Express Action Sports

like is it portrait, sports, party, high sensitivity etc?

Each of these different picture modes changes the settings of the camera so that they perform best under those conditions. For example, ‘sports’ mode will try to use a faster shutter speed to freeze fast action, but each one is also a compromise so ‘high sensitivity’ will allow you to take pictures in low light without flash, but may result in lwer quality ‘grainy’ pictures. As you learn about photography – these are the things that you start to understand – each shot is a compromise between shutter speed (freezing motion) aperture (contol of depth of field) and sensitivity (quality of image).

If you are in a hurry and can’t figure out which is best, then put the camera onto full auto – most of them will take a reasonable picture, but if you have the time it is work trying to learn about the different modes.

http://www.pixcellence.co.uk

I really enjoy doing stop motion photography but I just learned that the camera I am using isn’t meant for stop motion. I also heard that the camera is only good for a certain amount of clicks. So instead of the camera I have right now what camera should I use?

What are you saying when you say a camera is only good for a certain amount of clicks. Are you talking about shutter cycles? Are you talking about how many shots you can take before the camera buffer fills and you have to wait until those images write to the memory card?

What exactly do you mean by "stop motion"

What that could mean is freezing the action when shooting sports. That just takes a high shutter speed, 1/500th or faster

What it could also mean is something called time-lapse photography, were incremental shots are taken over a specific period of time and then later compiled and played back as a video

What do YOU mean by "stop action" and tell us more about your number of clicks on a camera.

One of my cameras has over 200,000 shutter cycles on it and it is working just fine

The camera I use when shooting time lapse is an old Nikon D200. I can set it up on a tripod, set the exposure manually and use an AC adapter to power it as long as necessary or until I fill the memory card

I have a Nikon D40 and would like to take action shots of snowboarders in the snow. Which settings should I put for the best results? Please also tell me for both sunny or cloudy because I don’t know what the conditions will be.

This is a difficult question to answer in a brief manner with a blanket solution. I am assuming that whether cloudy or sunny, you will be shooting during the day.

You MUST learn how to change the exposure and read the exposure light meter. Do lots of reading (the manual). This will help you get the best shots possible.

But for a quick answer, try this:

For moving targets try Dynamic Area Auto-Focus (AF)
Here is a link discussing AF use shooting sports: http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=25922

You will likely want to use "Shutter-Priority" mode when shooting.
Use shutter speeds longer than 1/100th of a second to get some motion blur. Shutter speeds shorter than 1/250th of a second will freeze the action and make the subjects look less motion blurred.

If you pan the camera with the snowboarder and use a shutter speed longer than 1/100th of a second, you may get the snowboarder to appear crisply and the whole background to be motion blurred.

When shooting pictures of air, the lower the camera is, the higher the air will look… and ideally the camera is on the peak-side, facing down the hill (if the camera is facing up the hill to look at a jump, there will not be any visual reference for height.

For a very bright, sunny day – try ISO100 first. The lower the ISO, the less digital noise your images will have and the crisper they will be. If ISO100 makes the shutter too slow or images two dark, adjust it up to 200 or 400. When you exceed 400, the noise will drastically increase. It is unlikely that you will need to go that high in daylight conditions.

800 and 1600 should be reserved for dark or indoor shots only, when you would not otherwise get the shot… or when you want a noisy grainy shot (sometimes people like noisy black and white shots).

These ideas should work in most cases; but seriously… it is all about trial and error with exposure settings… and nobody can tell you precise settings without being there and metering the light.

If you know how to, meter your shots every step between -1 to 0 to +1 EV… and when you find the most appealing setting, use that.

If you shoot in RAW, you can adjust brightness and contrast a little bit without image degradation… when you get home and put them on your computer. This only gives you a little bit of wiggle room though, not a lot.

Good luck

I lost the manual. I need a faster shutter speed for some action/sports shots, help!!!

The easiest way is to set it to "S" Mode and rotate the rear dial. Higher shutter speeds are 1/500th, 1/1000th, 1/1250th, etc. Just look in the viewfinder to see the shutter speed go up. Also, you might have to increase your ISO to obtain the higher shutter speeds if you are shooting in low light conditions.

Oh, here’s a .pdf of your camera’s manual:

http://nikonusa.com/pdf/manuals/noprint/D3000_ENnoprint.pdf

I’m a horseback rider and like taking pictures of horses jumping at shows. I have found that indoor pictures especially are almost always blurry on the sports setting as well as most outdoors. I’m not super familiar with photography or cameras yet so sorry if this is a stupid question but i just feel like capturing clear action shots with a $600 camera should be possible and a lot easier than it has been. Thanks for all the help 🙂

The first situation to consider is the lighting–
The second situation is the subjects distance..
If your having a blur appear..you need to get closer..
You may also need to use a Shutter-Speed..of 1/500
A ZooM Lens requires more light..than a shorter Lens..
Consider shooting less ZooM..and Cropping your original..to achieve Zoom/
Large Resolution will give poor results in low light–
You might trry–>>1600 x 1200 [M3}..NOT Wide Screen..
Use a TriPod..and a Shutter-cable switch..
My camera has a 2-second TIMER–you might try that–on a TriPod..
I’ll use my 10-second TIMER on a TriPod for very difficult image capture..
But I would imagine 10-seconds would be a MISS–on all photo’s.

i take a lot of sport shots,during the day i have the camera set on the sport mode and i get fantastic photos,but when the light goes,and try taking shots at night at a sportsfield under lights,and still on sport mode,the pics are dark,but mainly they are very blurry,and not worth keeping.I have tried to take the same sought of photos on the Aperture mode,but the pics are too dark.Its all been very frustrating.Can someone help me please?

