Graduation Commencement Tips

[NMGolfHacker]

I am going to my nephews graduation this evening. The graduation is at 7pm and is outdoors in the football stadium. I will be seating in the stands and plan on using the 55-250mm IS. My back will be towards the sun setting.

Should I just stick on a basic mode? Which one?

I have a haze filter. Should I swap it out for the CP?

I am a n00b...please excuse my questions. Thanks!

[Wilt]

Your lens is not particularly fast. Best to set high ISO on the camera, and use noise reduction to post process the shots. Forget the CPL...it eats up too much light (-2EV). Since you will be somewhat far away, rely upon the deeper DOF at the longer distance, and shoot with the lens at or new wide open aperture, you will have enough DOF...6' of DOF if shooting from 100' distance at f/4 with 250mm lens. Turn off your flash, it is useless at any long distance. Take the camera out of Green Box mode, or else the camera will pop up the flash and try to shoot, and you will be doomed to failure at that shooting distance
Put camera in Av mode with the lens set to f/4 or f/5.6, and keep an eye on the shutter speed. You will be running into precious little light at that time of day, and it will be a challenge to hand hold the camera steady at a shutter speed below 1/400 at 250mm FL, so bring along a tripod if you can (I know my own daughter's school has a no-tripod policy for her college graduation...good thing it is from 9-noon!)

[NMGolfHacker]

Your lens is not particularly fast. Best to set high ISO on the camera, and use noise reduction to post process the shots. Forget the CPL...it eats up too much light (-2EV). Since you will be somewhat far away, rely upon the deeper DOF at the longer distance, and shoot with the lens at or new wide open aperture, you will have enough DOF...6' of DOF if shooting from 100' distance at f/4 with 250mm lens. Turn off your flash, it is useless at any long distance. Take the camera out of Green Box mode, or else the camera will pop up the flash and try to shoot, and you will be doomed to failure at that shooting distance
Put camera in Av mode with the lens set to f/4 or f/5.6, and keep an eye on the shutter speed. You will be running into precious little light at that time of day, and it will be a challenge to hand hold the camera steady at a shutter speed below 1/400 at 250mm FL, so bring along a tripod if you can (I know my own daughter's school has a no-tripod policy for her college graduation...good thing it is from 9-noon!)

No-tripod at this event. Thanks for the info. I am assuming they will have the light on the stadium turned on as well as maybe some around the stage.

[Wilt]

No-tripod at this event. Thanks for the info. I am assuming they will have the light on the stadium turned on as well as maybe some around the stage.

Stadium light is good for light levels, horrible for color balance!

If at all possible, shoot in RAW files and use a RAW convertor, rather than shoot JPEG files, to address the color balance issue the best. And bring along a white sheet of paper to photograph and use in a test photo to later render the correct color balance with the auto color balance tool that most RAW conversion programs have, and use the same color balance corrections for all your shots

[DizzyV6P]

I've gotten away w/ bringing a monopod to help at those places that say no tripod's. It's small enough to clip on most bags and when extended, won't trip anyone over....except the user.

[NMGolfHacker]

Stadium light is good for light levels, horrible for color balance!

If at all possible, shoot in RAW files and use a RAW convertor, rather than shoot JPEG files, to address the color balance issue the best. And bring along a white sheet of paper to photograph and use in a test photo to later render the correct color balance with the auto color balance tool that most RAW conversion programs have, and use the same color balance corrections for all your shots

What do you do? Just put the white piece of paper up in front of the camera a couple of feet away?

[Wilt]

Even a 1/4"-20 short bolt with a string (long enough to reach from camera bottom to a metal washer that you can step on) is better than no support at all!

[Wilt]

What do you do? Just put the white piece of paper up in front of the camera a couple of feet away?

Effectively you are in the same light as the people on the field. So keep the piece of paper with you and ask spouse or relative or friend to hold it up while you take a quick shot to establish the color balance correction later.

[NMGolfHacker]

Your lens is not particularly fast. Best to set high ISO on the camera, and use noise reduction to post process the shots. Forget the CPL...it eats up too much light (-2EV). Since you will be somewhat far away, rely upon the deeper DOF at the longer distance, and shoot with the lens at or new wide open aperture, you will have enough DOF...6' of DOF if shooting from 100' distance at f/4 with 250mm lens. Turn off your flash, it is useless at any long distance. Take the camera out of Green Box mode, or else the camera will pop up the flash and try to shoot, and you will be doomed to failure at that shooting distance
Put camera in Av mode with the lens set to f/4 or f/5.6, and keep an eye on the shutter speed. You will be running into precious little light at that time of day, and it will be a challenge to hand hold the camera steady at a shutter speed below 1/400 at 250mm FL, so bring along a tripod if you can (I know my own daughter's school has a no-tripod policy for her college graduation...good thing it is from 9-noon!)

I am sorry...I don't understand the bolding part. I can usually keep it steady a lot further down.

[Wilt]

I am sorry...I don't understand the bolding part. I can usually keep it steady a lot further down.

I didn't stop to totally analyze my comment earlier, it was based upon the rapid assessment, 'near sundown, not much light' which I then extrapolated to "f/5.6 with a shutter speed too slow to hand hold if lens was 250mm FL". So now let me take the time to analyze...

ISO 400 in bright sun is 1/400 at f/16.

Hand holding 250mm lens on APS-C body is generally advised to not go lower than 1/(250 * 1.6) or 1/400. OK, so hand holding a 250mm lens and Sunny 16 shutter speed are in agreement with each other. Now the question is whether 'near sundown' translates into -4EV less light than bright daylight open sun (f/5.6) or -5EV less light (f/4) or even lower. Have to take a light meter out at 7pm and take a reading!

I also neglected to take into consideration that the 50-250mm has IS !

[NMGolfHacker]

Wilt - Ok...now I got it. Thanks for taking the time to reply.

[NMGolfHacker]

One other question. If is have the camera set to Av at an ISO at 1600 and Apeture at 5.6.

When he is walking to get his diploma should I have the AF set to AI Focus or AI Servo?

[Wilt]

One other question. If is have the camera set to Av at an ISO at 1600 and Apeture at 5.6.

When he is walking to get his diploma should I have the AF set to AI Focus or AI Servo?

He should be walking, not sprinting, on and off the stage, so I would not worry at all about focus following action! (Do you have focus function on the default shutter button or (preferable) re-assigned to another button on the body?)

I would suggest you meter once, and set the camera on M with a fixed shutter speed and f/stop, rather than letting the camera be subjected to the vaguaries of exposure caused by changing subject brightness. (But be sure to be monitoring for changing light levels, and modify the exposure for more than -2/3EV decrease in light!)