Shooting Soccer at Night

ActionJim · November 30, 2008

I have a canon rebel xt (350D) with a 70-200 sigma 1:2.8 lens and I'm having a hell of a time getting good action shots at night ,and lately its been outdoor soccer. Is there a good setting or guideline i should follow? I'm restricted to this lens until I get enough money together to buy something else. Any suggestions?:bow

jfriend · December 1, 2008

ActionJim wrote:

I have a canon rebel xt (350D) with a 70-200 sigma 1:2.8 lens and I'm having a hell of a time getting good action shots at night ,and lately its been outdoor soccer. Is there a good setting or guideline i should follow? I'm restricted to this lens until I get enough money together to buy something else. Any suggestions?

Very tough shooting conditions. If you could show us example pictures, we might be able to offer more detailed or targeted advice. What specifically are you having trouble with: exposure, motion blur, noise, auto-focus?

Basically, you are going to shoot wide open at f/2.8 so just put it in aperture priority mode at f/2.8.

Then you will have to boost the ISO until you can shoot with an acceptable shutter speed. For soccer, I like to shoot above 1/750, but when the light is really low, you can shoot at 1/250-1/500th, but you will lose some shots for motion blur and moving limbs will frequently be blurred.

Get yourself some camera support like a monopod so your camera motion isn't adding to the blur.

Set to continuous-focus and learn how to track your subject with the active focus sensor.

pathfinder · December 1, 2008

If you cannot add light ( flash or fixed lights ) you have three ways to increase the amount of light your camera captures - larger aperture f4->f2.8->f2->f1.4, longer shutter speed 1/250th -> 1/125th -> 1/60th etc , or increase the ISO iso 800-> iso 1600 -> iso 3200 -> iso 6400.

All of these may extract a cost in image quality. Faster lenses with larger apertures can be very helpful. Newer cameras support higher ISOs with less noise. Longer shutter speeds just don't work with sports very well

If you can add flash, whole new possibilities open up to you. At ISO 1600, portable flash units can really reach out onto the field.

Monopods and tripods can stabilize your camera better, but cannot slow down the action of the field.

ActionJim · December 2, 2008

Thanks guys, I think your info helped. Here is a pic i took last night.

Shooting Soccer at Night

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