High School Football: Hello Club Members: Question?? I have to shoot a football game at 10 am. By 12 the sun is right over the field causing terrible lighting. I shoot with a Nikon...

Jules Karney Loc: Las Vegas, Nevada

Hello Club Members:
Question?? I have to shoot a football game at 10 am. By 12 the sun is right over the field causing terrible lighting. I shoot with a Nikon 7100 - 70-200 2.8 lens have a sb700 flash.
What can I do?
Thanks in advance.

dirtpusher Loc: tulsa oklahoma

Could play with exposure compensation, or a polarizer.

jr168

The biggest issue with shooting football at high noon is the heavy shadows inside the helmet. The body might be properly lit, but you can't see faces. If you shoot where the sun is more towards their back, basically putting the whole front side of their body in shadow, you can then expose the body and face evenly. The background may end up a bit bright. I would shoot in manual so that you have full control of the exposure. If you do any post processing, I would shoot in RAW. This way you can raise shadows, not only globally, but selectively. If you go this route, I would slightly underexpose so that there are no blown highlights in the background and then raise exposure in post. You have 2 1/2 to 3 stops to play within RAW. I don't think the flash will have any effect since you will be too far away for it to overpower the sun.

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Jules Karney Loc: Las Vegas, Nevada

jr168 wrote:

The biggest issue with shooting football at high n... (show quote)

Thanks for getting back to me. I will try this technique this coming Saturday.
Pics. from last Saturday's game enclosed.

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Jules Karney Loc: Las Vegas, Nevada

jr168 wrote:

The biggest issue with shooting football at high n... (show quote)

Jimmy what exposure did you take this shot at?

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

dirtpusher wrote:

Could play with exposure compensation, or a polarizer.

This is a good suggestion for your shooting conditions. My airshow pics this summer used a CPL on 4 of 5 days and 1 with an ND filter. I had a bit of an issue with the CPL when shooting a 360 degree angle of view and the changing relative angle of the filter to the sun position and needing to adjust the CPL. You'd likely have less of an issue at a football game. Any ND filter is simply like sunglasses allowing a slower shutter and / or wide aperture than without. My CPL use was more focused on counteracting the blue of sky over the blue of the water. The 1 day of ND in similar circumstances to the other days was to test the results a wider aperture in the same conditions and not having to constantly to reorient the CPL to the position of the sun. Be sure to use our lens hood although this also makes the CPL usage more difficult.

jr168

Jules Karney wrote:

Jimmy what exposure did you take this shot at?

f/4, 1/1250, iso 400

Shot with a Nikon D5 with a Sigma 120-300 f/2.8 + 1.4x teleconverter.

Toby

Jules Karney wrote:

Hello Club Members:
Question?? I have to shoot a football game at 10 am. By 12 the sun is right over the field causing terrible lighting. I shoot with a Nikon 7100 - 70-200 2.8 lens have a sb700 flash.
What can I do?
Thanks in advance.

Very simple. I wouldn't take the 2,8 lens for a day game. Have you got a 18-300? It has more versatility. Shoot at 1/500 or more and concentrate on getting good action shots. People will notice that more than the lighting. After the game edit in LR and any that have too dark shadows can be lightened with the "shadows" slider. You will be amazed at what it can do.

Jules Karney Loc: Las Vegas, Nevada

CHG_CANON wrote:

This is a good suggestion for your shooting condit... (show quote)

Thank you for your info.

Jules Karney Loc: Las Vegas, Nevada

Toby wrote:

Very simple. I wouldn't take the 2,8 lens for a day game. Have you got a 18-300? It has more versatility. Shoot at 1/500 or more and concentrate on getting good action shots. People will notice that more than the lighting. After the game edit in LR and any that have too dark shadows can be lightened with the "shadows" slider. You will be amazed at what it can do.

Thanks for your reply. I have photoshop. Which application should I use?

Toby

Jules Karney wrote:

Thanks for your reply. I have photoshop. Which application should I use?

In PS click on the "Image" tab at the top, on the "adjustments" in the drop down and on "shadows/highlights". You can use the slider to adjust the shadow areas and the highlight areas. This works pretty good but I prefer the one in LR. Good luck.

jr168

Jules Karney wrote:

Thanks for your reply. I have photoshop. Which application should I use?

If you shoot in RAW, you can use Adobe Camera Raw which is in Photoshop. It is the same Raw processing engine as Lightroom.

btbg

Jules Karney wrote:

Hello Club Members:
Question?? I have to shoot a football game at 10 am. By 12 the sun is right over the field causing terrible lighting. I shoot with a Nikon 7100 - 70-200 2.8 lens have a sb700 flash.
What can I do?
Thanks in advance.

Consider yourself lucky that you don't have to shoot after dark, then just overexpose by about a half stop.

Thomas902 Loc: Washington DC

Jules; direct overhead hard illumination is a major challenge... shadows the critical eye area...
A high level of post processing can be a viable solution... especially if you shoot 14bit RAW with lossless compression

That said in this scenario I deploy Photomatix Pro with three exposure iterations to open up plugged shadows... Yes it's time consuming, and yes there is a learning curve... Is it worth the aforementioned? Only you can determine this...

Here are a couple of examples with the same scenario you are faced with...

Only opportunity was with high noon day harsh sunlight...
Same capture device a.k.a. Nikon D7100...
As mentioned above with the AF-S 18-300mm DX VR f/3.5-5.6G ED.
Why not faster glass? Wishful thinking...
Only access was down seriously difficult rocky terrain... gear in backpack...
Fell twice... no fun... but only a lit' rock rash... lol

Mather Gorge - Great Falls, VA D7100 f/8 1/1250 sec

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Mather Gorge - Great Falls, VA D7100 f/8 1/2000 sec

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Jules Karney Loc: Las Vegas, Nevada

Toby wrote:

In PS click on the "Image" tab at the top, on the "adjustments" in the drop down and on "shadows/highlights". You can use the slider to adjust the shadow areas and the highlight areas. This works pretty good but I prefer the one in LR. Good luck.

Thanks I will try this.