some advice for beginner at soccer pics?

first time out with 40d for a soccer game.


division II my daughters games always mid day and thru sept and early oct very sunny more times than not.

side of field i take pics has sun over my shoulder but opposite side nothing but pine trees as background.

using av mode @ f4 or f5.6 and get 1600-3200 for shutter speeds using my 70-200is f4 and rarely like tonight in a double overtime game i started to get some shadow on the field and those pics came out great with lower shutter speeds...800-1200.

raw

iso @ 200

AIServo-drive mode high speed continuos

cloros are fine...other than the darn white jerseys...

evalutive metering today (but in past used partial) and had also used in the past - 1/3 to 2/3 ev so did so today.

uniforms this year are a new white jersey that is soooo reflective they probably glow in the dark. shorts are a lite blue.

pics came out dark of course (not so much as i can fix lowering the contrast slightly) as the visiting team had all navy blue.

i tried manual with not much better luck on a few shots


i still have blown highlights on the white jersey on some. how can i keep from blowing out the white jersey (their socks don't get blown highlights as they are nowhere near as reflective).

another father their said he spot meters off the jerseys and adjusts from there?

need to open an acct some where so i can post a sample

but based any suggestions for this beginner at moving targets

You have to be nuts to shoot in manual. At the very least, as far as I know, evaluative metering shifts the weighting to the AF point that is currently being used. At least this is true for single shot AF. I dunno about servo.

Shoot in raw so you get some more opportunity to correct. If the players always come out overexposed, use some exposure compensation.

I dont think you need shutter speeds over 1/800 - you might want to keep an eye on that and drop the ISO to 400 to drop the sensor noise if possible.

I wonder if the new highlight protection feature would help.

elader wrote in post #4014630
You have to be nuts to shoot in manual.

Oh? In a venue with constant lighting many people prefer to get one good light reading and stick with it (in manual). This eliminates undesirable variations in exposure when metering a dark jersey vs. a light one. The OP said the field was in midday sun.

I'd probably choose manual under these conditions too.

-js

On the contrary, in such situation I’d use Manual.
Spot meter off faces, fine tune for highlights on jerseys (even allowing small areas to be blown out), 1/800, ISO as necessary.

I don’t have experience with highlight protection ‘tho..

Hah! Beat you to it!:p

-js

You’re Da Man!!