Taking Action Photos at Night

[NoviceMedia]

Do any of you experts have any suggesstions on how to best take action shots at night. I'm trying to take pictures of my brother's football game. I have a Kodak DX6490. If I set the camera to the "Night" setting, I get great pictures in terms of brightness, but everything is blurry (And it's not because I'm shaking, I use a tripod). If I take the picture in the "action" setting, it eliminates the blurriness but the picture is really dark.

Any sugesstions?

TIA!

[swgod98]

Don't be surprised if you can't get a decent image...

You would have to set your exposure time to around 1/500 AND set your ISO up to 400. Ideally, you want your ISO at 800 or even 1600. Make sure your aperture is the lowest possible #. The faster the lens, the better.

Lowering your shutter speed will stop the action (ie. no blur), but it will darken the image. Unfortunately, you have to do this. So, to compensate and make the image brighter, you need to up the ISO = noise.

If your camera doesn't have manual controls, I suggest you go to the action setting and set your ISO as high as possible. See what happens.

[NoviceMedia]

I appreciate the advice. One other question....If my exposure can go higher than 1/500, do I set it higher?

[swgod98]

Try 1/500. It might be too dark though. If it is, raise the setting to 1/300 or so and try again. It will get brighter, but there is more chance you'll experience blur.

You shouldn't need to go faster than 1/500 unless things are really moving (remember that upping the ISO will help you use lower shutter speeds, if you can get decent light out of the scene). My outdoor (soccer) action shots are pretty crisp at 1/640 and 1/800 with only slight blur on the ball when it's moving fast. I stick to ISO 50 (of course I'm outdoors in good lighting).

[Gary Meissner]

Lowering your shutter speed will stop the action (ie. no blur), but it will darken the image. Unfortunately, you have to do this. So, to compensate and make the image brighter, you need to up the ISO = noise.


I think you mean to say "raising" the shutter speed.