Shooting my first football game Sunday . . any tips and pointers (RAW or JPEG)

jamin100

jamin100

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Hey,

Im shooting a Under 11's match on Sunday and having never shot football before I'm trying to figure the best approach. From looking around at threads here on TP and other places on the net I have come up with the following:

* Shoot as low as possible
* Get level horizons
* Shoot in Aperture Priority
* Shoot as wide open as possible (im using a Sigma 7-200 f2.8 so will be shooting at f2.8)
* Adjust ISO to get shutter speed up
* use a shutter speed of at least 1/640s
* position myself with my team coming at me and sit between the corner flag and the goal post
* watch busy / dirty backgrounds

** RAW or JPEG? - now thats what im not sure about. I'm shooting with a D90 so 4.5 fps and have a class 10 8GB SD card. But im unsure wether to shoot RAW or JPEG..... I'd like the security of RAW just in case i need to recuse a shot or two but am still undecided.

Anything else that may possibly help? Or something I've mentioned wrong?
 
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This will spark off the whole debate as per usual.

I'd say, if you are confident you have you exposure correct the shoot jpeg as this will have quicker write times and also save on filesize. So long as you are not doing a full page spread in a glossy magazine, quality will be more than fine.

If your not shoot raw and fiddle with it later.

I shoot jpeg.
 
Im a jPeg shooter but only because i have time constraints and need to wire pitchside so speed is vital, if i were in your shoes id probably shoot raw and have the time to convert later
 
I'd shoot in jpeg as well if you've got the confidence; way less processing with 400+ frames to sort out.

If the light's even meter off the pitch and shoot in M, it saves allowing for the background affecting the exposure.

F/4 rather than 2.8 if the light allows.

I prefer being on the sideline opposite the penalty box, but that's personal.

Have to go & walk the dog I'll post later if I think of anything else.
 
DemiLion said:
I'd shoot in jpeg as well if you've got the confidence; way less processing with 400+ frames to sort out.

If the light's even meter off the pitch and shoot in M, it saves allowing for the background affecting the exposure.

F/4 rather than 2.8 if the light allows.

I prefer being on the sideline opposite the penalty box, but that's personal.

Have to go & walk the dog I'll post later if I think of anything else.
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Thanks for this, Can i just ask why f4 over f2.8?
I did some tests this evening with my daughter running at me and from a good 10-15feet away with f2.8 she was fully in focus and the background had nice bokeh
 
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sometimes getting two players in the DOF is good and f2.8 might negate that
however, an open question i've been meaning to ask relevant to this.
is a camera more able or more accurately focus at lower/wider apertures? esp handy with moving targets
 
DizMatt said:
sometimes getting two players in the DOF is good and f2.8 might negate that
however, an open question i've been meaning to ask relevant to this.
is a camera more able or more accurately focus at lower/wider apertures? esp handy with moving targets
Click to expand...

I don't know and am possibly wrong but with a larger aperture the subject will stay in focus longer
 
f/4 is plenty wide enough for footie unless you are after a specific look, and for your first time you are better off giving yourself a bit of leeway. The game will move much faster than you think, far quicker than just having your daughter run at you. It's governed by the speed of the ball, not the speed of the player.

Regarding focusing:

Speed of AF is a factor of the lens' widest natural aperture, not the one that you set in camera, because the camera doesn't engage the aperture ring until the shot is taken.
 
DemiLion said:
f/4 is plenty wide enough for footie unless you are after a specific look, and for your first time you are better off giving yourself a bit of leeway. The game will move much faster than you think, far quicker than just having your daughter run at you. It's governed by the speed of the ball, not the speed of the player.

Regarding focusing:

Speed of AF is a factor of the lens' widest natural aperture, not the one that you set in camera, because the camera doesn't engage the aperture ring until the shot is taken.
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Thanks for this, I will setup at f4 if the light allows. Really looking forward to it just hope it doesn't get rained off
 
CaptainPenguin said:
Used to shoot Raw but now following advice from on here I go for jpeg and I am happy with the results I get
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What was that advice, may I ask?
I've been pondering switching to jpeg when I'm happy with the available light, so I can take more piccies in one session.
 
new2me said:
What was that advice, may I ask?
I've been pondering switching to jpeg when I'm happy with the available light, so I can take more piccies in one session.
Click to expand...

The buffer doesn't fill as quickly meaning you can get longer bursts of shots,the card doesn,t fill as quickly,the ultimate quality of Raw doesn't quite matter if the shots are for the web,paper or club programme and as the light is normally fairly constatnt especially under lights you dont need the extra control raw gives you
 
I always shoot RAW for everything, including Sports, but that is because my camera can do a fair few RAW files before the buffer slows down. And I'm doing them for myself, with no need for a quick output to send/show anyone else. :shrug:

I think once you've got the exposure sorted, Jpeg would be the one for making maximum use of the buffer. 11 frames till the buffer fills for RAW versus 100 for Jpeg is a big difference. Not that you may do many bursts longer than 11 frames, but you could do a number of short bursts consecutively in a busy game. The Jpeg file size is also a quarter to a third the size of the RAW file, so that's a lot more images per memory card too.
 
Well ive been and really enjoyed it.
Ive posted a few photos here
http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?p=4023177#post4023177

Anyway, I shot a mixture between f2.8 and f4 with good results at all apertures.
Shot in JPEG which was a godsend as i had nearly 700 photos after the hours match..

all in all i'm happy with my results . . thank you all for the tips.
Please check out the pictures if you get a chance
 
RAW is generally the way I go, but it's personal preference and security. With RAW you know you can recover bad images, and if you have lightroom it's no big deal to convert everything to JPEG and apply adjustments quickly to a lot of images.

However, JPEGS are fully hassle free.... But you may not be able to sell any later for publication since most places require RAW....
 
conskier2003 said:
However, JPEGS are fully hassle free.... But you may not be able to sell any later for publication since most places require RAW....
Click to expand...

Eh? I haven't come across any outlet that asks for RAW files in sports photography ( and most other genres for that matter) apart from the odd competition for proof of capture or people that don't understand what they are asking for.
 
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