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Archive 2015 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated

  
 
sj4231
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p.1 #1 · p.1 #1 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


I have been shooting high school soccer games, recently shooting in the middle of the afternoon in bright light. Shooting with a Canon 7D mk ii and a 70-200mm f2.8 II lens. My recent settings have been f4.0-f7.0 to preserve some depth of field and low ISO but the lighting has been harsh and faces obscured by shadows. I have been thinking that I need to go back to f2.8 and lower the ISO settings. Comments and suggestions appreciated.

_U4A1541 by Stephen Jenkins, on Flickr

f5.0, 75mm, 1/250 sec, ISO 100

_U4A1249 by Stephen Jenkins, on Flickr

f14, 145mm, 1/1000, ISO 250

_U4A1187 by Stephen Jenkins, on Flickr

f7.1, 160mm, 1/1250, ISO 250

_U4A1289 by Stephen Jenkins, on Flickr

f6.3, 135mm, 1/1000, ISO 250

_U4A1400 by Stephen Jenkins, on Flickr

f5.6, 102mm, 1/1000, ISO 250





Oct 12, 2015 at 08:27 PM
Brev00
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p.1 #2 · p.1 #2 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


From my point of view, you are dealing with reality. A light cloud cover is always nice. I don't know why changing settings but getting an equivalent exposure would help. Changing angles can help sometimes. Shooting raw works for me since I can save more highlights that way in post and lift shadows. I think the most important thing is not blowing skin tones. Use a neutral picture control in camera for jpegs or in post for raw. Good luck.


Oct 12, 2015 at 08:55 PM
sj4231
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p.1 #3 · p.1 #3 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


Thanks for the input. You bring up some good points I forgot to mention: I shoot in Raw and, with these being sectional, post season games in Indiana, I have been restricted to certain areas of the field. Getting skin tones correct has been difficult and I'm sure I've not hit the correct tones.


Oct 12, 2015 at 09:13 PM
pat.kane
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p.1 #4 · p.1 #4 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


There's just not a lot you can do about it other than compensate the best you can.

By all means, trade off ISO and aperture to get a higher shutter speed to freeze the action. You shouldn't have to be at f/2.8 in daylight to get there either.

I'd prefer 1/800-sec or 1/1000-sec and f/4 to f/5.6 to have a better chance of gettiing two players in focus. ISO for these settings in daylight should still be pretty low, e.g., ~400. Try shooting backlit and overexpose to compensate as you'll get rid of some of the harsh shadows. Boost shadows a little in post as well if need be.

Good luck.



Oct 12, 2015 at 09:29 PM
Brev00
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p.1 #5 · p.1 #5 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


Skin tones should be pretty straightforward if you do not blow the red channel. What I recommend doing is getting to the game early so you can watch a previous game. Get your settings down then. Review your lcd looking at the rgb histogram display. You will be able to see the skin tones blowing in the red channel or the blinkies. Once you decide on a manual set up to get the right exposure and freeze the play (for example, f 5.6, 1/1000, iso 200 or f 8, 1/1000, iso 400), then you can alter the settings as needed during the game. If the light is changing due to passing clouds or shadows, you can use auto iso in manual mode. I also liked to use auto iso so I could up the shutter speed in an instant without worrying about exposure. Aperture mode can work, too, but you have to maintain your minimum shutter speed.

Once you have exposed the skin tones well, getting pleasing skin tones is pretty straightforward. I would use the white uniforms in ACR to get a neutral cast but then adjust wb and tone a step further to get what I thought were the most complimentary colors. The reds might always come out too strong with certain players so a little further editing might be needed just to take the edge off. Of course, with red heads, you might want to emphasize that distinctive quality. And, don't forget to try black and white. The strong colors and the various lines on the field can make for distinctive conversions.



Oct 13, 2015 at 09:56 AM
gene2632
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p.1 #6 · p.1 #6 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


Move around so you are backlighting the players. That will open up the shadows and soften the harsh mid to late today sun. Shooting RAW is always a good thing too. Backlighting will mean using a higher ISO to keep your shutter speed up over 1/800.


Oct 20, 2015 at 04:24 PM
sj4231
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p.1 #7 · p.1 #7 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


Gene:

Thanks. All good suggestions. Actually, I had my back to the sun though this was mid-day so the sun was relatively high in the sky. Typically, i shoot in Raw and edit in DP4 or Lightroom. For this shoot, I had the camera on Auto ISO since I was keeping my aperture fairly stable.

With the sun being high in the sky, it was casting shadows depending on the position of the players and movement of the ball. To me, that was the real challenge.



