Sports Photos... Shutter priority or Program?

CyberDave

I have been trying my hand at Sports Photography for the past year, with a Nikon D80. I have recently purchased a F2.8 80-200mm lens. I generally shoot in Nikon P (Program) mode, so the camera selects the shutter speed and aperture for me and also AF-Continous, with a higher ISO setting.

My Question is in the title really. I have gotten some good shots, but get a lot of blurry ones. Will I get sharper images with Shutter Priority? or is the Nikon D80 just not up to it?

Paulw

Shutter priority and set a high enough shutter speed
Aperture priority and shoot wide open on your lens
Manual - set a fast shutter speed and an open aperture

The choice is yours.

Kenny Logins

How steady are you? I have an 80-200 and know how much it weighs, and how fast the shutter needs to be to not capture my movement.

Paulw

Kenny Logins wrote: »

How steady are you? I have an 80-200 and know how much it weighs, and how fast the shutter needs to be to not capture my movement.

1/focal length will stop camera motion in a shot, but that may not be fast enough to freeze the action.

I tend to start around 1/1000 sec, and work up/down from there, but it all depends on light. Ideally, I hope for 1/1600 sec.

Obviously it will also depend on what sport you are capturing. Plenty of tips and info on my website.

CyberDave

I generally shoot hurling... The lens is indeed heavy and maybe some of the blur is down to my movement. I thought maybe the camera body just wasn't up to it.

TheQuietFella

I'm a canon shooter so whatever is the equivalent to TV (time value) I would suggest using. I would usually set it at 2000/1 sec' & an ISO of 800. These setting would only be guides & may not suit your camera or lens.

Paulw

CyberDave wrote: »

I generally shoot hurling... The lens is indeed heavy and maybe some of the blur is down to my movement. I thought maybe the camera body just wasn't up to it.

Use a monopod, and shoot with a faster shutter speed. Program mode isn't really designed for sports shooting at all.

twowheelsonly

The body and lens are well up to it. Don't worry about that.

As per PaulW it depends very much on the light. (Have a look at his site BTW, some great tips there)

Personally I'd go Manual - get the shutter speed up to 1250 or so and and try f4 during the day or 2.8 if it's getting dark or under lights.
In bright daylight you'll get a far higher shutter speed anyway so you could try using aperture mode as a quick reference to see what that's giving you and work from there. Keep the aperture between 2.8 and 4 though to isolate the action that you want from the background.

Under lights or if it's getting dark you have 2 options - One is to use Auto-ISO to get a reference point to see what speed you can get away with. With the D80 iso1600 is probably as high as you'd want to go to get usable shots though. Set the shutter speed between 1000 and 1600 at f2.8 and fire off a couple of shots at different spots of the pitch (Light varies around the pitch and even jersey colours can have an effect on metering). Check back on photos and see what ISO it's giving you.
Second option is to set the ISO at 1600 and see what shutter speed you can get away with. 640 is as low as you'll want to go and even at that quite a few of the 'action' shots will be blurred and it won't freeze the ball in motion. That's not always a bad thing though and it works sometimes - but only sometimes!!!

Finally - get a monopod. It works wonders for steadying the camera and will save your arms. I have that lens as well and it's no lightweight after an hour!

pete4130

The D80 will struggle with higher ISO. I've got the 80-200 2.8 as well. It's heavy but perfectly useable. The AF will be a bit slow on the D80 as well. Are you using back button focusing? I find that helps lots.