First try at football

I don't consider myself to be a sports photographer, but so far I have enjoyed shooting the little bit of sports that I tried. These are a few from my first attempt at a night football game.

This is how I made these images. Please let me know if there is a better way for me to have accomplished this.

I could not get a shutter speed higher that 10, and I was using a focal lenght of 300mm, so I went to TV mode set the shutter speed to 320, and made alot of underexposed images, but it did stop the action somewhat affectively. I just did alot of fill light during PP. Was that a bad way of doing it? Could you suggest something better?

Here are the images...

I like how the 3rd one is clear. Must have been good lighting on the field. Nice shots.

Like I said I used TV mode set on 320, ISO 1600, then used fill light during PP, and then ran it through noise reduction.

Number 1 is slightly over exposed
Number 2 is really brown
Number 3 is great
and Number 4 the light reflection off the sousaphone is quite distracting

sousaphone?

sousaphone=tuba

With lousy light, you'll have to increase ISO to 3200 to get a decent shutter speed. At our field, I struggle to get 1/250 at higher ISO's shooting wide open.

even when I tired 3200 it was slow slow slow. I have a problem when I use 3200. Whenever I switch my camera to custom mode, if i wait to long before shots, and my camera turns off, or if i switch to another mode, change a battery, memory card, all of the custom settings reset.. so then I have to go back and change that, which might cause me to miss a shot.. I might be doing something wrong but that has been my problem

All you have to do when the camera is set to sleep mode is to depress the shutter halfway to wake it back up again. Your settings should not reset, though. What lens are you using? If it's slower than f/2.8, you probably won't get decent shots. I've seen some people shoot with monopods and an f/4 lens who get fairly good shots, but the ambient light where they shoot is unusually good. The key to low light sports shooting is high ISO, proper exposure to reduce noise, and a fast (f/2.8 or faster) lens.

What camera and lens are you using?

nice shots! i have yet to shoot night games here in CA