Your success rate improves if you set the shutter speed, aperture setting and leave ISO at "auto". Reason is that even on a sunny day if you change the direction you are shooting as little as 45 degrees you will find that the exposure will change and many photos will be over/under exposed. Sure you can adjust it in lightroom but that adds to your post production time.
Good tip. I'm a JPG shooter and when working news/sports events on deadline, the less tweaks and corrections we need to make in our final photo - cropping or exposure adjustments only of course - the better.
@@JerryTLai I have been digging through the manual and playing around with the controls. I am finally getting a handle on them and have my default settings set per your recommendations. Do you have a favorite Canon autofocus case for sports? Waterpolo season is coming up.
That custom WB with the paper is so great and may help me out in the future. Thank you, Jerry! :D. Hope you and your colleague are doing well at the Olympic.
Thanks for watching! It’s a bit of a marathon! I was hoping to get a video out while I am here but it looks like it will have to wait til I return in early August.
Show us how to manipulate the white balance for indoor sports. You know, on the color quadrants? Thanks. This video was very comprehensive and spot on!
Hello hope to find you doing well i recently observe one of your videos i find it to be very helpful thank you, i have been doing some indoor photo shoots as weddings, and stuff like that, am just no’t fully satisfied in how the images turn out, i know there is some i can do to improve the quality, can u help?
Hi Jerry! If you can't shoot with an ideal aperture, because of the limitations of your gear, would it be better to shoot an under exposed photo and try to boost the exposure in post, or shoot with a higher ISO and risk introducing too much noise into the photo? Thanks, really glad I found your channel!
Even if it's grainy, it is generally better trying to get the exposure right in camera. Even if you boost an under exposed photo in post processing, it will reveal more artifacts and noise than just creating it in camera.
I got confused about taking a picture of the white piece of paper & storing it as a setting. I tend to blow out when taking😮 photos of a white bird. I don’t know how to fix it. you explain things quite well. will you get into A/V vs. TV mode? Thank you.
Maybe you could cover metering and getting right exposure in difficult situations, say in windy partially cloudy weather when the light changes quickly and often. Fore example, when the light from the sun is unobstructed, then a cloud of unknown density gets in front of it and makes everything a shade and then it leaves, and then this kind of thing repeats itself constantly. :)
Great vids and thanks! To summarize, I shoot 12 yr old ladies playing bball in low lit gyms. I get away with 1/400-500 which helps with ISO being low(er). Do you think I need to transition to full frame mirrorless? Besides possibly more FPS is there any other benefit? Please keep em coming! Very informative and insightful, thank you again!
Thanks for watching! Funny you mention that Corey, my last video actually talked about some of the lowest shutter speeds you can shoot at, which is 1/400 or 1/500, particularly if you are shooting youth sports. The mirrorless v SLR debate is a good question. Quite honestly, the sensor technology and ability to produce great images is roughly equivalent. But the writing is on the wall and SLRs are getting near the end of their life cycle. They won't go away right away, but we're likely to see them slowly phased out in the next 10-15 years.
Hello Jerry thanks for the run through, May I ask that at some point you include an overview of the industry standard for editing sports photography. How heavy or light a touch is the norm, ie what is acceptable to you when an image comes across your desk. I understand artistic impression is subjective and varies person to person but what are the parameters for processing images for commercial publication. We always live in hope of one day producing images of quality, thank you for the information
Hi Mihangel, thanks for watching. That is a great idea, regarding how much/how little editing is regarded as the norm, at least in my field. Adding that to the list of future topics. Cheers!
Thanks Jerry for convincing me to go full manual. Aperture priority for a youth soccer match last weekend didn't quite cut it - a few motion blur photos at f/2.8! A question: how reliable is auto ISO in manual mode?
Auto ISO is decent. If you must use an auto setting, that is probably the only one to use. But even with that, I only use it under variable conditions - like if the field is half in shadow or a day that is partly cloudy and the sun keeps moving in and out.
This is great! I'm glad I have found your series. In a HS gym where the light isn't great but even and manageable would you start at 1600 shutter speed at 1600 or 3200 ISO? If the images are dark, will they be correctable in post?
Hi Jay! Welcome to the channel! So another viewer pointed out that 1/1600 would be difficult to achieve in a lot of HS or lower tier college gyms, which is true. It's my go to shutter speed, but you do need to adapt to your surroundings, especially if it's particularly dark. Truth be told, you can probably go all the way to 1/500 for shooting sports, if you don't mind a little bit of motion blur. Your tolerance to noise will be the driving factor in what you end up settling on. Unless you shoot in RAW, you are best underexposing your images because you can usually rescue detail/color from the file (you probably have about one stop of editing leeway). If you overexpose a JPG, that detail is lost forever.
