FZ50 setting advice needed for high school football stadium shot.

[RPF]

A new FZ50 is only a few days in our possesion, and my wife needs to use it soon to take pictures at a typical night high school football game to get zoom images of the half-time performances of her granddaughter on the "drill team" and her grandson in the marching band.

We've both read most of the owner's manual, but have only limited opportunity to use the camera. We need advice on what settings would give us the best results in the situation described above. The pictures will be taken from the lowest bleacher seats that will allow us to shoot over the usual sidelines crowd. Depth of field is obviously not an issue, flash at that distance is irrelevant, and the area will be well lit. These will be typical family photos that will never be printed and any size greater than 5"x7". We're planning to "dumb down" the images to 5MP to get more optical zoom range, even though it's doubtful even "I ISO" and "Mega O.I.S." could stabilize a handheld shot at the 17X optical zoom that's available at that resolution.

So, should we use Auto, Program, Shutter Priority, or Scene "Sports" mode, and what settings within the most appropriate of those would give us the best results?

Thanks for any help this forum can provide,

RPF

[Paradox]

Manual mode would get you the most control, but would take time, and might not be suitable for this kind of photography, especially if you haven't used it before.

It'd probably help if you had something to rest the camera on (Tripod, railing, relative... :p) to steady it, as you're right at that zoom range shake is going to be a big problem. With that in mind, I might be tempted to use shutter priority mode and set the shutter speed to a value where there was no blur, and let the camera sort the exposure out. But bear in mind it'll crank up the ISO, and your shots might turn out noisy.

I'd say turn up a few minutes early and experiment, see what kind of shots you can get. Nothing like being there to help you set things up. ;)

[genece]

This would be my approach and not necessarily the only way to go about it.
But I would be sure you can see the SS setting in the EVF or on the LCD if thats your method of shooting.
Then I would put the camera in aperture mode and set the zoom to 35mm and then set the aperture to F2.8 ( it will change to F3.7 as you zoom)
Then its almost certain you will need a SS of at least 1/125 th of a second to freeze motion, (faster if you can achieve it.)
Now raise the ISO until with the aperture reading and 3.7 (zoom some), until the SS reads 1/125 at the 1/2 press of the shutter. Now IMHO you will be getting the best photo possible.....and I doubt the noise will be bad at a 5 X 7 print. or viewed at 1200 X 900 on screen.

Since there will be many things for the camera to focus on I would use the 1 area HS focus and I would turn off CAF.

The reason I choose to use aperture priority instead of shutter priority is because in Shutter priority you can pick a SS too fast for the aperture availabe.....resulting in an underexposed photo (at times terribly underexposed)
but in aperture priority the camera can always pick a corresponding SS to get a properly exposed photo....wheather it will be fast enough to freeze motion is the question.
But if you have a complete understanding of exposure the S priority or full manual can be used with perhaps even better results, but its not a good way to start out.
It will be up to you to raise the ISO to achieve the SS you need.
This is a tough condition for the FZ50.....let us know how you make out.

This is the key thing
It will be up to you to raise the ISO to achieve the SS you need

[JLV]

Let me add one other suggestion to what Gene has said, if you can not get a fast enough shutter speed, try to time your shot to a lull in the action.

[Mike63]

Don't forget the OIS on mode 2, and definitely try to use a monopod or tripod to steady the camera. At the extended zoom ranges you will be at the image will be shaking. Using the electronic view finder against your face will also help steady the camera if nothing else.

[tim11]

I second Gene's technique of Aperture mode.
Also use manual focus or pre focus if using AF.

[debu_17]

as u want to take shots of kids , it maybe useful to get good album shots
using the asa3200 mode of FZ-50.
using a 40 watt tubelight i get good pics for 7x5 inch prints after minimum amount of noise processing in neatimage(freeware)

in this mode the cam generally sets shtr. sp. to about 1/50-1/125 and uses
full apr.
use Af mode 2 for best Stablility, and use fast speed 3 shot mode(auto 3 shots) the 2nd shot will be best and with least blur.
for action shots this is the best mode.
very suprisingly i find that in this mode the cam. o/p appears to have less noise than in the ordinary asa1600 mode ( in apr. priority)

try out some practice shots before the actual event. and carry a 2gb card for the event, it will help as out of 200 cam shots ,40 will be actually good for the album!