Thoughts/Advice on shooting a football game at night w/ kit lens? *now w/ pics*

[VisualOddity]

Being as I am such a football fan, and the highschool field is just across a small corn field from my house, I am thinking it's time to go support them. That will be the school my (now) 4yo son will go to, so why not start now. And if I'm going anyway, why not get a few shots in while I'm there? ;)

The only equipment I will have is that listed in my sig, minus the Urban Safari Vehicle and Defense System lol. I know it's not great for this, but practice can't hurt, right? The lighting there looks to be great, at least from my house, where it looks like day time during night games. Now, by great, I mean by football standards, not photography/kit lens standards. I'll have my kit lens, 'nifty-fifty', and tripod (maybe).

Would you guys only look for low movement shots and keep the ISO down a bit on the XT, or just crank the ISO and hope the action comes out? How about white balance in that kind of lighting? Any A/F setting work better than others? This is my first attempt at any type of sports (assuming I get to go), so thats why the questions are flowing... ;)

Thanks for any thoughts and opinions... :)


P.S.
If anyone wants to donate a 70-200 F2.8L to the "Dylan Needs An 'L' Fund", feel free... lol

[VisualOddity]

P.S.S.
I only put this in here in hopes of quicker replies since the game is in only a few hours...

[Daniel Bates]

Hmmm... if the game is just in a few hours, I'd say go for it (no sense in dropping by Precision Camera & Video and picking up a 70-200 f/2.8L IS... ). However, don't expect SI quality results. Quite frankly, I would leave it on AWB, shoot JPEG, crank the ISO as high as you dare and use aperture priority. Use the 50mm f/1.8--it's only five mm less than the kit zoom, and f/1.8 vs. f/5.6. No contest.

In summary:

AF -- AI Servo
Mode -- Av
Aperture -- f/1.8
ISO -- high as you can (1600 is the max on the XT)

And wait for the action to come to you. You won't have a lot of reach with 50mm, but you can get some shots. (Don't forget to post whatever you get. )

And--good luck!
--Daniel

[VisualOddity]

Originally Posted by Daniel Bates

Hmmm... if the game is just in a few hours, I'd say go for it (no sense in dropping by Precision Camera & Video and picking up a 70-200 f/2.8L IS... ). However, don't expect SI quality results. Quite frankly, I would leave it on AWB, shoot JPEG, crank the ISO as high as you dare and use aperture priority. Use the 50mm f/1.8--it's only five mm less than the kit zoom, and f/1.8 vs. f/5.6. No contest.

In summary:

AF -- AI Servo
Mode -- Av
Aperture -- f/1.8
ISO -- high as you can (1600 is the max on the XT)

And wait for the action to come to you. You won't have a lot of reach with 50mm, but you can get some shots. (Don't forget to post whatever you get. )

And--good luck!
--Daniel

Awesome... Thanks homie... :)

[Daniel Bates]

Anytime! I had to shoot a few frisbee games with a 50/1.8... they turned out okay, but then I was allowed on the field, which is a bit of an advantage. The 70-200 is a lot more fun to work with, but the 50 actually did pretty well for a $70 lens.

[johnastovall]

Originally Posted by Daniel Bates

Hmmm... if the game is just in a few hours, I'd say go for it (no sense in dropping by Precision Camera & Video and picking up a 70-200 f/2.8L IS... ). However, don't expect SI quality results. Quite frankly, I would leave it on AWB, shoot JPEG, crank the ISO as high as you dare and use aperture priority. Use the 50mm f/1.8--it's only five mm less than the kit zoom, and f/1.8 vs. f/5.6. No contest.

In summary:

AF -- AI Servo
Mode -- Av
Aperture -- f/1.8
ISO -- high as you can (1600 is the max on the XT)

And wait for the action to come to you. You won't have a lot of reach with 50mm, but you can get some shots. (Don't forget to post whatever you get. )

And--good luck!
--Daniel

I would suggest RAW rather than JPEG's. He can do more with the WB there.

[Daniel Bates]

True. But I don't know how much CF storage he has...

[VisualOddity]

Just 1gb :(

[Daniel Bates]

Yeah... I'd stick with JPEG then. RAW is better, no doubt, but with only 1 gig to work with...

[VisualOddity]

Thanks guys... :)

[ndsimm]

Not sure about Canon, but I can get over 120 RAW images on a 1GB card, so as a first test, shouldn't that be enough and still allow for the forgiveness of RAW??

[Daniel Bates]

Well, you can fit 100 or so shots on a CF card, but it depends how much you'll be shooting. I usually shoot 800 shots in two or three hours, so RAW would require a lot more CF storage... a hundred shots can go by pretty quickly.

[DEMDeepEllumMusic]

I would rather have 5 good RAW shots to work with vs 25 JPG's.
During down times he can go back into the card and erase RAW shots, chimping, that he can tell that are totally bad which will extend his shooting time into the game- yes the card may only hold 100 shots but he may actually be able to work through 120-130 since he may erase the out of focus, fan in shot, zebra in bad spot etc shots.

[VisualOddity]

Thanks for the advice guys...
These are the only ones that I ended up keeping out of a couple of hundred taken. I don't think they are all that good, but I'd love feedback. Keep in mind a few things though... Bad lighting, this is my first attempt ever at sports shots, and since I couldn't get on the field, these are all from the stands w/ a 50mm lens at (mostly) F1.8...

The last pic is by far my favorite... While the others are only the best of what I took, and still not that great, the last one actually gets my eye. I like it a lot... :)

[jordankreationz]

Love the one of the kid with the tee shirt. You got some pretty good shots with a kit lens, especially since you were up in the stands. I always use sport mode when shooting football games. I used to try with just auto but seemed to never catch all the action fast enough. Enjoy the games!

DJ