Noob's first time shooting Soccer in Low-Light

[lawlz_xD]

Hey guys, I am a fairly new photographer, shooting with a 30D and a 70-200mm f/4L. I recently acquired both of these pieces of equipment and went out to snap some shots of a youth soccer game. I am nowhere near decent in my opinion and could use some constructive criticism to make my shots better and better!

Settings were mainly on Av or Manual...EXIF is intact I believe...I think some of my shots are underexposed as I started shooting around 7 P.M. and the later shots were around 8 P.M.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m160/xvietboiryryx/Soccer/flower.jpg
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m160/xvietboiryryx/Soccer/glove.jpg
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m160/xvietboiryryx/Soccer/soccergirl.jpg
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m160/xvietboiryryx/Soccer/soccergirl2.jpg
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m160/xvietboiryryx/Soccer/soccerkid.jpg
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m160/xvietboiryryx/Soccer/soccerkid2.jpg

[essvee]

You're not too far off. That last shot is pretty close on this monitor.

What you can do is look at the differences in the underexposed images and try and break it down. If you can see WHY they are off, then you can compensate next time.

In the fourth shot, the one that is back lit, there appears to be enough light but you're not compensating for the subject being predominantly lit by reflective light and her comparatively small area compared to the bright sky behind. Exif shows that at 1/800th of a second. If you can still freeze your subject at a whole stop more light, 1/400th of a second in this case, that might be a nice image. If you can't manage a whole stop, use what you can. Those are tough conditions to shoot action shots!

I don't know what you can get away with on the 30d in terms of ISO (I'm sure a little research here can answer that) and I see you're wide open on the lens so you're running low on options there. One other option is to tweak them in post processing which, of course, adds complexity to the process. It is cheaper than buying faster glass or a more sensitive camera body, though.

When I'm shooting in those conditions, I take a tightly cropped meter reading off someone or something representative of the situation then set the camera up fully manual using the values indicated. You will need to adjust this often as the sun continues to set or if you change your position relative to the light.

If you can manage to fill the frame with the subject, you can use a metered mode like Tv if you want to know the shutter speed or Av if you just want to shoot as wide open as possible. You can always adjust the exposure compensation in those modes if you find your exposures still not to your liking.

Hope this helps.