Nikon D500 and high school football (Page 3): I will get this book. I like the author, Steve Perry. His youtube videos are what turned me onto BBF and his great explanation of Nikon's...

Dexter56 Loc: Ohio

sandiegosteve wrote:

I think this is probably the book mentioned: https://backcountrygallery.com/secrets-nikon-autofocus-system/

While good, it is long and you'll read it (well written and entertaining). So, if you get it, don't wait until the day of and think you'll get through it.

I will get this book. I like the author, Steve Perry. His youtube videos are what turned me onto BBF and his great explanation of Nikon's focusing system.

tomcat

Thomas902 wrote:

Dexter56 I feel your pain... been there with the D500, that is until I found wisdom from Nikon Professional Services (Global) Technical Solutions | D500 TIPS: Sports AF Edition... I would strongly suggest you invest a day or so reviewing and getting your head around the savvy knowledge latent within... http://nps.nikonimaging.com/technical_solutions/d500_tips/af/

Please do not think that purchase of "wisdom" from a third party is going to yield knowledge more valid than that from the entity that designed this unique camera.

That said shooting action sports is a craft which one must develop over time... And intimately knowing the limitations of one's kit comes with the territory... It took me quite some time to master the D500's focusing system idiosyncrasies... As you have discovered this is not your typical Nikon... It is a beast of it's own... But it can be tamed with perseverance and most importantly practice and tenure... Like the first few thousand frames are at best a "wash". Only after you have discovered what doesn't work will you become one with your D500. Do yourself a big favor and study Nikon Professional Services (Global) Technical Solutions | D500 TIPS: Sports AF Edition in as it was the key to my mastering the D500.

Also I would place little if any credence in what those who offer "advice" without showing the level of their tenure with the camera... Sadly UHH is overrun with hobbyist who are highly opinionated in what "works" albeit they likely haven't a clue since they don't shoot commercially... enough said....

Examples below were shot with the D500 mated to an AF-S 200-400mm f/4 ED IF VR Lens; Aperture f/4 @ 1/2000 second. While this isn't "Nighttime" American Football the only difference would be easily accommodated with Auto ISO. The D500 while no match for a full frame in low light does "acceptably" well... Btw, I have since sold my D500 owing to it's lack of IQ... I now only shoot action sports commercially on full frame since the D500 just wasn't producing imagery at the level my clients have grown to expect...

Hope this helps or is at least food for thought...
I wish you well on your journey Dexter56

Dexter56 I feel your pain... been there with the D... (show quote)

I pretty much agree with what was stated here with a couple of exceptions for me. I found that 25 focus points was not enough for my slowness (my reaction time is slowing down), so I switched to 72 points and I changed the delay from 2 sec to 5 sec to allow for refs that won't move. Otherwise, I follow Nikon's suggestions. That D500 is one shooting son-of-a-gun for soccer. Volleyball in poorly lit gyms still sucks.

tomcat

[quote=Dexter56][quote=Dexter56]

Thomas902 wrote:

Dexter56 I feel your pain... been there with the D... (show quote)

I use 72 point-dynamic-area AF + AF (C), with the center point selected. I don't use Group focus for the same reason you mentioned here--focus point jumping to a closer subject. I have rarely missed the focus point on a soccer players face since I switched to center point/ d 72 pts. So long as I can keep up with the action and follow the player's face, it really does work. I also switched to a 5 sec delay because sometimes the refs stay planted to the ground and won't move or try to follow the player's path.

tomcat

Dexter56 wrote:

That's interesting. So what I think you are saying... (show quote)

See my earlier comments about using 72-point dynamic focusing. I find that this works better for me than the 25 points did. I'm slower in my tracking response nowadays.

Dexter56 Loc: Ohio

tomcat wrote:

See my earlier comments about using 72-point dynamic focusing. I find that this works better for me than the 25 points did. I'm slower in my tracking response nowadays.

That's interesting. I have been wishing that the D500 had a d9 setting for number of points. maybe I should try increasing the number of points to 72. This Friday I am going to try several different methods and compare.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

Dexter56 wrote:

That's interesting. I have been wishing that the D500 had a d9 setting for number of points. maybe I should try increasing the number of points to 72. This Friday I am going to try several different methods and compare.

Comparing several methods during one single game is not going to reveal the results you want.

tomcat

Dexter56 wrote:

That's interesting. I have been wishing that the D500 had a d9 setting for number of points. maybe I should try increasing the number of points to 72. This Friday I am going to try several different methods and compare.

