High School Football Photography

[SlickPixPhotography]

Hello,
I was wondering what the best setting is for shooting High School football at night. I use a Canon 7D with a 70-200mm f 2.8 Canon EOS L Lens. Any comments will be helpful that would be great. Thanks

 

[JDueckPhoto]

What Jake said.

Im also looking for 1/500 usually myself.

 

[Scottpix]

I remember shooting high school football when I was in high school in the late 1970s. I used black & white 400 ASA (now called ISO) film, and push processed it to 1600. It had grain like boulders. It wasn't butter smooth, but I got the shots.

You can essentially do the same now with digital. If you push your ISO high enough, you'll be able to stop the action. You might get more noise than is ideal, but you'll get the shot. You can try to eliminate some of the noise in post-processing. If you shoot in RAW, you'll be able to recover more info from the shadow areas in post-processing.

Today's football fields are pretty well lit at night. If you push your ISO to 1600, and shoot at f/2.8, you should be able to get a fast enough shutter speed to stop most action.

If the field is reasonably evenly lit, set your meter manually and leave it alone. If you let your camera auto-meter, it will have a tendency to blow out highlights. That is because much of the field and the background is often dark, especially if you are shooting from ground level. Remember, your meter is seeking an overall medium light level. This will throw off the meter and overexpose the players. Do some test shots early, and concentrate on getting proper exposure on the players, and don't worry if most of the background goes too dark. Spot metering can help with this if your camera has that feature.

 

[fiznatty]

If it's a night game the lighting will be pretty horrendous. You may have to go to ISO 2500 or 3200, which I think the 7D handles alright. I suppose it depends on what you're doing with the photos. If it's for web use only, shooting at those ISOs will be just fine.

And definitely open up to 2.8.

Max

 

[BobH]

Jake and Scot nailed it in my opinion. The only thing I'd add is that if shooting in manual isn't an option, then using spot metering (single point) can help. Scot's right about the dark areas blowing highlights by confusing the meter. Spot metering will reduce the chances of that happening.

No matter what you do, learn your gear and practice. Experiment a bit too, take some shots at non critical times and use a different metering, or crank the ISO up, etc. Then go back to your preferred method for the important stuff. Once you're sure the new method is bullet proof, then change over.