580ex ll in Aotomatic for night football

[L.Morey]

Now my question is would it be better to use automatic or ETTL for night football games using a 70-200 2.8 and a 100-300 f4 sigma The fields are really bad as far as light goes

[eigga]

There is a lot of info on this in the sports section.

[PacAce]

Now my question is would it be better to use automatic or ETTL for night football games using a 70-200 2.8 and a 100-300 f4 sigma The fields are really bad as far as light goes

Between auto and ETTL, ETTL would give you better results than auto only because in auto the flash will tend to average everything out, even the pitch black background, resulting in the subject (the players) being over-exposed. ETTL will, at least, try to expose for the subject and ignore the dark background. The exception is if the subject fills most of the screen in which case, either will do but I think ETTL will still give you better results.

[Curtis N]

I remember back in the 1970's there was a newspaper photog who used to shoot the football games with a big potato masher flash. So apparently it can be done with traditional auto flash if you know what you're doing.

I agree with Leo that Evaluative E-TTL should work better in theory, though I haven't tested the theory.

[PacAce]

I remember back in the 1970's there was a newspaper photog who used to shoot the football games with a big potato masher flash. So apparently it can be done with traditional auto flash if you know what you're doing.

I agree with Leo that Evaluative E-TTL should work better in theory, though I haven't tested the theory.

Curtis has a very good point. If one knows what the heck he are doing, he can use just about any type of flash or lighting and make it work for him. :)

[L.Morey]

Gentelmen thank you very much. So it's possible (better or worse) is up to me

[PacAce]

Gentelmen thank you very much. So it's possible (better or worse) is up to me
I would put it this way. ETTL would always be better than auto mode in your scenario. However, if you really know what you're doing, you would be able to make auto mode work for you so that it'll be just as good as ETTL. But it'll never be the other way around where auto would be better than ETTL.

[bobbyz]

Most high school sports guys shoot in manual flash mode with low settings. It would try both manual flash and eTTL and decide whichw orks better. Some use 2 flashes, one above and the other below the camera on a monopod. Check FM forums, there was a thread about this.