U/21's Womens Soccer

Here's a few from the first of 2 games I covered on Sunday, pretty good light so no real excuses! C&C always welcome, all shot with 70-200 f/4 L on 400D body.

#1

Great pictures..Nothing wrong with them

How many pics did you take and how many did you lose.. It's a clear blue sky so the lighting looks constant yet your using AV mode.. F4 and iso 200 is perfect for the conditions but how many times did AV get the speed wrong because it used something too dark/light to get the exposure?

Your next step is to start using Manual all the time until you hate using AV or any other mode.. I came to these forums on "sport mode" and now from everyones help I use M only... I did a full weekend of football the last 2 days, it was a tornament, 8 hrs a day non stop football in clouds and drizzle saturday then bright sun followed by patchy cloud on sunday and all in Manual.. I am at a stage now where I hate AV or any other modes.. but my keeper rate is up and I dont lose pictures through massive over/under exposure.. If I do get exposure wrong its by a small degree that can be fixed..

My advice for what it's worth is to start using manual all the time... its far easier to try on a constant light day such as bright clear sky or a night match..

Thanks Kippax, I am looking to progress to M mode soon, I actually have a very high keeper rate relative to when I used the Sigma in AV mode but I'm sure it would improve with M mode. I used to end up with about half of what I'm keeping now. I was also a sport mode shooter when I started here. It seems like ages ago but it was less than a year ago! As for under or over exposre, I didn't really have a problem but that may have been due to the perfect constant light. The ones I mainly lose are from misfocussing due to players getting in the way etc. I will post some rugby league from the weekend later in the week, i definitely lost a good shot there due to AV mode, horribly over exposed with side lighting. Thanks for taking the time to have a good look at my shots and see where they or I can improve. It is mainly due to people like you that my work is anywhere near this standard. Thanks again.

Kipax has a very good point in regard to shooting in"M" all the time, as in the days of film 90% of cameras used would not have had automatic exposure, in constant light situations it should be very good. Thanks Kipax I will give it a try next weekend.

Hang on, my Canon F1N had autoexposure, my Nikon F4 had autoexposure, my Canon EOS1 had autoexposure.

Those were all film cameras dating back to 1984 (in my case)

dahis.
Sorry about my post in regard to auto film cameras.
I was thinking back to 1950/1960.
I did have a EOS 1000 which I purchased in 1992.

Sorry for hi-jacking, but I have a question related to shooting with M.

I have been shotting AV the past few months and would like to make the switch to M. So assuming relatively constant lighting and using 70-200 f/2.8... what exactly do I do and what do I have to be aware of?

My guess:
-Always keep it at f/2.8
-meter on something (grass, face?) and just keep using that exposure as long as lighting stays the same? (and of course bump up ISO if I am not getting a fast enough shutter).
-How often are adjustments made? (when you notice change in lighting? What about changing the angle... ie: shotting front-lit, back-lit, side-lit?)
-What do you change? Just the shutter speed? (and if shutter speed is getting too slow, bump up ISO again?)

Sorry again for hi-jacking.

I like how you capture the face for all your shots by the way...

Nothing wrong with hi-jacking, we're all here to learn! I make a point of capturing facial expressions whereever possible, it's yet another trait I have learnt from the forum

Crunchy wrote in post #3681452
So assuming relatively constant lighting and using 70-200 f/2.8... what exactly do I do and what do I have to be aware of?

My guess:
-Always keep it at f/2.8

In good lighting I prefer F4 for football.. that way you have more chance of getting two players in the tackle in focus... I reserve 2.8 for low light in winter or night matches..

Crunchy wrote in post #3681452
-meter on something (grass, face?) and just keep using that exposure as long as lighting stays the same? (and of course bump up ISO if I am not getting a fast enough shutter).

I use grass.. Point at area your going to shoot.

Crunchy wrote in post #3681452
--How often are adjustments made? (when you notice change in lighting? What about changing the angle... ie: shotting front-lit, back-lit, side-lit?)
-What do you change? Just the shutter speed? (and if shutter speed is getting too slow, bump up ISO again?)

You have to chimp a lot.. make changes whenever the lighting changes.. either natural or if you move.. Start with the F? you want and the iso you want... lets say sunny day and you want F4+ iso 200 .. point at the grass and note the shutter speed... set that in manual and off you go... The trick here which seems obvious now but got me (i can be a bit slow) is to then ignore the exposure meter thats telling you your way off

As the light fades you can lower the shutter speed if your very high and keep lowering ... then when you have reached what you decide is your lowest acceptable shutter speed for football ...start to up the iso.. With my camera I am happy to go up to iso 500... so if my shutter is say 1000 and iso 500 and it starts to lose more light I might drop down from f4 to 3.5 then 3.2

Once I start upping the iso to 640 and above I go to RAW as the noise will need to be cleaned up IMHO

Thats how I do it.. that wont be how everyone does it and should only be read as a rough guide.. you will get a feel for how you want your settings and I am sure others will work a different way... You just have to get to as many games as you can and find what feels right for you...

Excellent.
Thanks Kipax.
I always wondered what do i expose to under a clear blue sky. it's the 'grass'

I was exposing for the blue sky

Rgds
pat

To be fair I think some others do use the sky.. as said my post is the way I do it and it's the way I was taught on here.. I have heard of others with the right shade of sky using that

TBH, I take a reading from the sky and then from the grass. I'll then take a couple of test shots usually during the warm up and decide which to use. As Kipax stated you will chimp quite a lot so just keep an eye for any noticable changes in exposure.

Thanks for everyone's input!

I will get a chance to play some ultimate frisbee under the lights tonight. Hope I get benched so I can shoot more

KIPAX wrote in post #3689236
To be fair I think some others do use the sky.. as said my post is the way I do it and it's the way I was taught on here.. I have heard of others with the right shade of sky using that

Hi Kapax
My daughters also play netball which is played on a concrete surface. Sometimes grey concrete or some green surface (probably painted). On a bright sunny day, the concrete reflects lots of the light. What should I expose to to get a correct exposure? The sky?

Thanks
Pat