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.

[Waddizzle]

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@ebiggs1 wrote:

"Why should someone Waddizzle NOT reach that conclusion?"

Thank you, I understand.

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Good, then we agree.  Your instructions were pretty exact.

"I assume you have this lens the EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III Lens?  Set your Av to f4 but realize you are essentially working with a f5.6 lens.  Once moved off of 75mm the lens is no longer an f4. The T5 will know this automatically.

A SS of 1/500 will probably stop any football action. Most of it anyway. In Av let the T5 determine this.  An ISO of 1600 is warranted and I also prefer to fix it in favor of using the Auto setting.

Next use One Shot and use 'only' the center focus point.  Turn all the others off.  Later you might try AI-Servo but not until you are truly familiar with the T5.  Most of the time AI-Servo will disappoint you."

Set the camera to Av mode.  Set the ISO to 1600, not Auto.  Use a shutter speed of 1/500.  Use One Shot  mode with just the center AF point active, and rest of the AF points disabled.

[ebiggs1]

Against my better judgement but, I see a teaching moment here.

Av means "Aperture Priority".  That locks the aperture and lets the camera select the SS, shutter speed.  If you set the camera to Av you can not set the SS to 1/500. 

If you want to set both aperture and shutter, you need to use manual mode.  If you read your manual you will find this.