EOS Rebel T5 shooting at night

[Greggersam]

HELP!  what is the OPTIMUM setting for shooting stop action sports at night under the lights?  (think High School football)!   I have the Rebel T5 and a normal and zoom lens that all came together when I bought the kit.

[diverhank]

Shooting sports at night is very tough, as you have found out.

1. First I'd want to determine the maximum ISO setting I'm willing to live with.  For your camera, probably ISO 1600.  Set an upper limit of ISO to that setting.  When I shoot, I'd set my ISO to Auto and let it vary up to the max ISO as needed.

2. I'd set the mode to Tv and set it to 1/1000 - start with that and adjust up/down to suit the action speed.  I would not go slower than this.  1/2000 would have been much better if you have enough light.  This means that the camera will set the aperture to the smallest possible (e.g f/4 or f/5.6).  f/8 is preferred if you have the light.

3.  Unless AWB produces perfect colors, I'd adjust the white balance manually to get the pictures to look right on camera.

[Greggersam]

I have to set the camera to Tv first, correct? then hit the Q button and set it to 1/1000. then toggle to ISO and set to 1600 . Is that right? then, toggle to AWB. How do I adjust the AWB manually?

[kvbarkley]

Shoot RAW and you won't have to worry about AWB, you can correct it shot by shot later.

[RobertTheFat]

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@kvbarkley wrote:

Shoot RAW and you won't have to worry about AWB, you can correct it shot by shot later.

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I don't think that choice is quite as symmetrical as you'd have it appear. If the camera thinks it knows what the correct white balance is (either by its own determination or because you told it), It can try to adjust the aperture and/or shutter speed to make the image come out properly exposed. But when you adjust the WB in post-processing, it's entirely a matter of subtraction; you can't add light in PP. If the balancing process leaves the image underexposed (as it usually will, to some degree), all you can do is crank up the brightness, which may add a visible amount of noise. So if you're pretty sure the camera is getting the WB wrong, you may be better off fiddling with the settings. How much difference it makes depends, of course, on how much ambient light there is and on the low-light capability of the camera.

[kvbarkley]

A RAW image is just that, RAW. Just the data from the sensor, *after* the exposure has been made. Only then, does the camera process color balance information.

[ebiggs1]

Bobby, my goodness,

" If the camera thinks it knows what the correct white balance is (either by its own determination or because you told it),  ..."

You really do know WB has no effect on the RAW file? RAW is almost always the way to shoot and it is in this case, too.

[kvbarkley]

I could not help myself.

I went out and made a bunch of test shots in RAW and ISO 100, there was light variable cloud cover.

I shot several times at AWB, shot at every WB setting and shot again at AWB

The EV ranged from 13 to 14.3 (typically f/8 at 250). The 13 was flash WB compared to about 14 for AWB.

1.3 stops of exposure is well corrected in RAW.

So I shot again. 3 AWB, 3 Flash WB and 3 AWB. The EV's were:

AWB 14

AWB 14

AWB 14

FWB 14.3

FWB 14.3

FWB 14.3

AWB 14.3

AWB 14.3

AWB 14.3

I saw no difference in exposure.

So, I did another test. Only LiveView can even conceptually change the exposure due to WB, so I did a LiveView test.

I did several live view shots at Sunny (SWB), AWB and TWB - the widest color temperature of the fixed settings.

WB    EV

SWB 13.7

SWB 13.7

SWB 13.7

AWB 13.7

AWB 13.3

TWB 13.7

TWB 13.7

TWB 13.7

TWB 14.3

SWB 13.7

SWB 13.7

I have proven, to my satisfaction, that WB setting has no effect on exposure in RAW.

[RobertTheFat]

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@ebiggs1 wrote:

Bobby, my goodness,

" If the camera thinks it knows what the correct white balance is (either by its own determination or because you told it),  ..."

You really do know WB has no effect on the RAW file? RAW is almost always the way to shoot and it is in this case, too.

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It's not really my field, so I'll have to take your word for how it works. But it certainly should apply the WB correction before (or while) metering the scene. And it evidently can do so, since that must be what it does when shooting JPEGs. Otherwise, many JPEGs would be erroneously exposed with no effective recourse.

And it's hardly necessary to lecture me about the benefits of shooting RAW. The only JPEGs I've shot since the spring of 2007 were on a couple of occasions when I was using a camera just back from Jamesburg and forgot that they always do a reset to factory settings. (Why, on a 7D or a 5D3, is the default not RAW? You tell me.)

[ebiggs1]

Bob
Boston, Massachusetts USA

"But it certainly should apply the WB correction before (or while) metering the scene."

Whether it should or should not isn't a reason for how it actually works.  WB does not effect RAW as most other settings do not.  It is simply the dots and dashes in other words the raw data.  It is sensor output data.  The rest is added when conversion takes place so it can be viewed. Things like DR, sharpness, contrast, style, etc. do not alter the raw file so they can be ignored.

And B from B said,

"... it's hardly necessary to lecture me about the benefits of shooting RAW."

Not trying to lecture there Robert, just a clarification, teaching moment.