As mentioned, a P&S does not have the controls necessary to freeze action in low light, nor does it have a large enough sensor to produce nearly noiseless images at high ISO settings.

Here is what you could expect if you had the right tool for the job, mainly a dSLR with long, fast lens

http://s862.photobucket.com/albums/ab182/fotomanaz/Answers%20album/?action=view&current=i_AIA3008copy.jpg

That shot was made using a 300 mm lens with aperture of f/2.8 and a shutter speed of 1/500th second.

If you look on your camera, you will notice that none of those settings are possible on your SX20

My goals: freezing the action of live performers even if the lighting is not too bright.

Additional: What lens should I be using? I prefer a zoom lens so that I could frame the subjects better.

First and foremost you’ll need a camera that allows you full manual control.

Freezing action is a function of shutter speed. Shutter speed is a product of light, lens aperture (f-stop) and ISO. In concert situations where the light is usually dim you’ll have to "open up" your lens and increase your ISO. As you increase ISO, image quality begins to suffer. Noise Reduction circuitry helps but its no cure-all. As you "open up" your lens, its performance declines – most all lenses give their best results at between f5.6 and f11. A lens wide open, say at f2.0 or f2.8 will admit the most light but the edges won’t be as sharp and you’ll see some light fall-off from center to edge. As in all things there are no solutions only trade-offs.

Turning now to my trusty FotoSharp "Day & Night Exposure Guide" we find:
Indoor sports, circus – floodlit suggests:
f2.8 @ 1/125 @ ISO 800
f4.0 @ 1/60 @ ISO 800
f2.8 @ 1/250 @ ISO 1600
f4.0 @ 1/125 @ ISO 1600

School stage/auditorium suggests:
f2.8 @ 1/30 @ ISO 800
f4.0 @ 1/15 @ ISO 800
f2.8 @ 1/60 @ ISO 1600
f4.0 @ 1/30 @ ISO 1600

About all you can do is decide what image quality is going to be acceptable to you. To get a zoom lens with a maximum aperture of f2.8 is probably going to be expensive. Sigma offers a 50-150mm f2.8 zoom for around $700.00 and a 70-200mm f2.8 for around $900.00. A Canon 70-200mm f2.8 is around $1,150.00

The Sigma 50-150 is only for use with cameras using the APS-C sensor. Its image circle is too small for a film camera or a larger than APS-C sensor.

A good monopod might help you go to a slower shutter speed but then you might not be able to freeze action as you said you wanted to.

If i go to the Dodgers Stadium at a night game with a Canon T2i body and a Sigma 50-200mm f/4.0-5.6 lens, would i be able to get good pictures under the bad stadium lights.
What would be the best settings for taking a picture of the player standing around?

What would be the best settings for a player in action?

Thanks. If you have a flickr with pictures of your sports photography, leave the link and ill check them out if you’d like.

Under stadium lights at night your going to have a lot of trouble taking action shots.

With that f-number you are really constricted to daylight action shots. It is still possible none the less, but the ISO is going to be so high your going to see a lot of noise in the images.

Best settings is setting the aperture as low as possible and then boost the ISO till you get at least 1/250 of a shutter speed but around 1/1000 would be ideal.

I recommend you stick to daytime action shots though.

Is it something that pays off when you take action shots? Or, is it as helpful when taking landscape photos?

IS can help when you need to take a relatively long exposure time which is not normally achievable hand-held.

The rough rule that people use is to try and not use a shutter speed longer than the focal length you’re shooting at. For example. Shooting with a 200mm telephoto lens, most people can hold it no longer than 1/200s to take a steady exposure. Depending on the version of lens, the same person may be able to take the same shot with a shutter speed as long as 1/25s with assistance of IS which is particularly handy in low light environments such as indoors when flash photography is not possible.

Some lens which are geared up to sports photography (such as the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS) even have a second IS setting allowing you to pan horizontally whilst smoothing your vertical movement.

I am learning sports photography and would like some opinions on best settings for outdoor, sunny sports such as soccer, football and maybe baseball. I am going to starting by using an ISO of 100, f5.6, let the camera select the speed. I have a Nikon VR 70-200 mm. Your ideas and opinions would be great. Thanks

To be honest, I would FLIP the fashion in which you are planning on shooting. Faster subjects require faster shutter speeds. I recommend getting faster film, ISO200 would be good. If you have the option of selecting your shutter speed, and letting the camera select the FStop(Aperture) I would do that for now. Set your speed to a minimum of 1/250sec (I repeat, minimum). The higher the speed the better the stop action in the image. Another cool thing to do is to set the speed a LITTLE slower, 1/125, MAYBE 1/60, and then following (panning) your subject. Say it’s a soccer player. Then AS you are following the subject, keeping him in the frame, take the shot while still panning. You’ll get some really cool shots.