Sports Shoot - Post mortem

[jd_D60]

Having followed most of the advice in my last posting I wonder if anyone can help my in improving technique, I used a D60 and 100-400 mostly at the 400 end mostly on AV at ISO 400 in SF JPEG.

Heres what I learnt myself

- with all those pixels to play with I would have been better off reducing the focal length to say 200mm - I guess I could have saved ½ stop.

- Venture beyond the ISO400 setting and experiment with noise software

- Stick the camera in manual mode - in AV at 5.6 I missed opportunities when I could have opened the aperature

Here are some questions
(1) would RAW have helped
(2) Would setting Exposure Compension say +2 have helped
(3) on some shots because I was shooting with fixed central spot, Continous shooting most shot were focussed on wrong point if not central or I took the shot before focussed - single shot better
(4) Isued cloudy WB setting - was this the best choice

I hope to get a repeat opportunity and hope I can improve of sucesses

couple of samples
http://www.pbase.com/image/11759156
http://www.pbase.com/image/11759215

thanks in advance
John

[Dans_D60]

In my (amateur) opinion you need more light that should yield more flexible solutions. I had similar results with the 100-400 in low light situations. My 70-200 2.8 completely corrected the results. Of course with loss of image size. Lots of light means lots of glass means lots of money!

Example of 100-400 with good light and I still have difficulty achieving shallow depth-of-field:
http://www.pettusphoto.com/sports/IMG_5455_BB.jpg

Example of 70-200 2.8 wide open in good light. This is what I’m looking for with depth-of-field!:
http://www.dpcg.com/nct/IMG_5940x72.jpg

Dan
http://www.pettusphoto.com

[GenEOS]

I shoot some sports for the local weekly. Most of the games are at night under poorly lit high school stadiums. They print nicely in the paper, but a close up look reveals much noise. I am still experimenting with ways to improve them...

Here a link to this weeks on-line edition.

All Soccer images D60 100-400IS Shutter Priority 1/180th, most under exposed a stop or even 2!

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?brd=1581&pag=460&dept_ID=174426

[robertwgross]

Daniel, I think you better get collision insurance on your camera.

---Bob Gross---

[GenEOS]

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