Shooting Night Football w/my 20-D

This is my first post, and hopefully someone can give me some much needed guidance.
I have a new 20-D with a 70-200mm f/2.8L USM lens, as well as a 300mm f/2.8l IS USM lens ... with which i will be shooting skiing this winter. But prior to that, i've been drafted to do some high school sports, which has been fun ... except the night football.

The first game i shot in auto, as i couldn't remember how to manually operate it under pressure! The second game i was in manual, except it seemed to act like shutter priority, and everytime i adjusted shutter speed, the apperture would automatically adjust itself. So early this week, after a little tweaking, i found that if i wasn't in the 2nd 'on' position, i couldn't fully operate the camera manually, and that's why it acted as if it were in apperture priority.

Once i realized my mistake i was jubilant, and spent much time practicing being in manual today (not an unfamiliar concept, just getting used to HOW on this camera) ... however, after playing around with the camera today for hours, that when i adjust the shutter speed to anything above 1/125 at low light inside the house, i can't seem to adjust the apperture up to the half-way mark. It wont go. Now i think i'm still going to have the same problem this friday night for my 3rd shoot.

I also tried both Tv and Av modes with some exposure compensation, thinking i could trick the camera, but got no appreciable difference in brightness to my images. My co-worker says i should be able to shoot at shutter speeds of 1/400 ... and yet i can't seem to get up above about 1/125, even with an f/2.8 lens, even with my ISO pushed all the way to 3200 (i just don't get it!) ... So, because he can't help me as he shoots with another brand, i looked up some forum sites and found this one - perfect - now all i need are some helpful opinions about my predicament, and what my camera should be able to do in the night football situation ... heaven knows with all that nice technology, i can't blame my equipment anymore. And my images get posted to a local website for purchase by the kids who play the sports, so i'm very concerned to get this right a.s.a.p.

I await some helpful advice ... thanks!

Why the heck would you use manual mode doing something such as sports?

Use shutter priority, and set a shutter speed sufficient to freeze the action, and let the camera take care of the rest.


When I do football games, I usually have to crank the ISO up to 800 or 1600, and I set the shutter speed somewhere around 1/400th. I will also say I shoot only raw, so if some of the images come out a bit underexposed, I can easily correct them.

Luckily our local high school has plenty of very bright lighting, so it doesnt give me much of a problem.

Too many people who blame their equipment are those who never read their manuals, although you admit you no longer blame the equipment.
Take some time, read the manual cover to cover (as I do before I ever touch the product), and you might have an epiphany.
Btw, what aperture are you using? I would hope you are shooting wide open.

And for comparison sake, when I shoot basketball in brightly lit university arenas, I still only get 1/500s at F2.0, ISO3200. So, if the football field isn't very brightly lit, your shutter speeds don't sound too surprising.

I don't exactly understand what your method of shooting is, but you may have "Safety shift" enabled in the CF's

i greatly dislike outdoor night sports shooting. different stadiums are very different to the camera. some stadiums which appear relatively bright to the naked eye can be darker to the camera. then there is white balance to contend with. and the colours of the jerseys. are you allowed to use a flash, and is it powerful enough?

and of course, you're limited by your lenses. a 300 @ 2.8 is much better than a 200 @ 2.8 (and the 400 2.8 even better still) due to the percentage of screen filled by the action/people and less by emptiness. chances are TV vs. AV isn't an issue as you will be using your lens wide open and ISO really pushed.

my motto: "experience is the best experience" - get out there and keep trying. accept the fact that your shots at the end of the season are going to be heaps better than the ones at the beginning of the season.

best of luck and don't get frustrated. have fun!!!!

At ISO 3200 with an Av setting of f/2.8, you should be able to get better than 1/125 at most high school football fields. I shoot at some poorly lit little league fields and I can still manage higher than that, but at those fields I sometimes dial in -1/3 to -2/3 exposure compensation to get my shutter speed up to 1/250 - 1/400, and I've had pretty good results that way, shooting RAW and adjusting the exposure in CS2.

Those must be some brightly lit fields!
I guess they could be as bright as a university basketball arena because the shutter speeds you mention are what I get indoors.
For example, this picture was taken at ISO1600, F2.0, 1/500, which would be equivalent to ISO3200, 1/500s with a F2.8 lens.
I guess lighting may just look brighter indoors.

Yeah, it's hard to judge what's bright or dim.

The worst little league field I've shot at uses no more than 8-10 lights, I believe they are metal halide's, I get about 1/125-1/160 at ISO 3200, f/2.8, and dialing in an EV of -1/3 to -2/3 gets me to 1/250. I call that dim, because anything dimmer than that would be dangerous for kids to play on, and would probably be a lawsuit waiting to happen.

I'll do my best ...

I shoot a lot of high school football. Shooting under the lights is a real challenge - high school stadium lighting is notoriously poor ....

Here's how I set my camera to shoot night football:
1) Use manual mode - even though the lighting is poor, it's consistently poor and you don't have to worry about "changing" lighting conditions. Manual is the way to go here.
2) Shoot wide open - in your case, it would be 2.8 all the time.
3) ISO will vary between 800, 1600, and 3200 - again, depending on the lighting conditions at your field. I try to keep it off the 3200 setting if I can - there's a little too much noise at that setting for my taste.
4) Shutter speed should be a minimum of 1/250 - and, of course, higher is better.

On the field I shoot on the most, I'm set up for f2.8, ISO 800, 1/320 on the shutter. I also make use of a 550EX flash to use as "fill".

Hope that helps ... as someone else mentioned, experience is the best teacher. You'll have to experiment a bit on your own field to see what works best for you.

It's now several months after my post, and i have a whole Fall of shooting night footy and other sports under my belt now ..... not perfect, but a great start ..... i did figure out my exposure difficulties ... it just so happened the first field i shot at was poorly lit ... but also, i kind of spaced out on the on-off button (that it has to be on the second 'on' setting to shoot manual) ...... i was indeed able to get AT LEAST 1/125 at 3200 ISO ... and at one field i was even able to shoot at over 1/400. Of course the color of the uniforms can greatly influence that too. And when i had black or navy uniforms playing white or yellow uniforms, i had to be vigilant.

I've been shooting skiing photos all winter, but because of size and rez issues, i've had to start shooting in RAW ..... wow! What a difference. Can't afford CS2, but i just read in another thread that Elements 2.0 can be upgraded to CS2 for $299 ... an unbelievable deal if it's true .... i've posted a reply to find out if it really is true.

Thanks for your feedback!

Thanks Cecil, that's just the kind of feedback i needed ... it's obvious you're in the sports shooting biz ..... and if you can shoot at ISO 800 on 1/320, that field you shoot a lot at must be blazing with hi wattage. Only one field in my little town let me shoot at faster than 1/400 while on ISO 3200. Also, you said you sometimes use fill flash ... i guess you have two bodies going at once, one with long lens and the other with a short one? And you use the fill when the play is close and you're using the short lens? I only have one body at this time, and it's either the 300 mm (really 450 with the D20's sensor) ... or else the 70-200 ... when i change that huge unwieldy 300mm, it stays off for a while and i miss the distance shots while using the 70-200, but i get great close-ups then. However, i'm not good enough yet to shoot one shot at a time between flash rechargings ..... there's a newspaper photographer i see at the games who shoots your way using fill flash with the short lens. It's good to see how others work. Also good to read all this advice here. Having that Fall of shooting under my belt and behind me now, i have a better feel for it all ... you're right, experience IS the best teacher. thanks for your advice too!