@@JerryTLai Thank you! I don't have much tolerance for motion blur. I'm usually at 640 and sometimes 800. .... I think I have that right but I don't think my shots are too sharp, and that may be more to do with proper use of the BBF and such. I learned some new tips from that video that I'm gonna try.
I found 1/640 - 1/800 a decent sweet spot if you must drop your shutter speed to let in more light. At 1/500 you get a lot of finger tip blur with a fast runner, but especially at 1/800, any human running motion is stopped. You will however get some arm blur in very rapid motions like throwing a ball at that speed. Thanks for checking out the other vids as well. I think the BBF will help, as that adds another trick to your sports photography toolbox that you can use.
Hey Jerry, one more question: I tend to have issues with a basketball player being in focus when they are dribbling straight at me. I'm obviously doing something wrong. What is your technique when a person is running straight at you. ... If you have the person in focus right off the bat and then let off the BFF with it stay in focus coming right at you or do you have to continue holding it. I know it's a dumb question. I struggle with it. TIA
Focus right off the bat, and continue holding down the BBF. Make sure you are also in continuous AF, and not single shot AF. Another tip for autofocus, is autofocus usually works by detecting contrast points. So it naturally has a harder time in poor lighting conditions you often see in gyms. You can help it out by trying to put your focus point on the letters or numbers on a player's jersey. And hope they are not wearing black on black!
Hi Jerry! New subscriber here. Wanted to thank you for sharing your experience through your videos. I photograph my son's hockey games and am always looking to improve. What are your thoughts on increasing exposure compensation in camera as a means to correctly expose indoors rather than cranking up the ISO and introducing noise? I'm currently using a Canon 5DMIII body with a 70-200 f2.8 lens.
Hi Skippy, and welcome to the channel! I think generally you are going to be better off dialing a set manual exposure while indoors, instead of using one of the preset modes with exposure compensation. The problem with exposure compensation is it can get influenced frame-to-frame on a multitude of factors, from jersey color, to background. Hope that helps!
This is very helpful & thanks for posting this! I just got my Canon 5D Mark IV last week and heading down to shoot King of the hammers tomorrow. I've become comfortable shooting in TV mode and going to try Manual mode this trip. I usually wrap my cameras with a bandana or something like that to protect against the dust but do you have any tips for shooting in desert/dusty conditions (or in any kind of severe weather)?
Interesting, not heard of that event but I just looked it up. Sometimes slower shutter could work well for those kind of races, because then you can get some wheel spin or dirt kicking up. Speaking of dirt kicking up, be sure you have UV filter on your lens, so that takes the beating and not the lens itself. As for the camera and the lens body, I use a ThinkTank cover - it comes in different sizes. www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1431015-REG/think_tank_photo_740619_emergency_rain_cover_medium.html/?ap=y&ap=y&smp=y&smp=y&lsft=BI%3A514&gclid=Cj0KCQiAx9mABhD0ARIsAEfpavSe6iv-NKDxD03D0tdTy7auisC-5Y66xw0XCpI-pz8fRHp0UQvuLjkaArUpEALw_wcB
@@JerryTLai Thanks for the reply! I've been going to that event as a spectator for the past 10 years but this is the second time I'm going with media credentials.
@@JerryTLai Just wanted to follow up and let you know that I shot most of my photos using manual mode and they came out awesome! I did have to do a bit of tweaking due to the lighting situation but this video really helped me out!
This is a good question too... if most pics are being used for web or social, it really does hide a lot of quality concerns, and you can get away with older gear or higher ISOs. The small size of images on the web or social will mask a lot of noise and to some degree, sharpness issues.
Hey Jerry, what is your tolerance for noise, especially at night or in a HS gym? Can you go to higher ISO to offset higher shutter speed? Will that introduce too much noise?
Hey Jay, well sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do 🤷♂️ That said I prefer to have motion blur vs too much noise. I have a video out about lowest shutter speeds you can use for specific sports if desperate.
Hey Jerry, got any tips on making sure you nailed focus everytime? I shoot on Canon 1D classic that has poor 2 inch display with no preview zoom... So in a bright daylight I can't tell if my focus was off. I tried shooting with 5D mk2 but it has way to slow burst, and pretty bad focus system :(
Hi Mihajlo... yes I've used both the original 1D and the 5D, and even though the 5D is much newer, the original 1D is a superior sports camera. It has a much better, faster, and more accurate focusing system. That said, the 1D is a good camera, but it's not going to get the focus 100% every time - at least not compared to maybe the new Canons and Sonys. It has been a few years since I have used the 1D, so let me see if I can remember some of the tricks I used. First, switch to back button focusing if you haven't already. You'll also want to do single point AF... the 9 point surround is ok as well. Stick to using the center point, because it's the most sensitive one out of all of them. Also when focusing, try to put the focusing dot on a high contrast area of someone's jersey like where the text is. Avoid putting the dot on solid colors, particularly black. Give those a try and see if that helps boost your focus percentage.
