Blurry Basketball

[lenchase]

Hi,
I just got an FZ20 mainly for My daughter's Soccer games.
Now I am trying to use it for Indoor basketball and can not get a good or even usable action shot.
I would like to be able to use burst mode without a flash.
I don't know enough about digital photography to figure it out .
I hav etried sports mode but that doesn't help.
I am using a tripod as per an archieved article.
Any guidance is appreciated.
Thanks
Len

[David Metsky]

You are trying to take action pictues in a low light situation. The camera needs light to capture an image, and the only tool it has in this situation is to keep the shutter open for a longer period of time, causing blur. If the action is more than 10-15 feet away, your flash won't do much good anyways.

Flash is one way to capture the image by adding more light for a brief period of time, but most on camera flashes won't work at any significant distance. You can force the shutter speed to be 1/60 or faster, which will eliminate most camera shake, but there may not be enough light to get a usable picture. You can boost the ISO up to 400 (not sure of the max for the FZ20) which will make the CCD more sensitive and able to operate with less light, but at the expense of adding noise to the shot.

The tripod will help, but I think it's the ball that's moving, not your camera at this point.

Or get a dSLR that has a really fast lens and can take images in lower light.

[genece]

These settings were posted with great shots of indoor soccor. Unfortunately the pictures are no longer available
These are settings used by randy rimland for soccor under low light and I think they would work for you. You could maybe try the ISO at 200

ake - Panasonic
Model - DMC-FZ20
Orientation - Top left
XResolution - 72
YResolution - 72
ResolutionUnit - Inch
DateTime - 2004:12:07 18:43:27
YCbCrPositioning - Co-Sited
ExifOffset - 398
ExposureTime - 1/125 seconds
FNumber - 2.80
ExposureProgram - Manual control
ISOSpeedRatings - 400
ExifVersion - 0220
DateTimeOriginal - 2004:12:07 18:43:27
DateTimeDigitized - 2004:12:07 18:43:27
ComponentsConfiguration - YCbCr
CompressedBitsPerPixel - 4 (bits/pixel)
ExposureBiasValue - 0.00
MaxApertureValue - F 2.83
MeteringMode - Spot
LightSource - Auto
Flash - Not fired, compulsory flash mode
FocalLength - 20.20 mm
FlashPixVersion - 0100
ColorSpace - sRGB
ExifImageWidth - 2560
ExifImageHeight - 1920
InteroperabilityOffset - 6652
SensingMethod - One-chip color area sensor
FileSource - DSC - Digital still camera
SceneType - A directly photographed image
CustomRendered - Custom process
ExposureMode - Manual
WhiteBalance - Auto
DigitalZoomRatio - 0.00 x
FocalLengthIn35mmFilm - 122 mm
SceneCaptureType - Standard
GainControl - High gain up
Contrast - Soft
Saturation - Low
Sharpness - Hard

[lenchase]

That's a lot of settings.
I will give it a try.
Thanks for the info.
Len

[Dave Dilks]

That's a lot of settings.


Following up on David Metsky's good advice, let me try to narrow it down to the most important settings. Go into Manual mode and set the aperture at f2.8. Start out with a shutter speed of 1/125 and ISO of 100, which will likely give you too dark of a picture. Test incrementally slower shutter speeds (i.e. 1/100, then 1/80) and higher ISOs (200, then 400) until you get an acceptable balance of motion blur and graininess. Even in fairly dark conditions, a fairly extreme setting of a shutter speed of 1/60 and ISO 400 ought to give you some usable pictures.

Also, as genece noted, spot focus is preferred (as is prefocusing on the area you intend to shoot prior to taking the picture.)

[60mm]

You may want to add a flash that has a much better range then the built in.Click here!!! (http://www.adorama.com/VV285HV.html)
I ordered one of these, yesterdays, and will be posting a full review with test pics here soon after it arrives, if you want to wait and see!

[24Peter]

60mm - I'm confused about the different battery choices and the long recycle time on that flash. Can you shed any light on these? (Sorry - couldn't resist the pun! :rolleyes: )