Oct 20, 2015 at 08:17 PM
Nuchuga
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p.1 #8 · p.1 #8 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


I mainly shoot soccer for my college and so here are my quick tips for cleaner shots!
1. Back towards the sun! Facing that way will allow for lower iso and higher shutter speed
2. If its mid day and you have decent light, stay around f4 and shutter speed at around 1/1200th
3. Utilize back button focusing/pre focusing
4. Only use the center AF point!
Hope this helps!
Nate



Oct 20, 2015 at 08:23 PM
schlotz
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p.1 #9 · p.1 #9 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


sj4231,

No f/2.8 is not the answer and also recommend f/4.0. Personally I shoot in full manual. If you are shooting with the sun to your back then a good exposure for a full face in the sun is the manual setting you are looking for when using a SS of 2000-2500 (high sun necessitates higher SS to cut down the amount of light). Find the setting that works and put it into manual. Nothing wrong going with autoISO but remember it isn't infallible and does vary a bit. BTW: anytime you can shoot soccer at or above 1600 SS is a plus.

Matt



Oct 20, 2015 at 10:45 PM
Trevorma
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p.1 #10 · p.1 #10 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


I would not say a flat out NO to f2.8, but if it were me shooting this game my aperture would not be all over the place as well as my shutter speeds.

Set yourself up in Manual, pick an aperture and shutter speed that works.

Picture No.1 is an immediate delete for me as everything in it suffers from the shutter being way too slow.

Next time out, try f4, or even 2.8 if you want. Adjust your shutter speed to get the proper exposure, leave your ISO on auto (maybe set some upper and lower limits for it though), then add or remove exposure compensation to taste.

Shoot raw so you can adjust everything better in post. Don't go to Jpeg until you are confident you can nail exposure every time.

If shooting sports is what you want to do there are going to be VERY FEW perfect days. You will either be cranking your ISO up and lowering your shutter speeds, or cranking up your shutter and lowering your ISO. There really shouldn't be a whole lot of movement with your aperture (2.8 to 4 assuming no TC's).

IMHO the one thing that separates someone with great images and the soccer mom with a consumer DSLR and a 70-300 is the ability to know the camera and get better isolation (shooting at the widest aperture you can).



Oct 21, 2015 at 11:46 AM
gschlact
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p.1 #11 · p.1 #11 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


With only 200mm on the soccer field, you are shooting with limited reach, and in some of your shots are way too loose (far). Even at more appropriate distances, you shouldn't need higher than f4, or even f2.8 likely will still provide appropriate dof.

Auto ISO in Manual mode with EC (for white uniforms) on the 7dii works great.



Oct 22, 2015 at 12:18 AM
ggreene
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p.1 #12 · p.1 #12 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


Even shooting RAW and with great gear noontime sun is going to be a situation where you just have to watch your shooting angles. Those angles aren't going to happen as often so I target the high priority players first to get a base of photos and then just pick off the other players as the light allows.

Nikon sensors have an advantage here as they have better low ISO DR for pushing shadows. The problem is even with the exmor sensor skintones don't look all that great when pushed hard.



Oct 22, 2015 at 08:54 AM
sj4231
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p.1 #13 · p.1 #13 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


ggreene:

Thanks. From what I've read, the Sony sensors Nikon uses (e.g. d750) have very good dynamic range though, in many of the photos I've seen, the Nikon shots look overexposed (at least compared to similar Canon shots). Do you underexpose when shooting or do you use the light meter in the Nikon body?



Oct 22, 2015 at 02:24 PM
sj4231
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p.1 #14 · p.1 #14 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


gschlact:

I agree that the 200mm has limited reach and have been trying to "shoot tight and crop tighter" since this game. Looked at the 100mm - 400mm F4 but not interested in using that lens in low light conditions and the 400mm f2.8 is definitely out of my budget as a hobbyist/high school photo contributor. Looks like I will need to stick to the near action with the 70-200mm lens.



Oct 22, 2015 at 02:30 PM
sj4231
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p.1 #15 · p.1 #15 · Shooting in mid day light. Suggestions appreciated


Trevorma:

Thanks. Ironically, I typically shoot wide open to make the action stand out but tried to F4 to F7 to see what results I would get and, as you can see, mostly smh. I agree with you as I almost always shoot in RAW and am working to learn the editing/processing side better using either DP4 or Lightroom. In the past jpegs limited the corrections I could make to exposure, highlights, etc.

Appreciate the suggestions.

sj4231



Oct 22, 2015 at 02:37 PM





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