Dziadzi Loc: Wilkes-Barre, PA

I took these photos yesterday at my grandson's high school baseball game. I would appreciate your looking at the exif data and give me a reason why the first 2 photos are underexposed. It was a partly cloudy day about 5 pm. They were taken with a Nikon D7100 and a Tamron 18-400 lens. I used the same outfit this past weekend and captured some very nice, properly exposed photos of other grandchildren. I use shutter priority with this lens at sporting events. Shutter speed was 1/1000, ISO was set at 160, white balance on Auto. The 3rd photo is used as a reference of (in my opinion) a properly exposed photo using the same settings (though shot through a fence). Your advice is appreciated. Frank

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RickL Loc: Vail, Az

With a high speed and low light use auto iso, I shoot manual and limit my iso to 2000, usually about f7 or 8

Rick

agillot

set it in program mode , and see what the settings are going to be , but i would set the iso at 1000 , and leave it there , modern cameras do well at 1000 iso , this will increase your speed for action shots .also use the histogram if you shoot in manual mode , this would have shown a under exposed picture .

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Your aperture could not open up any further; you were at its widest limit. The difference in the last is the aperture could open to f/4.5 at that focal length.

ISO, shutter speed and aperture are interrelated. You must remember to watch all three. In this case your screen probably flashed the f/6.3 alerting you that it could not go any wider, which meant under-exposed photos. At that point you needed to increase your ISO.

btw, add my vote to use of auto ISO for fast-moving action or changing lighting conditions.

PixelStan77 Loc: Vermont/Chicago

Frank, Your ISO was set too low at 160. Crank it up to equal to the shutter speed of 1000 ISO and you will be fine. The light output was different the weekend before and hence the underexposed images. Live and learn and have fun.

Dziadzi Loc: Wilkes-Barre, PA

I smile to myself as I am reminded of the reason for the flashing "6.3" As a former teacher, I appreciate your succinct explanation of my shortcomings. Thank you, Linda. Frank

Dziadzi Loc: Wilkes-Barre, PA

Thanks, Rick

Dziadzi Loc: Wilkes-Barre, PA

Thanks for the information, Stan.

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

The reason why your images are underexposed is because you are using Shutter Priority and have it set at 1/1000th of a sec and your ISO is fixed at 160. So what is happening is that the shutter duration is 1/1000th and to get a properly exposed image it can only adjust one other thing automatically and that's the Aperture. Your lens is wide open at f/6.3 and your ISO is fixed at 160 and the lens will not open any further to let enough light in for a properly exposed image. To fix this you can use Auto ISO, get a lens that is much faster and more expensive, use fill light from a flash, or simply keep adjusting your ISO higher and higher until you have the proper exposure. The problems with these remedies is this: Auto ISO can and will adjust the ISO as high as it needs for a proper exposure, but when it gets to a certain point it will introduce a lot of noise into the images. A faster lens such as a f/2.8 (such as the Canon 400mm f/2.8 at $11,000) will cost a lot of money and still only give you 2 2/3 stops advantage which may or may not be enough to get a properly exposed image. But it would get you very close. Next you could use fill flash but speedlites are only so powerful and you can't get away using them at most sporting events effectively. And last, upping the ISO until it's properly exposed may still give you noisy images.

My suggestion is: Use Aperture priority. When using this mode, set aperture wide open at f/6.3 (for your lens) and set your ISO for somewhere around 400-800. But you'll have to experiment with this and see just how much noise your pictures have at the higher ISO's. When set like this, your camera will automatically adjust your shutter speed to achieve the best exposure. It will drop below 1/1000th duration, but with the proper hand holding technique, and good vibration or image stability you can still get good results as long as you don't let the shutter duration get too slow. You should be able to work with a long lens at sporting events with a shutter speed as low as 1/250th if you use proper panning and hand holding techniques or a tripod/monopod.

One last thing you should consider is shooting raw. If you shoot raw and have an underexposed image as you have, you can remedy in post with a program such as Lightroom Classic CC. Here's a link to another discussion on UHH about this with an example that shows how much you can recover on an extremely underexposed image if you shoot in raw. This can't be achieved if you have your camera set for jpg's:

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-528446-1.html#8976523

Dziadzi Loc: Wilkes-Barre, PA

Thanks for the detailed explanation, Jeep. Buying a faster lens is out of the question for I have to spend a lot of money on Medical Marijuana. I will try your other suggestions though. I do shoot in jpeg and raw, which did allow me to make adjustments to the photos in Camera Raw. Thank you

wayne-03 Loc: Minnesota

Shoot in aperture priority, push the ISO as high as you need to kept the shutter speed up. Even at mid-day for soccer I will start at ISO 400 and try to kept my shutter to at least 1/2500. The later in the day the higher the ISO has to be.

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Dziadzi Loc: Wilkes-Barre, PA

Thanks for sharing, Wayne.