Night Football games in bad light

[furrmutt]

Canon 7d - 70-200mm f/2.8 non is, monopod av mode 4000 iso, night football bad light, want better shots any help would be appreciated! I get some good shots but want better. Some are over exposed and some blurry. I'll take blame on blurry shots! Would like to stop the action better. Thank you.

[ebiggs1]

The advantage of AV set to f2.8, albeit maybe a small advantage, is the camera will select to fastest shutter speed possible.

It may not be fast enough to get a truly sharp picture but it will get the exposure correct. This may be all that is possible with out more light.

You could also try M. Shoot in RAW and use Photoshop ACR to bring up the best possible photo. You may be surprised at how well this approach will work.

[cicopo]

Although we don't get a very large sample to view it looks good to me and you're right, it's going to take some experimental work & fine tuning to nail down what works best in each situation.

[furrmutt]

Thanks for the advice! I'll keep trying!

[Dun1]

      The majority of football shots are taken of course with a lens that has as large an aperture as you can afford.  Most every sports photographer I know will have a 70-200 2.8 lens in his bag.

      If you use a monopod to hold your lens and camera turn off IS, (in your case your lesn has no IS) since it will cause the lens to hunt for the shot.

      Set your camera to AV setting, AI Servo, Spot Focus,

      You will need to set your ISO high enough to be able to capture the main subject at 1/500th to freeze action anything less will cause your images to blur.

       I you have to set your 7D past 5,000 ISO you will be able to capture the shot, however the image might have some noise.

       Where you are able to stand to shoot amkes a tremdous difference, shooting from the sidelines is the preferred area.  The shorter the distance from your lens to the subject the more background blur you will achieve. You will be you are trying to get the main subject in sharp focus, and stop the action and blur the background to the main subject is sharp focus and the background is blurred.

[Dun1]

In addition you might also consider shooting in RAW most amateur venues have lighting that is terrible and if you shootin in JPEG format you will not be able to adjust the white balance in post processing as easily