer

As the spring club soccer season gets underway, here's a reminder about the basic camera settings I use for soccer photography.  This photo was taken using Nikon's D700 with a 300mm f/2.8 Nikon lens attached.  Using the D700, I use shoot in manual mode (both shutter speed and aperture are set manually; with the ISO set automatically using the Auto ISO setting of the D700).  The sun was setting during this game which created shadows and bright sections on the field.  The shutter speed was set a 1/800 second.  While the aperture was set a f/2.8.  This caused the ISO setting to rise to ISO 1000 under these lighting conditions.  After taking a few test shots before the beginning of the game, I noticed some over exposure in areas of the photo like the player's socks or shots of light skin taken in sunlight. So I dialed the exposure bias back to -1/3 as well.

Shoot Your Indoor Sports Using the RAW Setting

Gym lighting can wreak havoc on getting colors just right.  The automatic white balance setting of my Nikon D700 works very well for outdoor photography.  But for indoor photos (and action taken under stadium lights), the automatic white balance setting probably won't produce proper colors.  If you're not able to adjust your white balance manually before your photography session (see a post about how to do this here), make sure you set your camera's photo quality setting to RAW.  RAW will give you much more freedom to make color adjustment during post-processing.

The top photo below is the original RAW shot taken using the automatic white balance setting.  The bottom photo is the same RAW shot after a white balance temperature adjustment using Apple Aperture.

Don't Use AF-On for Volleyball

I'm not sure why, but I seem to get more in-focus volleyball action when I use the shutter release button for auto focus as opposed to the AF-On button and setting on my Nikon D700.  I previously posted that I only use the AF-On setting and button for my sports photography.  Well, I'm fairly sure now that for volleyball at least I get more in-focus shots using the shutter release button for auto-focus, exposure and releasing the shutter.

The Camera Equipment is Important for Capturing Sports Shots

"It's not the fiddle.  It's the fiddler."  While this is mostly true when it comes to capturing good sports shots.  It's not completely true.  Your camera equipment can really help you get more of those very interesting sports photos that I know you crave.  These are my top four equipment capability criteria that help capture cool sports images. 

1. Auto focus speed - Sports like soccer require a camera / lens set up that can quickly focus on a subject AND continue to focus on a moving subject.
2. High frames per second rate - More is better; 8 fps is better than 5 which is better than 3.  I'm sure there's a speed that gets ridiculous.  If it exists, I haven't used it yet.
3. Good low light performance - Not all the action occurs in optimal lighting.  Having a camera that can take photos in the ISO 3200 - 6400 range with well controlled noise levels is key.  But don't forget about big aperture lenses as well.  If the budget can handle it, f/2.8 lenses are better than f/4.0, which is better than f/5.6.  The bigger apertures let you shoot at higher shutter speeds in low light situations.
4. Sharp, in-focus subject with nice blurry background - See number 3 above.  The f/2.8 lenses with long lengths (ie. 300mm) can really help with this.

 

Shooting Soccer with The Nikon D700 - Autofocus Settings

   

I finally got a chance to shoot some outdoor soccer with my relatively new D700 this weekend.  All of these photos were shot with the D700 and a 300mm f/2.8 lens attached.  Being a full-frame camera (FX is Nikon's nomenclature for this), I don't get the reach multiplier factor that I'm accustomed to with my D300 camera. For soccer, that lower reach might be the only drawback of this camera.  Autofocus speed and the ability to capture more in-focus shots seems to be much better than the D300. Yep, the D700 is expensive.  But it's also a very good camera for the sports photographer. 

My autofocus settings for these shots were:

• a1 - AF-C priority selection = Release + focus
• a3 - Dynamic AF area = 51 points
• a4 - Focus tracking with lock-on = Short
• a5 - AF activation = AF-ON only

If you have a D700 or a D3 (or even a D300), try these autofocus settings the next time you shoot soccer.

Confusion about Capturing Soccer Under Stadium Lights

There's always confusion about what camera settings and lens requirements are necessary to capture "under-the-lights," nighttime sports action.  Over on Photo.net there's a good discussion about this.  Really the only way to get decent nighttime sports action is to crank up the ISO and use a fast lens (preferably f/2.8 or faster...... ie. f/2.0).

Indoor Diving Photography Settings

 This photo was shot using Nikon's 70-200mm f/2.8 VR lens attached to the D300.  This was shot in manual mode at aperture f/2.8, shutter speed 1/640, ISO 2000, and +0.7 exposure bias.  Noise Ninja was used to clean up the high ISO noise as part of my Aperture software.