Sports Pictures

[murph00009]

Hi, i'm have an A70, and i'm trying to figure out what settings i should use to get the best out of sports pictures, because there is alot of movement, somtimes the pictures tend to be blurry, right now i'm using this for track and i was wondering if anyone could help me out, maybe tell me how to take a good picture and set it at the right settings so it will have better quality, thanks for your help

[murph00009]

Hi, i'm have an A70, and i'm trying to figure out what settings i should use to get the best out of sports pictures, because there is alot of movement, somtimes the pictures tend to be blurry, right now i'm using this for track and i was wondering if anyone could help me out, maybe tell me how to take a good picture and set it at the right settings so it will have better quality, thanks for your help
can anyone help?

[stoneylonesome]

You may want to post this question on the A forum might get better results. My only suggestion, if you're try to stop blur is to manual set the shutter speed to a faster number for track and field 1/250 or faster, another alternative is to pan the camera with the runner, the background will be blurred which will give a sense of speed to the runner. Keep in mind the faster shutter the larger the f stop the shorter the depth of field. everything is related. The best thing is take the camera off of auto and make your own decisions :)

[defordphoto]

Shooting sports with a digital P&S is just a bummer. That shutter delay is unmanageable. You have to guess where the action is. As for stopping that action, you'll need shutters speeds of 500 or better, depending on the sport.

[murph00009]

how do u change the shutter speed?

[murph00009]

i think i found it, tell me if i am right or wrong, lol. i went to manual and i see a fraction, since u said 500, i put it at 1/500, is this correct? also i see F2.8 what does this mean? also, i went to functions menu, i see iso speed, 50, 100, 200, and 400, what is this? sorry if i'm asking too many questions, i've never really used cameras that have had this many settings

[defordphoto]

Heh. Well, I can't explain photography to you in a couple of posts. Sorry. Pull out the manual that came with the camera and learn about what you have. Every camera is different and has different menus so I would have no idea how to set anything on your camera as I don't have one of that model.

[stoneylonesome]

1/500 is the shutter speed f2.8 is the lens opening (apeture) the smaller the number the larger the lens is opened the more light it lets in the less depth of field you have. the ISO 50, 200 is a film speed equvelence the large the number i.e 200 or 500 the better to shoot in low light light. lets say at ISO 50 you set /500 and your f stop tells you f2.8 if you set ISO 100 and keep 1/500 your f stop will be about f 5.6 or f 4 however in digital the greater the ISO the more apt you are to pick up noise (grain) in your photo's I always try to shoot with an ISO of 50 unless I really want the extra speed and am willing to sacrifice some quality

these may help
http://www.photocollege.co.uk/scentre/sc_contents.html
http://www.photocourse.com/
http://www.shortcourses.com/

[murph00009]

that helps a little, so is the iso number like the # on regular film when u buy it? cuz i know my mom usually buys film and it says 200 on it

[stoneylonesome]

that helps a little, so is the iso number like the # on regular film when u buy it? cuz i know my mom usually buys film and it says 200 on it

That's right, however like I said digital doesn't work the same a film. so what happens is that when you set a higher ISO you tend to get noise (grain) in your picture, it's like you took 200 film and shot it at 400 you'd end up with grainy pictures. it's most noticable when you print large prints

[murph00009]

ok, thanks

[murph00009]

ok, i went to a meet tonight to watch our girls team, and i took some pictures, i tried setting it the iso at 50 and the shutter speed at 1/500 with apeture set at f2.8, now mind u these pictures were taken in a field house, so it's not that dark but again it's not that bright inside. anyways when i took the pictures at that setting i couldn't see hardly anything it was all dark, i tried changing the iso, and shutter speed, and apeture, but the only settings i could come up with that would take a picture that i could actually see was, iso 400, shutter speed 1/60, and apeture f2.8, is there something i missed? cuz the quality wasn't that good when i zoomed in even with the pixels set at the largest and superfine setting, how can i improve the quality and keep the brightness?

[murph00009]

here is an example of how bad the quality was http://murph.razor-sys.com/photos/albums/userpics/10001/103_0332.JPG

[stoneylonesome]

You need more light, flash would have helped. I'm not sure if the internal flash of the A70 would be good enough, however when you use flash you will freeze the motion. the colored spots you see in the photo are what is called noise (grain in film terms) and that comes from 3 things that you did. 1) pushing the speed to 400, 2) zooming in ( hope you only used optical and not digital, digital zoom will degrade your photo even more) and 3) having a low light situation. shutter speed and aperture (f stop) are directly related the faster you set the shutter the wider the lens has to open. Could I suggest that you might want to see if there are some photo courses you could take in your area, either at the community college level or some that the different town organizations, or even your school might have. Does your school have a camera club?

[murph00009]

i don't really have the money right now to take a course and even if our school did have a camera club i wouldn't have time because i am doing track, also, i had the flash at the max, and i had to put the iso at 400, because anything lower was too dark, i did use only optical zoom, i had to because i can't get close enough to take a good picture so i wanted to get a close up, i'm not really sure about the shutter speed and the apeture, although i did try a few different shutter speeds and the only one that seemed to be bright enough was 1/60. i need to learn more about the camera also, do u know any websites that could teach me about shutter speed, apeture, and other stuff related to cameras and digital cameras? like a tutorial or something, i would really aprreciate it thanks. also, is there are way i could maybe get an attachment that would enhance my zoom capabilities, if so, where could i get one, and do u know how much it would cost? i would probably want to add 5 - 10x more optical zoom

[stoneylonesome]

I think I might have posted these on one of your other threads but here goes.

http://www.shortcourses.com
http://www.shortcourses.com/using/exposure/chapter3.htm
http://www.photocourse.com

http://www.photocollege.co.uk/scentre/sc_contents.html

this might explain it best, regarding shutter speed and f stop
http://www.shortcourses.com/using/cameracontrols/chapter1.htm#The%20Shutter%20Controls%20Light%20an d%20Motion


I'm sure there are more, just do a search on google, you should find something

[Yance]

It looks like you did use flash in that picture. I think that may be as good as you are going to get. Sports motion is difficult to capture with that type of camera but indoors like that flash is essential. With flash, shutter speed isn't important so just set it at 1/60.

[murph00009]

yea, i talked to someone else and thats what he said also

[murph00009]

here is an example of how bad the quality was http://murph.razor-sys.com/photos/albums/userpics/10001/103_0332.JPG

ok i figured out how to edit the picture on photoshop to make it better, tell me what u think
http://murph.razor-sys.com/photos/albums/userpics/10001/103_0332~0.jpg