Indoor Tack Shooting w/AF-SVRZoom 70-200

[Mitch Merber]

I'm a first time forum user. I have this new awesome Nikkor Zoom ED 70-200mm f/2.8 and have been using it with my D80 trying to get some good shots of my high school son running indoor track. I have had a difficult time producing quality pictures. I'm probably not shooting with the proper settings on the D80 body and even the lens manual is somewhat confusing about how best to set the 4 switches on the body of the lens itself. Can anyone give me some suggestions as the best camera settings for this situation? The races are generally held indoors with gym type lighting and I'm certainly not using any flash. Thanks.

[T06]

fredparker.com/ultexp1.htmHave a gander here mate.

[rawpaw18]

Welcome Mitch,

For indoor sports, 4 switches on your lens,
1) unless you are really good at manual focus: the first setting should be MA,
2)Next I use full range, because sometimes the action gets close and it will not focus if you have the limiter on, that being said if you are far away you might want to use the limiter so that it does not have to use the full range to acquire focus. Following the action helps with the prefocusing.
3) I keep the VR off for indoor sports becasue the ss should be fast enough to freeze the action. I tried using it but without much success.
4) If you do turn on the VR, then using the normal(panning) mode might make for some great panning sport shots.

Camera settings:
Keep your iso up to get faster shutter speeds(ss400+ would be nice),
Open up to f2.8 if you need to to let light in.
AF-C using continous focus will help in, well continually focusing your subject.
Personal preference, but I use single focus area and centerweighted metering.
WB settings can be trouble with some indoor lights, if you do not shoot in raw then you may want to preset your white bal in your camera.

[Mitch Merber]

Excellent. Thanks so much for those tips. To follow-up, how would you set the camera body settings? Automatic, sports, aperture priority or ?.

[LR Max]

Here is how I do all my sports shooting:

Manual Mode
Lowest apeture (for you, f/2.8)
Shutter 1/500th of a second
Then adjust ISO to make this work. Like others, I hate using 1600 ISO but sometimes you have to, thats why its there.

Take some test shots and get it pretty close, you won't get perfect with those flouresent lights. Remember, they are always flickering, changing the light conditions many times a second. Its futile to try to adjust it all the time. If you leave it on apeture priority, then the shutter might vary and give you a blurred picture or improper exposure.

Also I assume you have photoshop so the minor changes can be handled but that image out of the camera has to be pretty good. The only way to do this is in manual setting.

[rawpaw18]

Excellent. Thanks so much for those tips. To follow-up, how would you set the camera body settings? Automatic, sports, aperture priority or ?.


As far as mode? If you are not comfortable with manual, and want something a little closer to auto, then start with "S" mode and auto ISO. This way you can pick the shutter speed and let your camera make the adjustments (iso and f stop) needed to compensate for the ss you choose. For indoor action I would not use sports or auto for shooting modes.