treadwl Loc: South Florida

Many of the venues where I shoot have recycling lights and the color changes from shot to shot. And if they replace a light then that throws part of the field off again. Therefore I set my white balance in Lightroom. Now if you get to shoot in a college stadium where the lights a suitable for TV. THen you will experience heaven on earth with the lighting.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

Use a ColorChecker Passport, shoot raw and make sure your camera's anti-flicker feature is turned on if you are using shutter speeds shorter than 1/125, otherwise the color and light levels will be all over the map. And don't forget to cross your fingers.

https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/4115/do-fluorescent-lighting-and-shutter-speed-create-a-problem-with-color-cast
https://photographylife.com/light-frequency-issue

whitewolfowner

Your best choice is auto white balance and shoot in RAW so you can easily correct any photos that are off. Most lighting for sports fields change their color balance as they age and the color balance will be constantly changing as the sun sets.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Part of my reason for saying this is that different people want to tell a different story given the same facts. With the word-picture "Outlined against a blue-gray October sky", Grantland Rice began the story which cemented his place in history, and that of the 1926 Notre Dame backfield. I don't know whether Rice was particularly aware of the colors that day, but he transmitted a fall scene that his readers were familiar with. Last autumn I rode the Chicago - LA Amtrak train, and joined one of the breaks, not to smoke, but to visit and take some pictures. I was especially aware of the yellow glare of the lights, so I preserved that color when I posted a couple of the pictures here
http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-424295-1.html
because that color was part of my memory of those minutes.

pahtspix

I ALWAYS shot in RAW mode..Color temperature fix is just ONE slider away in Adobe Photoshop CC 2017..No worries..

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

Auto W/B? Shoot raw and then correct in post? About the only people that don't shoot raw are the pro photographers that shoot sports for a living because they need to get it right SOOC to send fast to the editor. You obviously aren't a pro sports photographer so do the safest thing and shoot raw so you can edit the w/b later IF need be. You can also shoot a gray card and set a custom w/b if you so choose. Only if the lighting stays constant throughout the game.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Let's not start another raw vs JPEG, PP vs SOOC sidetrack now, but that statement is not true.

chasgroh Loc: Buena Park, CA

...yes! I'm soon into the winter band tournaments and the lighting differences stadium to stadium can be hellish, especially Hg and Na. My gear will deal with the *color* so to speak, but it's the cycling at 60 hertz that requires me to set three different presets in LR sometimes (for red, blue, and green...go figger, lol) and that solution is marginal. With the better equipment (the D5's anti-flicker is pretty good...jumped the D4 by a bit) it's less of a problem but still not totally solved. Very difficult.

chasgroh Loc: Buena Park, CA

...this is good advice, I'm going to shoot some football this season and will shoot RAW...still, when shooting many more images for my pageantry, I'll shoot jpeg and depend on the excellent color characteristics of my gear, and of course my PP work, to carry the day. I know the venues of which I will be shooting so feel confident about my results, but I carry an Expodisc for unfamiliar places. Some lighting cycles (mostly the sodium variety) and there you have serious problems that are difficult to deal with...

shelty Loc: Medford, OR

When you get to my stage of photography, I don't care where the camera thinks it should be because my light balance is where I want to set it when I process the pictures.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

The most accurate way.... Set a Custom WB based upon the stadium lighting. Anything else is just a guess, since the lighting color can vary a lot. It isn't very standardized for that type of lighting. You might even need to recheck and set a different Custom WB if you change locations and shoot the action from a different angle, which is being illuminated by different lamps. If it's a really important shoot, go to the venue in advance, at night and when it's illuminated, and take some sample shots at the different locations you plan to shoot with a WB test target in each shot. Keep those shots on your memory card(s) so that you can reference them for Custom WB at each location.

Less accurate and requiring more effort in post-processing, but still quite doable... shoot RAW and adjust WB in post-processing. To do this, a color calibrated computer monitor would be pretty much a necessity, too.

I'd also set my cameras to their Anti-Flicker mode, which times shutter releases to match the peak of the lighting output as it cycles, typically 60 hz or 120X per second in the US. This feature works pretty darned well, makes for far fewer poorly exposed shots!

canon Lee

HI. The light intensity does change on the field, so use AWB and tweak in PP.
A bit off topic, but shoot in JPEG. As this mode will load faster onto your card. Another tip; Use a mono pod to steady the shake and give a more level & smoother panning. IF you have a Canon, set it to AI servo. Turn off your image stabilization! It takes practice to get the camera locked onto the subject, but you might want to set the "drive mode" to high speed continuous shooting. For this you will need a large high speed card. With 6~8 shots you are going to get a great one or two.
Hope this helps. Practice makes perfect.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

So much fun! I tend to use Auto WB, unless I know something about the lights in use that changes my mind. I ALWAYS shoot in RAW as that gives me the widest range of PP choices. I shoot night football in Aperture Priority, minimum shutter speed of 1/500th and AUTO ISO, AUTO WB. I shoot sports action wide open which forces me to use the best possible techniques to obtain sharp shots. I use a monopod, 400/2.8 lens and a 70-200/2.8 lens. All VR is turned off unless there is a specific mode on the lens for sports. I almost always adjust WB in post and I use the Flicker reduction systems where available. Again, SO MUCH FUN! I absolutely love football, and shooting football, but correcting WB can be no fun. Best of luck. OH YES -- practice, practice, practice and more practice!

Tracht3

Get an expodisc. Problem solved

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

Problem is that some lights change colors as they "flicker". Expodisk my help, but it won't solve this problem.