how to take action photos with low light inside a stadium?
i have a panasonic DMC-FZ50 with a 12x zoon lumix lens (standard with the camera i presume).
I want to take pictures of volleyball, but when i use the sport setting, the images come out too dark. and if i use shutter priority to quicken the shutter speed, again, the images are too dark. however i cant seem to be able to alter the shutter speed and apeture manually.
can anyone tell me how to do this and around what levels i need?
thanks!
Well, you’ll need your shutter speed to be no longer than 1/400th of a second in order to freeze motion… if your subject isn’t moving too much, maybe, say, 1/250th of a second will do it. If your pictures are still coming out too dark in shutter-priority mode at between 1/250 – 1/400 of a second, then the light levels are simply too low to compensate for by adjusting aperture and shutter-speed.
The only way too compensate any further would be to adjust your ISO, increasing the sensitivity of the camera’s sensor. Your camera can be pushed all the way to ISO 1600… even ISO 3200 in "boost" mode. At ISO levels this high, you should be able to pull off a decent shutter speed. However, there is a serious trade-off when employing this technique to boost shutter-speed… digital noise. With every increase in ISO (sensor sensitivity) there will be an accompanying boost in "electronic noise", which becomes more and more visible. This noise will produce a grainy photograph that isn’t as crisp and has less contrast and texture than a photograph taken at a much more modest ISO 100 or ISO 200.
In all but very low light situations, it is best to keep your ISO below 400. In the scenario which you describe, though, boosting ISO seems to be the only viable solution.
Well, you’ll need your shutter speed to be no longer than 1/400th of a second in order to freeze motion… if your subject isn’t moving too much, maybe, say, 1/250th of a second will do it. If your pictures are still coming out too dark in shutter-priority mode at between 1/250 – 1/400 of a second, then the light levels are simply too low to compensate for by adjusting aperture and shutter-speed.
The only way too compensate any further would be to adjust your ISO, increasing the sensitivity of the camera’s sensor. Your camera can be pushed all the way to ISO 1600… even ISO 3200 in "boost" mode. At ISO levels this high, you should be able to pull off a decent shutter speed. However, there is a serious trade-off when employing this technique to boost shutter-speed… digital noise. With every increase in ISO (sensor sensitivity) there will be an accompanying boost in "electronic noise", which becomes more and more visible. This noise will produce a grainy photograph that isn’t as crisp and has less contrast and texture than a photograph taken at a much more modest ISO 100 or ISO 200.
In all but very low light situations, it is best to keep your ISO below 400. In the scenario which you describe, though, boosting ISO seems to be the only viable solution.
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try flash
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I used to shoot a lot of college sports in stadiums, and used 1600 and 3200 speed film, 1/250, F2.8.
Take some readings with a grey card in several areas, and then set exposure manually.
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It’s all about light. Stadiums and Gyms just have the worst lighting ever!
To start go into manual mode.
What you need is to bump up your ISO as much as you are willing. There is a major tradeoff where the more sensitive your sensor is, the noisier the image will be. The problem is that your camera does NOT handle high ISO’s well. Above 400 start being unusable (see here: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/panasonicfz50/page7.asp).
So next is to open your lens as wide as possible. Problem here is that kit lenses (lenses that come packaged with a camera body) are usually pretty slow. You can probably eek out an f4 out of that lenses if you are lucky. Well, drop that down as low as it gets to open your lens as wide as it can. Wider aperture == more light at a time.
Finally, we are looking at shutter speed. Drop your shutter speed down unit you are close to perfect exposure. A little trick I do is that I under expose by a whole stop and then recover the lost light on the computer. I can only do this because I always shoot in RAW.
Problem with longer shutter speeds is that you end up with motion blur and shake blur.
If none of this works for you then I’d recommend getting some faster glass … something that can open at f2.8 or lower. I’m a canon guy so I can;t recommend a Panasonic lens but something similar to the Canon 70-200 f2.8 L Series lens would be nice … of course that lens is like 2000$.
Your other option is ask for permission to use massive flashes that can light up an American football field … and of course get the aforementioned lights … I don;t think that’s very likely. 🙁
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You need to learn how to get your camera into manual mode so READ & STUDY the Owner’s Manual. Then you should be able to select a high ISO – at least 1600 and a fast shutter speed of at least 1/250 sec. The lens on your camera is not as slow as most at f2.8 at the wide setting of your lens and f3.7 at the tele setting. Remember that as you zoom from wide to tele you’re going to lose almost a full stop so your shutter speed will slow down accordingly.
Just don’t expect great results at ISO 1600. This article should help with the digital noise you can expect at such a high ISO with the small sensor in your camera.
http://www.shutterbug.net/equipmentreviews/software_computers/0309noise/index.html
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Coleman and Awesome… both have good suggestions. Flash would help, if you can use it. Unfortunately flashes are not always very welcome at such events. Higher ISO will help get a picture but will give you grain. The FZ50 is a point and shoot (ok fine a bridge camera) so fatser lenses are not an option.
Oh one last thing if the pictures are just a little bit over exposed. If you can get closer to the court you might get better pictures. At the shorter end of the zoom range, your maximum aperture is f/2.8 but at the longest end it’s f/3.7. That bit of extra light might help, if you can get closer.
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