Cool ideas from the pros please......

[raen]

My son is playing under the lights of a High Schhol statium tonight for the first time................I don't want to miss a thing. I would love to catch that one awesome shot to print poster size to hang in his room. So, please ideas, settings, sugestions.

One other problem............I may not be able to get too close tothe field. My lens is a 55-135mm.

 

[JoelNB]

For one thing, pick a location where the lights don't hinder you, and where they help the shot.

If you are shooting from a distance, consider a tripod as zooming will amplify your movement.

If you have a high resolution camera, consider less zoom. Using a tripod can be difficult with an action shot. If you pull back a little you won't need to move around as much. You can crop a high resolution shot down to a couple of megapixels and still get away with poster size.

 

[raen]

Thanks for the reply. I am going to try to get down very close to the field, but these ideas help if I can't.

 

[maroun.c]

hi Rae,
Don't be afraid to shoot with wide apertures, as the more the distance of your subject the more DOF you get with the same aperture so being away works for you in that way, at the same time this will allow you the fastest possible shutter speed with the lens yo uare using which will decrease both your motion as well as your sons. Still working from that distance will cause blurr from the slightest motion so try to hold the camera as steady as possible. Tri or mono pod would be great if allowed. don't be afraid to use higher ISO depending on your camera. I remember you have a D40? don't know for sure how it handles noise wise at high ISO however I would rather get a noisy sharper image than a blurred image with litttle noise.
Try to get the exposure right on as lighting up the shadows in postprocessing increases the noise.
finally as yo uasked for a pro opinion the pro opinion would be a 70-200VR or maybe an 80-200 2.8 as those can shoot at full zoom wide open at 2.8 which will give you faster shutter speeds and therefor less blurring doe to camera or subject motion. Still those two zooms especially the 70-200 are quite pricey.