Express Action Sports

What does iso mean on my Camera and how does it change my image.

ISO is a measurement of the sensitivity to light of a light sensitive surface, whether film or digital sensor. A low ISO (25, 50, 100) is very insensitive and requires a lot of light. We use a low ISO when we want the best possible image, usually with our camera mounted on a tripod. A high ISO (400, 800, 1600) is more sensitive and requires less light. We use a high ISO when photographing sports/action and need a higher shutter speed or when doing low-light, non-flash photography. A high ISO will cause more apparent grain with film and more digital noise with most digital cameras.

ISO is one leg of the "Exposure Triangle". Shutter speed and aperture are the other two. Reading these books will help you to fully understand this. "Understanding Exposure" and "Understanding Shutter Speed", both by Bryan Peterson.

A friend of mine asked me to take a few pics of him playing football but I usually stick with landscape/nature photography so I’m not sure what film I should use or speed for my lens (I have a Nikon N75 and the AF 28-200mm f/3.5-5.6 lens).
Any advice is greatly appreciated!

If it’s a daytime game, you may be OK with ISO 400 film, but if it’s an evening one, get IS0 800 or higher.

Here’s a few pics I took during the afternoon and evening at a college game. I was using a Nikon D50 and started at ISO 400 at the begining of the game and later moved up to 800 and 1600 as it got darker. I was shooting with a Nikon 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 wide open, allowing me to freeze the action as much as possible. Your lens is not as long, but you’ll probably be closer than I was.

http://tinyurl.com/2l7saa

Sports photography is very different from landscape/nature as the subject(s) are constantly moving. Try to anticipate the action as much as possible and try not to zoom in too tightly, as the players will often ‘run off the frame’. If you don’t zoom in too tightly, you have a better chance of captureing the full action and can crop later.

One strong suggestion – use a monopod as it gives you some stability, but is easier to move around than a tripod.

If possible, practice shooting one of the team’s practices first.

I hope this is helpful for you.

I started doing sports photography for the first time yesterday. I’m usually a landscape and architecture photographer, shooting things that generally don’t move a lot, so this was a real challenge to me.
The photos I took can be found here…

Can anyone offer me any constructive criticism or advice on things I could have done differently or better, so I can improve next week?
Thanks.

These are good for working with a point and shoot. I notice you were using aperture priority, try using shutter priority, also I notice you were using an iso of 100, for sports you want to use an iso that is a bit faster. I would start at iso 400. and set the camera on shutter priority and start at 1/250. For sports you really need an slr and a telephoto lens. You can get so much closer with a telephoto lens-This was taken from midway up in the stands.