I am sick of winter. And I know I am not the only one who feels that way. Sure, I spent the holidays in Hawaii with my family, but that getaway only made it harder for me to deal with the constant snow and cold that has made Wisconsin its haven for the past four months.
Don’t get me wrong; I made the most of the pretty winter landscapes by snapping them with my new digital camera. However, one can only take so many snow shots. These days most of my seasonal shooting is done indoors at my daughter’s sporting events.
Shooting indoors is a whole different ball game than shooting outdoors, and nothing makes the contrasts more glaring than shooting sporting events inside rather than outside. This season I have struggled to get the lighting just right in my shots. In addition, the lighting problems have affected my ability to freeze the action in the shot properly. Whereas shooting indoor sporting events indoors means that you have consistent lighting during the game, if the lighting is poor, then consistency means nothing.
During my daughter’s last game I set my camera at ISO 800, a shutter speed of 1/500 to freeze the action, and an aperture opening of 2.8. Unfortunately, that combo didn’t work very well as the school gym is really dark. Next time I am planning to crank the ISO up to 1600, adjust the shutter speed to 1/250 to freeze most of the action with some occasional blur, and set the aperture opening to f2.8 or f4. I am not sure that will fix all my problems, but even if it is too dark I can tinker with it on site. The issue I run into with the aforementioned settings is that I can’t really reduce the speed any more, as that will result in a blurry shot. What’s more, the lens is already wide open, so I can’t really change that either.
Any advice?
Related Articles:
Telling A Story With Your Shots
Snapping Frameworthy Shots Of Your Kids