9 replies to this topic

[Steve M]

I went to my grandsons Hockey game yesterday. I have questions about what settings one should use. The faces of my grandchildren are fuzzie. The rest of the picture is crisp and clear. I was pointing at the face and figured that maybe the mask or guard was messing with the camera focusing. So I moved to focusing on the chest. Light conditions are poor and I had to move up high on the bleachers to get by the plexiglass.

I have a Nikon D7200 and I used my 80 - 400 since I was up so high.

I used a shutter speed of 1600 and tried faster ones but no luck.
My Aperture was 8 and my ISO was auto. I also tried an aperture of 5.
AFC with 9 points, 3D and 51 points but I seem to have gotten the same results. Although out of the 50 pictures I took I did get about 8 that turned out good so I know the camera can do it.

What settings would you recommend and focus setup?

[ScottinPollock]

Hard to say without seeing the picture... but the camera either missed focus, or the subject was moving too fast to be frozen by the shutter speed.

 

Another thing about hockey, is that the camera will try its hardest to expose the white ice as grey (especially with matrix metering), so a stop or two of exposure compensation is usually needed.

 

A poorly lit hockey rink can be a challenge. If the camera indeed missed focus, I would go with a single cross point focus point to take the guesswork out of the equation.

[Steve M]

Hard to say without seeing the picture... but the camera either missed focus, or the subject was moving too fast to be frozen by the shutter speed.
 
Another thing about hockey, is that the camera will try its hardest to expose the white ice as grey (especially with matrix metering), so a stop or two of exposure compensation is usually needed.
 
A poorly lit hockey rink can be a challenge. If the camera indeed missed focus, I would go with a single cross point focus point to take the guesswork out of the equation.

Yes I know better to post a photo. I guess when it comes to family I stay on the side of caution. As for metering compensation I did set mine up to .7.

As I review the picture more closely there may be some movement. Tonight I get to try again. Here is one of the photos.

[MJL]

I think the problem could be a combination of AF mode & slow lens, i.e. either the lens is too dark for the camera to focus correctly (low contrast on the face) or the system try to hunt for a focus point on a fast moving subject in AF-S mode.  I mainly use AF-C mode and a f/2.8 lens shot through the plexiglass head on.

 

This pix was taken with a D500, Sigma 135-300/2.8 @ f/4.5, 1/1250, ISO 5000.

Oh, I see your sample now.  The high ISO doesn't help on facial details.  You got a way better face shot than mine.

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[Steve M]

I think the problem could be a combination of AF mode & slow lens, i.e. either the lens is too dark for the camera to focus correctly (low contrast on the face) or the system try to hunt for a focus point on a fast moving subject in AF-S mode.  I mainly use AF-C mode and a f/2.8 lens shot through the plexiglass head on.
 
This pix was taken with a D500, Sigma 135-300/2.8 @ f/4.5, 1/1250, ISO 5000.

Oh, I see your sample now.  The high ISO doesn't help on facial details.  You got a way better face shot than mine.

I too use AF-C all the time. I will use single point tonight and I will be in a better lit arena tonight.

My lens is fast but will only go down to a Aperture of 5.6 since it is extended out quite a ways

Nikon 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED AF-S VR

[ScottinPollock]

The photo posted was a 55-300 at f6.3/ISO14K, and it is still underexposed with a lot of crushed blacks and virtually no whites.

 

At 14k ISO noise is gonna kill you, especially in underexposed areas (the face). IMHO you could go up at least another stop (but that is gonna mean slower shutter and/or even higher ISO - not ideal).

 

Hard to explain the artifacts on the cross points of the face mask but there is a lot of smearing perhaps due to noise reduction. Were these shot as JPEGs? If so dial down the NR or shoot raw.

 

A 300mm F4 would would make a world of difference here.

[Steve M]

The photo posted was a 55-300 at f6.3/ISO14K, and it is still underexposed with a lot of crushed blacks and virtually no whites.
 
At 14k ISO noise is gonna kill you, especially in underexposed areas (the face). IMHO you could go up at least another stop (but that is gonna mean slower shutter and/or even higher ISO - not ideal).
 
Hard to explain the artifacts on the cross points of the face mask but there is a lot of smearing perhaps due to noise reduction. Were these shot as JPEGs? If so dial down the NR or shoot raw.
 
A 300mm F4 would would make a world of difference here.

That is right I did do a few with that lens. Yes this is the JPEG but I do shoot in raw also. One disk raw and one jpg. I will have to look at my raw pictures to see if any difference.

Thank you

[Merco_61]

As it is a jpg, what picture control was the camera set to? Try to play around with the picture controls in Capture NX-D on one of the better raw captures to learn which works best under the rink's (lack of) light. This makes it less impossible to shoot in jpg. The jpg locks the picture control in so it can't be changed after the fact.

[Steve M]

As it is a jpg, what picture control was the camera set to? Try to play around with the picture controls in Capture NX-D on one of the better raw captures to learn which works best under the rink's (lack of) light. This makes it less impossible to shoot in jpg. The jpg locks the picture control in so it can't be changed after the fact.

Picture Control is set to Vivid!

I do have Capture NX D so will play around with that

[TBonz]

I shot some sports with an 80-400 many moons ago when I had a D90...in my case I was shooting night games under the lights, so not much different lighting wise...Outside of the ISO I had to shoot due to the variable aperture, the biggest issue I had with the lens was the focus speed.  I loved the range and hated to give it up, but switched to a used 70-200 2.8.  It managed to significantly improve my keeper rate even if there were some shots I couldn't reach as well.  

 

When shooting hockey, I was always right on the glass shooting through it - just have to find a spot where you can see action that doesn't have lots of scratches!  For that age, you should be fine dropping your shutter to 1/1000 or maybe even 1/640...once they get bigger I wouldn't go under 1/1000...