EOS Rebel T7 Football game photos come out blurry

[ros4yy]

guys pls 😓😓

Hey y’all, 

So at my high school I got put in charge of sports media and taking photos for the football team and i use a EOS rebel T7 with a 75-300mm lens but i’ve been having some trouble cause i usually use the close up mode cause sports makes it so blurry, but for some reason it won’t let me take photos at night without using flash and yk i can’t use flash so i started using the one mode that doesn’t allow flash but it again makes it so blurry and whenever i use continuous shooting it goes off after one picture and like i’ve been trying to change the shutter speed and the ios but it like genuinely won’t let me it says it’s not available. I know it’s sounds stupid but like i just wanted these credits for college and i don’t know anything about cameras so like if you guys can help me can you try to like dumb it down for me 🙏🙏. 

Also sorry I know this was a pain to try and read 

[kvbarkley]

Please post some examples.

The main thing is to set the highest ISO you can, with the highest shutter speed and try again.

You might need a better lens. The 75-300 is pretty poor quality to begin with, and it does not have IS so that any movement on your part can result in blurry pictures. I suggest the EF 70-300 II as a relatively inexpensive alternative. You can also look at the EF-S 55-250, but it won't have as much reach.

[ros4yy]

king i don’t know how to change the ISO nor shutter speed i’m genuinely slow 

 

 

 the quality is gna be bad cause i’m doing this on my phone but the first one are the blurry ones and the last two are kinda what we’re going for 

also i can’t buy another lense cause the cameras from the school 

[stevet1]

ros4yy,

First off, slow down a little. Write in shorter sentences.

Secondly, you have to answer a couple of questions. Are your games at night, or in the daytime, or a mixture of both?

Do you have a tripod, or some way to steady your camera, or are you trying to just hold it in your hands?

Are you trying to capture fast action on the field, or are you just taking group shots with everybody standing still like for a class picture?

When you talk about the "close-up" mode, or the "sports" mode, are you talking about the choices on the main dial on the top of your camera?

The answers to these types of questions will help other people work to help you out.

What mode did you you use that doesn't allow flash? The flash only extends so far. It would be kind of useless if you are trying to take pictures from the far side of the field anyway.

Do you see a setting on your main dial on the top of the camera that says, "P"? Just for the heck of it, try putting your camera in that P mode for a little while. P stands for Program mode, and your camera will choose your shutter speed and aperture and ISO for you. Later on, you can graduate to more advanced settings

Steve Thomas

[ros4yy]

hey i’m js a 16 year old girl 💔💔 but we have like 30 mins of daylight before two hours of nighttime

with my hands my school doesn’t have a tripod

action shots cause the players want them playing and looking good yk

ermm yea i genuinely don’t know anything abt cameras so i just use whatever looks the best

i asked one of the other people who take photos and he just put it on flash off and said he doesn’t use canon

i know thé flash is useless im saying it keeps automatically going up when i use the close up setting and it won’t let me take the photo without it even when i turn off flash it won’t let me

kk i’ll try that tonight!

[kvbarkley]

First, do not expect every shot to be a keeper!

Here is how to set ISO:

Use either Auto, 1600 or 3200 and see if that helps. 3200 might be too noisy.

[deebatman316]

Hi ros4yy, welcome to the forum. Since you don't know much about cameras I would start with the manual. You should learn all of the controls and features of your cameras. Not knowing all of the controls and features of your camera. May cause settings to inadvertently changed. Canon provides free electronic copies of their product manual online. You can click the Link  here. 

[stevet1]

ros4yy,

I'm glad you responded to all of us. Thank you. That helps.

So, you're a 16 year old girl who is just starting out. That's cool. Everyone who is in this forum has been in the exact same position you are, (except for being a girl of course 😀), and don't let anyone ever tell you otherwise.

You are not slow.

1) Several people have suggested that the best thing you can do first is to download a copy of your owner's manual in pdf format. Deebatman 316 provided a link to a website where you can get one, or you can just do a Google search for Owners Manual Canon T7.

