Shooting in bright sunlight

Orpeanut

Hi,
I've been shooting sports for about a year. I'm very green when it comes to camera settings. I was wondering how the more experienced guys would shoot a baseball game in bright sunlight? I have a Nikon D90 with a 70-200 2.8 lens. The last game I had bright sunlight and had my camera set on shutter priority between 3200 and 4000. The ISO was at 250 most of the time. My pictures looked fine on the camera, but way overexposed when I got home. I don't really understand histograms either other than you don't want anything on the edges. Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks

Orpeanut

Here is a link to show what was somewhat usable. Thanks

http://throughthelenssports.smugmug.com/High-School-Baseball/Silverton-vs-SA-Baseball-game/11865943_a9dHD#839277914_m7GzS

wadesworld

The last game I had bright sunlight and had my camera set on shutter priority between 3200 and 4000.

I'm no expert, but a few thoughts:

1) It's counter-intuitive, but you generally don't want to shoot sports on shutter priority. Usually, you're looking for a nice wide aperture to blur distracting backgrounds when there's plenty of light, or a nice-wide aperture to give you sufficient shutter speed when there's limited light. On shutter priority, you have no control over this. You'll find most sports shooters use aperture priority or manual.

When there's insufficient light to get high enough shutter speed, you bump up your ISO. When your ISO is maxed and shutter speeds get too slow, you add light (usually not an option), put on a faster lens, or give up and take non-action shots the rest of the time.

2) Make sure your metering mode is correct. I usually use center-weighted.

3) You can use your camera's exposure compensation to back the exposure off by a stop or so.

4) Positioning can make a big difference. If you're shooting into the sun, exposure is going to be a challenge - period.

5) Make sure to use your lens hood - I think a see a little lens flare in a few of those shots. You don't want any extraneous light hitting the lens.

Orpeanut

Thanks Wade,

Wouldn't a wider aperture let even more light in on a sunny day?

I never thought about changing the exposure, I'll have to try that next time.

Leon

wadesworld

Orpeanut wrote:

Thanks Wade,

Wouldn't a wider aperture let even more light in on a sunny day?

Remember how the two priority modes work.

In shutter priority mode, the shutter speed is fixed, and the camera choose the aperture size to properly expose the photo (or what it thinks is properly exposed anyhow). A fast shutter speed will generally lead to a large aperture. However, something like 500 or 1000 isn't very fast on a sunny day. In that case, the camera may choose an F16 or F22 aperture. While the exposure may be OK, the background will be in-focus, which is often not what you want. The big problem is that aperture will be constantly changing, which is not what a sports photographer wants. With 250 or 500 being sufficient to stop action, the sports photographer generally doesn't care if the camera varies shutter speed between 500 and 4000. He DOES care if the aperture starts changing though.

Remember that in aperture priority mode, the aperture is fixed and the camera adjusts the shutter speed to properly expose the photo. So yes, an aperture of 2.8 will let in a LOT of light. But to compensate, the camera will give you a 2000 or 4000 shutter speed - more than enough for great stop-action shots. In general, for sports, the right aperture setting is the most important thing. As stated, if you have the aperture wide open and you can't get enough shutter speed, it means you don't have enough light.

Now, the situation could happen where a particular camera is somewhat limited in shutter speed. So on a bright day, a camera that can only do 1500 shutter speed might not be able to shoot on aperture priority at 2.8 without overexposing. In that case, the only choices are: stop the aperture down some, find a way to remove some of the light (unlikely - except by stopping down), use exposure compensation, or get a better camera that can give faster shutter speeds, allowing you to shoot wide-open in brighter light.

Finally, remember that bright sunlight is a challenge. There's a reason why portrait photographers shoot in the shade, or have an assistant holding a sun swatter over the top of the model. Obviously you can't do that with sports, so managing bright sunlight is a combination of managing your aperture, shutter speed, exposure compensation or position. Sometimes you reach the point of "the best that could be done" and even that's not perfect.

But again, I'm an amateur too, so I'm also interested in hearing additional input from the more veteran photographers.

Orpeanut

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain. I'll try aperture priority next time.

wadesworld

Orpeanut wrote:

Thank you very much for taking the time to explain. I'll try aperture priority next time.

Just to be clear - I wasn't saying aperture priority was a fix for overexposing in bright sun - it was just a general sports shooting tip. The bright sun issue is probably best addressed by exposure compensation or metering adjustments.

Daddy0

Wade

I am no expert either, but I also have a D90 and I went to a South Carolina Baseball game on Saturday. My shots are with 2 kit lenses, an 18-105mm f3.5-5.6 and 70-300mm f4.5-5.6. I shot everything manual JPEG at 1/1600th shutter speed, ISO at 250 and tried to keep the aperture at the lowest setting possible depending what range I was at. It started off very bright, and then about the 6th inning it became a little overcast. I will include a link to the gallery for the ones I have uploaded. Here is a couple of shots:





I hope to get a 70-200 2.8 soon. Look thru this forum and read as much as possible. Amazing what info you can find.

