EOS Rebel T5 Settings for night baseball games

[jburch921]

Hello I'm new to this forum.  I have been using my Canon EOS T-5 for several years now and have literally taken 1,000's of pictures for travel baseball for years.  Most of these games have been during the day time and I would use the TV mode and for the most part, these pictures came out awesome.

Now my son is playing college ball and most of his games are at night.  I took some pictures using the same mode and some were ok, but just not great.  I have been reading some of the comments on your forum for settings. 

Can someone please give me easy settings to take actions shots? (my son is a pitcher, so fast moving action) on top of stadium lighting. 

Would "AV" be my best option or "P" for an action shot in the dim lighting?

Also what setting should I use for people in the stands in the dark.  Again I'm new to the night time picture taking, so any advice would be very much appreciated. 

[wq9nsc]

I don't know what lens setup you have but that becomes far more critical when shooting at night, you need a fast (wide aperture) lens of suitable focal length to avoid excessive cropping.

I shoot a lot of night sports.  With modern camera bodies AND the proper lens, using manual exposure with auto ISO works very well.  Set the aperture to wide open (hopefully if is a f2.8 but f4 works pretty well also, f5.6 or slower is going to be very difficult for night sports even on a well illuminated field). 

Shutter speed should be set as fast as possible without forcing the ISO too high and if you don't have a wide aperture lens, then you are going to end up with a very suboptimal shutter speed.  1/1000 is great, 1/640 works pretty well, 1/500 and below is on the ragged edge for a pitcher and you are going to get some motion blur.  So it becomes a compromise between shutter speed and too much noise from forcing the ISO too high.  The best compromise depends upon your lens and the field so try some different settings during pre-game warmup.

Regardless, you will have to lower your expectations somewhat at night.  First photo is from afternoon HS baseball with plenty of sunlight resulting in fast shutter speed and low ISO.  The second is from a poorly lit football field forcing a less desirable shutter speed and ISO  (1/640 ISO 10,000) with the resultant loss of detail.

Rodger

[jburch921]

I just the TV mode in this picture.  This one is ok, but some are really dark.

[jburch921]

And I'm using a 300mm lense on this shot.

[Waddizzle]

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@jburch921 wrote:

And I'm using a 300mm lense on this shot.

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What aperture?

I like to use M mode, which gives me complete control over Av and SS.  I use ISO Auto during the day, and dial in an ISO setting at night, once the light has pretty much stabilized following sunset.

However, you may be better off using Av and ISO 400 to 800 witth your camera body.

[wq9nsc]

Outside of an exceptionally well illuminated professional stadium, ISO is going to be above 800 for night baseball for any reasonable shutter speed even with a fast telephoto prime.  Even very few D1 baseball fields have incredibly good lighting and even with a f2 lens you will be in the 4 digit ISO range with shutter speed fast enough to freeze baseball motion at most ball parks. 

You can limit the maximum auto ISO below your camera body's capable maximum to avoid a useless level of ISO if it is too noisy beyond a certain point.  My 1DX III maximum ISO is 819,200 but that is useless for images, I do let it go to 51,200 where it produces very nice output with a little noise reduction in post and if I were in a really bad location I would let it go to 102,400 but that is on the ragged edge of my comfort curve for acceptable quality output.  Other bodies will have a far lower usable ISO and that will always be below their maximum rated ISO.  You will have to experiment to find out what the maximum usable ISO is after taking a number of images (in RAW) and seeing what can be recovered in post.  It is a tradeoff but I will take noise over motion blur until the noise becomes extreme.

Is your 300 lens a f2.8 lens?  If not, it probably isn't fast enough with that camera body to allow a useful exposure triangle for most night baseball.  With the newest full frame bodies, a lens with a maximum f4 aperture has become more useful but with older crop body cameras you will need excellent illumination at night for a lens of that aperture to allow a usefully fast shutter speed.  You may find that you are best off using the widest aperture lens you own instead of the longest reach and finding a location as close as possible to your son while he is pitching.  I shot a lot of football earlier this year with a 200 f2 on the second camera body instead of my usual 70-200 f2.8 because that extra stop was more useful than the versatility of a zoom on fields with poor illumination.

Rodger

[jburch921]

Thank you so much for the help.  I'll try the few settings to see if I can get some better shots.  I guess practice makes perfect right.  I took a few pictures at home last nigt unsing the night option, defivenly lighted up, but that was on objects that weren't moving.   I'm hoping to master these night games since we are going to have so many of them this summer.  Also obviosly my camera is an older model. I have have absolultley no complaints, I have taken many great pictues thru the years.  What are your thoughts on the Canon T-7?  I was thinking up get a newer model.

[Waddizzle]

The T7 will be more replacement than upgrade. Your ISO will be 12800, and higher, if you’d lens is not f/2.8 or faster.

None of the Rebel camera bodies have reputations for being good performers in low light. Save your money for an RP

[Tintype_18]

I  have a T7 so let me go through the archives and see what photos I have taken at nighttime ball games. I can click on Info and get a full rendering of settings. Back in a few minutes. Edit- Photo taken 5/17/2021 @7:34 PM; 1/15, f6.3, 85mm, ISO 100. My T7 has the 75-300mm lens. Found the camera is great for Sports shots in motion. I like to use M and experiment with settings. All it costs is a bit of battery juice, not like the days of film.

[Tintype_18]

FYI. same photo with some editing. Have two grandsons who play travel ball so the camera will get a good workout.