Do you have a computer at home or school where you can download files? If you have a copy of Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can use the Search function to look for specific things.

2) On the back of your camera, do you see a button marked Menu? If you press that button, it will take you where you can adjust various settings on your camera. One of those settings will be a place where you can disable your flash, or tell your camera not to use it for a while. Someone who has a T7 might be able to tell you exactly where it is, or what page in your manual you can read about it.

3) A good exposure for a picture consists of 3 elements: your aperture, your shutter speed, and your ISO. If you are really interested in learning photography, your homework assignment is to read up on these three elements, and how they relate to each other and how they work with each other.

4) The big dial on the top of your camera tells your camera what Mode you want to use. One of those is an Automatic Mode, and is indicated by a big green letter A.

In the Automatic Mode, your camera will be making all your decisions for you as far as deciding what settings to use for a proper or good exposure.

As a beginner, you can start by using that for a while.

The next step up is the P Mode that I told you about earlier. It 's like the Auto Mode, but with the ability to make some minor adjustments yourself, like adjustIng the ISO up or down. ISO is how sensitive your camera sensor is to light. You can make your pictures brighter or darker by turning yor ISO up or down. 

In bright Daylight, people might use an ISO of 100. As it gets darker and darker, people might turn that up to 400 or800 or 1600 or 3200.

Hope some of this helps, and by all means, keep asking questions and keep learnng.

Don't get discouraged. It will come.

Steve Thomas

[Tintype_18]

I have a T7 and use it for action shots for baseball and X country. Download the manual and go through the basics. Page 319 starts the index. You can pick and choose the appropriate page(s) for what you need. Ask the school for a tripod or monopod as that will help. If you watch sports on TV, you will see the photographers on the sidelines with huge, heavy lenses and a monopod for portability.

[wq9nsc]

I do volunteer sports photography for a local high school and I have helped quite a few of their students get started so don't hesitate to introduce yourself to one of the media people during a slow time in the game, most will be happy to help you.  And as a college prof (Illinois State University College of Business), I am always happy to see students working towards college credits 🙂

With sports, if your shutter speed is too slow then you will get nothing but blur.  I personally never fool with the "programmed" modes of the camera but instead put it in manual mode.  For football, I like to set shutter speed to 1/1,000 but that is probably too fast with the camera and lens you are using so set shutter speed to 1/500.  Then set the aperture wide open (lowest number) which I think is f5.6 if I understand your lens number correctly.  Set the ISO to auto.  I don't have a T7 but the manual for the camera will show you how to set it to manual and set the shutter, aperture, and ISO.  It isn't complex but it is so much easier for someone to show you in person so maybe check whether there is a journalism or art teacher at your high school or someone else who is likely to do photography and they can probably help you.

Also set your camera to servo AF (auto focus to follow action) and RAW (stores files as RAW instead of JPG because you can do a lot of noise reduction after you take the photo using RAW files).  Canon has free software to turn the RAW files into JPG images and it is easy to use, it is my primary photo editing software.

The other critical part of sports photography is LOCATION.  You need to be as close to the action as you can get without getting in the way of the officials so check with your school AD about field access and please be careful there because things happen very quickly on the sidelines.  I had to jump out of the way twice last night during the game to avoid tacklers who ended up well beyond the field marker line.

The following four photos were from the start of a scoring sequence last night, unfortunately ultimately a loss in overtime for the team I photograph.  I am using much more sophisticated gear than what you have but being in the right location had the most to do with capturing this reception in tight coverage.  Shot with Canon 1DX III and EF 70-200 f2.8 @ f2.8, 1/1000.

And your sentences were a little long but they were pretty easy to understand.  William Faulkner was from my home state of Mississippi and he sometimes wrote long paragraphs that consisted of a single sentence.  He won numerous awards including a Nobel prize and a couple of Pulitzer prizes so maybe you have a future as the next great American novelist 🙂

Rodger