Keep shooting!!!:D

http://www.focusedonyourmemories.com/Sports/USC-Gamecocks-Baseball/11286224_75ZAa/

Orpeanut

You'll love the 70-200 2.8. It's worked awesome for me on Basketball games. I used to try using a kit lens in doors. It's like a night and day difference




I hope to get a 70-200 2.8 soon. Look thru this forum and read as much as possible. Amazing what info you can find.

Keep shooting!!!:D

http://www.focusedonyourmemories.com/Sports/USC-Gamecocks-Baseball/11286224_75ZAa/[/quote]

double_b

I am not familiar with the D90, I have the D300. Does the D90 have Picture Control Settings? If so I have found on my D300 that in midday sun you will want to use the "Standard" picture control, or a custom one similar to it. Don't use "vivid" or a custom one with a high contrast setting.

Not saying this will fix the overexposure, but I have found my shots look much better by controlling the contrast a little better during times when you will already be getting a lot of contrast due to the harsh light.

Another vote for using exposure compensation as well. You may find you need to drop it by 1/3 stop or so in bright situations.

Orpeanut

Thank you to each one of you for your advice. I think the thing that helped me the most was using exposure compensation and setting the picture control to standard. I tried Aperture priority but wasn't happy with the shutter speed being slow enough at times that the bats were blurry on swings even set at 2.8.

On another note I can't figure out how to post more than one photo at a time. The one I'm posting was on another day with really bright sunlight.

Thanks Leon

tjk60

Orpeanut wrote: »

Thank you to each one of you for your advice. I think the thing that helped me the most was using exposure compensation and setting the picture control to standard. I tried Aperture priority but wasn't happy with the shutter speed being slow enough at times that the bats were blurry on swings even set at 2.8.

On another note I can't figure out how to post more than one photo at a time. The one I'm posting was on another day with really bright sunlight.

Thanks Leon

Leon what are the settings of the camera? ISO, Shutter, Aperture.

With it that sunny outside I would think you'd be at something like this:

(Sunny 16)

ISO 100, 1/100, f/16 =
ISO 200, 1/100, f/11
ISO 200, 1/200, f/8
ISO 200, 1/400, f/5.6
ISO 200, 1/800, f/4
ISO 200, 1/1600, f/2.8

So with you at f/2.8 and ISO 200 your shutter would be at least 1/1600 which will stop almost anything in baseball.

Mike J

tjk60 wrote: »

Leon what are the settings of the camera? ISO, Shutter, Aperture.

With it that sunny outside I would think you'd be at something like this:

(Sunny 16)

ISO 100, 1/100, f/16 =
ISO 200, 1/100, f/11
ISO 200, 1/200, f/8
ISO 200, 1/400, f/5.6
ISO 200, 1/800, f/4
ISO 200, 1/1600, f/2.8

So with you at f/2.8 and ISO 200 your shutter would be at least 1/1600 which will stop almost anything in baseball.

What Tim did not say here but I think he is implying is that in sunny conditions there is NO reason not to shoot in manual mode. It feels intimidating at first but this allows you to be in complete control. If you start out with Tim's suggestion of using the Sunny 16 rule, set the camera to ISO 200, 1/1600, and f/2.8 and see what you think. Learning to shoot in manual has helped me tremendously in my ski racing shots this year.

Orpeanut

tjk60 wrote: »

Leon what are the settings of the camera? ISO, Shutter, Aperture.

With it that sunny outside I would think you'd be at something like this:

(Sunny 16)

ISO 100, 1/100, f/16 =
ISO 200, 1/100, f/11
ISO 200, 1/200, f/8
ISO 200, 1/400, f/5.6
ISO 200, 1/800, f/4
ISO 200, 1/1600, f/2.8

So with you at f/2.8 and ISO 200 your shutter would be at least 1/1600 which will stop almost anything in baseball.

That particular photo was 5.6 ISO 320 shutter 2000. I was on the third base side trying to get the left-handed batters and that made me shoot into the sun. The rest of the time my settings were around 3.2 ISO 200 1/2000. I will try manual next game and see if that helps. Its frustrating when you have a sunny day with clouds that keep moving in and out. I don't always react to the changes. Plus I really haven't learned what rules to follow. Here is a link to the gallery looking back again it looks like I had a lot of overexposed pictures.
http://throughthelenssports.smugmug.com/High-School-Baseball/SA-vs-WA-Baseball-Game-1/12015342_kk6RV#852410058_6gHvm