Definitely do the 72-points setting. It works great for me. Tonight, I took some volleyball pictures. Boy, this was interesting and a challenge to keep up with the ball because it is a whole lot faster action closeup. I eventually switched to my Sigma Art lens, a 50mm f/1.4 because I just could not track with my 70-200 Nikon 2.8 (the action was too close). I used this on my D500, so it became a 75mm lens, which actually was a perfect fit. That lens is a whole lot brighter than the 70-200. I set the aperture at f/5.6, shutter at 1/1000 and auto-ISO. I decided to use this particular lens because of it's spectacular sharpness and the ability to really crop deeply because of this sharpness. I hope it works out well, because the ISO climbed to over 20,000 because of the very poor lighting in the gym. I know I'm going to be using Macphun Noiseless a whole lot

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

tomcat wrote:

Definitely do the 72-points setting. It works gr... (show quote)

Is there a reason you would shoot at f5.6 with a f1.4 lens and let your iso go so high? I use a 2.8 lens wide open and will be getting a 1.4 for next season. I shoot sports wide open! Practice my friend. The action in volleyball while fast, is predictable. I prefer group focus -- perfect for sports. Best of luck.

tomcat

cjc2 wrote:

Is there a reason you would shoot at f5.6 with a f1.4 lens and let your iso go so high? I use a 2.8 lens wide open and will be getting a 1.4 for next season. I shoot sports wide open! Practice my friend. The action in volleyball while fast, is predictable. I prefer group focus -- perfect for sports. Best of luck.

I was shooting at f/5.6 with the f/1.4 lens for two reasons:

1. So that faces would be in focus when I miss the target area---just doing it for a cya exercise. If it was a stationary target, then I would use 2.8 or lower. f/8 causes the ISO to jump even higher, so I chose f/5.6 to make certain I had a reasonable focus sharpness on the face.
2. The other reason for that lens was because it's the only one I had in that focal length range. The other choice was my 10-24mm and that was too wide and the f/stop not open enough

I have another volleyball game this afternoon and I'm going to try shooting at f/1.4 just for kicks to control the resulting high ISO. Hopefully I can anticipate the moment of ball contact with the hands better with more practice. I set my shutter release to continuous high speed and started shooting early in anticipation, but I still miss a lot of action. Just slowing down at age 69.

Even though there was considerable noise, by the time I PP and printed a 4x6, the prints didn't look too bad. Better than a cellphone anyway. The only alternative is to buy the school some of those really large quartz lights, which I would consider if I was working and not retired. My granddaughters go to this private school and they don't have a huge sports budget.

Thanks for asking.....

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

tomcat wrote:

I was shooting at f/5.6 with the f/1.4 lens for tw... (show quote)

I'm a professional sports shooter and I'm 6 years younger. I own a 400/2.8 which I use for things like football, soccer, field hockey, lacrosse etc. Why would I pay over 11 grand for that lens and shoot it stopped down to 5.6, when I could get that for less than 2 grand? That is perhaps a better example! My point is that you SHOULD be shooting sports WIDE OPEN. The best way to improve is with experience and the best way to get that is to go out and shoot, and shoot, and shoot. You've also got to learn the sport so that you can anticipate and that also takes practice so that you will gain experience. So go out and shoot any/all volleyball games you can. To see what your pictures SHOULD look like, buy a subscription to Sports Illustrated, or just get a few issues. (Not too much volleyball as I recall). I've been lucky enough to have met some of those photographers over the years and they always gave me wonderful advice. Back to your issue. When I shot volleyball this season, a whooping three games, I wasn't sure what lens(es) I wanted to use so I brought a few and included my 70-200/2.8. I used that, my Sigma 135/1.8 and my 85/1.4. Personally, I prefer to stay away from the zoom for indoor sports as I find myself zooming to much and not shooting enough. I found that the a 105 would suit what I wanted and I used my 105/2.8D (Micro) for the final two matches and found I liked that focal length. I also found that particular lens to be too slow at focusing as it has no built-in motor, so that gives me yet another reason to get a new 105/1.4 which I will have by next season. I shoot sports, generally, with my D5 and I shoot full tilt at 12 fps, for short bursts. With that body, my experience, and some luck, I can get shots where the ball is just about in the player's hands, in her hands, and just leaving her hands allowing me to look for a nice expression on her face. I can't post any as these were paid shoots and I have no releases. For further information, please PM me. Best of luck.

Dexter56 Loc: Ohio

cjc2 wrote:

Is there a reason you would shoot at f5.6 with a f1.4 lens and let your iso go so high? I use a 2.8 lens wide open and will be getting a 1.4 for next season. I shoot sports wide open! Practice my friend. The action in volleyball while fast, is predictable. I prefer group focus -- perfect for sports. Best of luck.

