Rex Photography

What is the best camera setting for sports photography in lowlighting?

I am shooting with a Canon Rebel XT 350D. It is easy to stop action during the day, in the natural daylight. But what about when the sun goes down. I am finding it hard to stop action. The camera is not focusing as fast and my pictures are coming out blurry. So after a certain time I just quit shooting. What am I doing wrong. I have been using the auto/sport setting. And no I don't have an external flash.

Public Comments

1. go manual use the highest ISO speed ,open the aperture fully (this is going to cut on your depth of field so take pictures accordingly]and shoot the lowest speed you can manage like a 30 if you subject doesn't move too fast.you might get lucky and get some good pictures otherwise learn to embrace and welcome the blur.and the important thing is don't give up.good luck!
2. Try your ISO setting at 800 or 1600 if you don't get to much noise at 1600. If you’re using the stock lens (17-85mm f/4-5.6) you are probably shooting at f5.6 depending on what sport you shooting; I am sure you’re zooming in. You may need to buy a lens with f2 or f2.8 (these may get expensive). As for your focus try different modes; the one shot AF mode may work faster than the predictive one. Ditch the flash also; I know you said you don’t have an external. I would not use an flash as depending on where the subject is your flash is probably not even getting there which will result in an under exposed shot. Also, if you are using the flash your out of focus may be due to the limits of the flash sync; the shutter can not exceed 1/200th so you will blur if you have a fast moving subject. All in all, ditch the flash, use the widest aperture you have, and let the camera set the shutter speed (just watch out if there are big lights that you are getting in the shot; it will mess with the auto exposure and under expose you); or, get a meter and set the shutter speed yourself. Hope this helps. Good luck!
3. digital i take it.....the focusing problem, switch to manual or else the AF will keep zipping back and forth from min to infinity. the only thing sports setting does is give the camera the fastest shutter speed with the available light. this in turn forces the camera to open the aperature as wide as possible limiting how much is in focus at a time (depth of field). go into manual ISO setting and bump it up to 800+ this allows the camera to capture an image with less available light keeping the shutter speed fairly high to stop action, but at a cost...you will get noise or in film terms, grain, but at least you will get a recogniziable picture. keep in mind when it gets dark enough, even 6400 ISO wont be able to capture anything except street lights and head light. as a rule if you can keep the shutter 1/250 sec or faster (up to 1/8000 of a sec) you will be able to stop action exception of nascar. other than that flash is your only other option. get a powerful enough one to light up the suject (mine throws 141 feet at iso 100) keeping the iso low will maintain pic quality and you only need 1/60 of a sec to stop action with flash.
4. How far are you from your subject? Chances are you can set your camera to manual and the longest focus setting and leave it there (if you are faring enough from the subject). Regardless you will probably have to use manual focus. A few other things to consider as far as focus. Deep of field is the area of an image that has an acceptable focus. As distance from your subject increases deep of field increases. As apertures increase in size (as the aperture number gets smaller) the deep of field decreases. As focal length (the amount of zoom) increases deep of field decreases. Since focal length effects deep of field then on a camera with a lens factor of 1.6 this also should be considered. Of course you still need the fastest shutter speed possible to stop the action. On your camera the highest flash sync is 200 and the highest ISO setting is 1600. The effective flash range of this camera is 43' at ISO 100 (set at the largest aperture) and this will increase as the ISO increases. Using the inverse square law then in theory with your camera set at ISO 1600 your flash range should increase to 86’. You can try this, but I don’t know how well the meters on your camera will work at that distance also it will over expose any thing closer than your subject. My suggestions, Consider using the RAW setting, with raw images you can you can get away with a small amount of underexposure and latter correct it, also with this size file you can do so cropping and you can more easily correct for incorrect color balance which is common under these situations. You may also consider printing in B&W, this will not help with focus but does look better than color when the image is grainy. Set your camera to aperture - priority AE, your ISO to 1600 and use your RAW setting, don’t zoom in any closer than you have to. Try a tri-pod or mono-pod to reduce shake and if you need to pan to follow the action. If this doesn’t do it you can try to underexpose by ½ and 1 stop. Then if this still doesn’t do it you are going to have to spend some money on faster or image stabilized lens and or maybe a good flash unit. The truth is you have to have light for photography