I would add one more thing to what was already said. I always use auto ISO. and shoot in manual. you should keep your lens wide open and try to keep at 1/800 or faster. set your upper ISO limit as high as you can while still getting acceptable results. as someone mentioned, BB focus is the only way to go.

Thanks everyone. This is my favorite time of year for taking pictures. Nothing better than trying to get that great shot during a ball game on a Friday night.

I can tell the suspense is killing everyone. Yes, he made it in. Not bad for a sophomore starting in a varsity game.

Close call. Was it a touchdown?

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I think the focus modes is the one thing that really is a trial and error. I like your idea of a separate thread. See what works for others. I think a lot of it does depend on what you are shooting. I still think I had better luck in dynamic with 9 focus points than with 25.

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?

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

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.

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.

That's interesting. So what I think you are saying is that #4 is in focus, just that the image quality isn't there due to the low light conditions. Maybe the player on the ground is in a little better light? something I didn't consider. I am going to go into Friday night's game using single point and Group and see if I have better luck. I am also going to switch lenses between my D750 and D500 and see what kind of results I get. By the way, that was shot with a Nikon 300mm, 2.8. Thanks for your reply.

Yes, have been playing around with that to try to get it to a delay that works. Getting there, but it is a process.

[quote=Dexter56][quote=Thomas902]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/


Here is a good example of where I had #4 in sharp focus and my point shifted to the player on the ground. This becomes very frustrating, as I really wanted a good shot of #4 celebrating after a nice play. This is where I think single point will take care of the issue. I hope.

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[quote=Thomas902]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/

Here is an image from last week's game. I can have the focus dead on, but when the player gets into traffic, the focus likes to jump to another subject.

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Going to give Group Focus a try. Thanks for the reply

That is the exact same problem I am having. I wish I had the option for the 9 points like on my 750