Going to give group focus a try tonight. I will let you know how it works out for me. Should be interesting.

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

Dexter56 wrote:

Going to give group focus a try tonight. I will let you know how it works out for me. Should be interesting.

Remember the other settings that go with it. I set the first to 2 and the last in the middle.

tomcat

cjc2 wrote:

I'm a professional sports shooter and I'm 6 years younger. I own a 400/2.8 which I use for things like football, soccer, field hockey, lacrosse etc. Why would I pay over 11 grand for that lens and shoot it stopped down to 5.6, when I could get that for less than 2 grand? That is perhaps a better example! My point is that you SHOULD be shooting sports WIDE OPEN. The best way to improve is with experience and the best way to get that is to go out and shoot, and shoot, and shoot. You've also got to learn the sport so that you can anticipate and that also takes practice so that you will gain experience. So go out and shoot any/all volleyball games you can. To see what your pictures SHOULD look like, buy a subscription to Sports Illustrated, or just get a few issues. (Not too much volleyball as I recall). I've been lucky enough to have met some of those photographers over the years and they always gave me wonderful advice. Back to your issue. When I shot volleyball this season, a whooping three games, I wasn't sure what lens(es) I wanted to use so I brought a few and included my 70-200/2.8. I used that, my Sigma 135/1.8 and my 85/1.4. Personally, I prefer to stay away from the zoom for indoor sports as I find myself zooming to much and not shooting enough. I found that the a 105 would suit what I wanted and I used my 105/2.8D (Micro) for the final two matches and found I liked that focal length. I also found that particular lens to be too slow at focusing as it has no built-in motor, so that gives me yet another reason to get a new 105/1.4 which I will have by next season. I shoot sports, generally, with my D5 and I shoot full tilt at 12 fps, for short bursts. With that body, my experience, and some luck, I can get shots where the ball is just about in the player's hands, in her hands, and just leaving her hands allowing me to look for a nice expression on her face. I can't post any as these were paid shoots and I have no releases. For further information, please PM me. Best of luck.

I'm a professional sports shooter and I'm 6 years ... (show quote)

OK. Today's volleyball game was shot at f/1.4 and what a difference that made in the color balance! I was surprised a lot by this shift. And of course, there was quite a bit of reduction in noise since the ISO was around 2000-4000 today at f/1.4, as opposed to 28,000 yesterday at f/5.6. See the attached images. The first image was shot from yesterday at f/5.6 and the second image was shot today at f/1.4. Both images were made with the D500 and the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 Art lens. I chose this lens because of it's incredible sharpness. (on the D500, the lens equates to approx 75mm, which seems to be the ideal focus length for my distance from the floor).

Thanks a whole bunch for your suggestion to shoot at f/1.4. Whatever I could have lost in sharpness at this f/stop versus my original f/5.6 was more than made up for by the apparent increase in sharpness due to less noise.

(Download)

Dexter56 Loc: Ohio

cjc2 wrote:

Remember the other settings that go with it. I set the first to 2 and the last in the middle.

I shot the first half in Group, the second half in single point. For me, I thought the single point did a little better job, although it was very close. I did think that both the single point and group did a better job than dynamic 25. I am going to do the same thing next Friday and see if I get similar results. I have been doing this several years, and I think this is the first time that I really noticed the lighting from one frame to the next. I did not use the flicker compensation on the D500. I will next time. Is that something that you have used? if so, are you happy with the results?

(Download)

cjc2 Loc: Hellertown PA

Dexter56 wrote:

I shot the first half in Group, the second half in... (show quote)

I normally leave the flicker reduction activated and I do think that it does help, but I also think that would be next to impossible to prove one way or the other. Different lights flicker differently and it's pretty quick. Just because you take some shots with it on, you can't really compare them to shots with it off as the nature of the flickering is pretty quick and different for each shot taken. You can see the effects, especially indoors, when you shoot at 10fps. Personally, I like it with it on, but I know that I still may have to make some corrections. As far as Group Focus is concerned, I generally like it better than single point because it is easier to hit and keep your target, say in baseball. For football, where there is often a mess, pile, or group of people/faces it can be a toss up. Was just discussing that exact issue with a friend. Sorry, but we didn't reach a definitive conclusion. Talk to ten professional photographers, get twenty different opinions. This is something where your style and experience come into play. Don't be surprised if you switch methods as you gain more experience, and do expect a different method to work better for each sport. Best of luck.