@@JerryTLai I've been doing most of the things you advised except focusing on high contrast area, I've been trying to focus on player's face which made me miss a lot, and because I was using central focus point it left a lot of empty space above player's head, but I was fearing that focusing on jersey would leave me with a blurry face because of shallow depth of field at f2.8... Another thing is I can't find how to set up back button focusing on 1D classic :( I've seen on your other videos that you have an 1Ds classic, which I know it has back button focus and preview zoom, but I can't find those things on my 1D classic Once again, thank you for your helpfull reply!
I charged an old battery in the 1Ds and tried to view the menus. I think it's Custom Function 4, Option 3. That's what mine was set to, but then the battery died again because they are very old batteries and hold very little charge now. This is for the 1D Mark II but if I remember, the custom functions were mostly the same. www.naturescapes.net/articles/techniques/personalizing-the-eos-1d-mark-ii-with-custom-and-personal-functions-part-1/
@@JerryTLai OMG you were right Mr. Lai it was under custom functions 4. I feel so stupid for not seing it... On my 70D it was visual so I set it up pretty easy, and my 5D came already set with back button focusing... On 1D is very confusing but i tried every option under custom functions 4 and there it was :D Thank you so much!
So if you shoot in manual mode, will you not miss the action when trying to balance your exposure triangle rather than using one of the semi auto settings e.g aperture priority or shutter priority?
I only use auto ISO under variable settings - like in the mid afternoon when the stadium or seating sections may cast a harsh shadow over the field or under partly cloudy situations. If I know the exposure is going to stay the same across the playing field, I dial everything in manually as I don't want things in the periphery or jersey colors influencing what ISO the camera selects.
Jerry you just knocked another one out of the park. As usual 100 % agree with all content.
Appreciate that as always Forster. Much more to come. Have a nice weekend!
Your success rate improves if you set the shutter speed, aperture setting and leave ISO at "auto". Reason is that even on a sunny day if you change the direction you are shooting as little as 45 degrees you will find that the exposure will change and many photos will be over/under exposed. Sure you can adjust it in lightroom but that adds to your post production time.
Good tip. I'm a JPG shooter and when working news/sports events on deadline, the less tweaks and corrections we need to make in our final photo - cropping or exposure adjustments only of course - the better.
This is how I shoot! I am glad to hear it is an acceptable way to use manual mode!
Thank you for this. I will give this a try at the next meet.
Hope some of these settings help, especially as you get used to the dials and controls of your new 1Dx!
@@JerryTLai I have been digging through the manual and playing around with the controls. I am finally getting a handle on them and have my default settings set per your recommendations. Do you have a favorite Canon autofocus case for sports? Waterpolo season is coming up.
Thank you Jerry. You are very good and make it easy.
Again another top vid, Jerry.
Appreciate you stopping by as always Paul. Much more to come!
Thanks Jerry, seen you a bunch at Wrigley. You have elevated my sports photography.
That custom WB with the paper is so great and may help me out in the future. Thank you, Jerry! :D. Hope you and your colleague are doing well at the Olympic.
Thanks for watching! It’s a bit of a marathon! I was hoping to get a video out while I am here but it looks like it will have to wait til I return in early August.
Excellent explaination
Great content 👌🏻🙏🏻.
Can you talk about getting into the business of sports photography. If is not to much to ask. Thank you
Hi Peter! Thank you for watching. Yes that is on my list of topics to hit! Stay tuned!
Show us how to manipulate the white balance for indoor sports. You know, on the color quadrants?
Thanks. This video was very comprehensive and spot on!
Hi Adolfo, thank you for another great suggestion!
is great lesson thank you for sharing
Great advice! I really appreciate all your videos!
Hello hope to find you doing well i recently observe one of your videos i find it to be very helpful thank you, i have been doing some indoor photo shoots as weddings, and stuff like that, am just no’t fully satisfied in how the images turn out, i know there is some i can do to improve the quality, can u help?
Manual mode yes
Hi Jerry! If you can't shoot with an ideal aperture, because of the limitations of your gear, would it be better to shoot an under exposed photo and try to boost the exposure in post, or shoot with a higher ISO and risk introducing too much noise into the photo? Thanks, really glad I found your channel!
Even if it's grainy, it is generally better trying to get the exposure right in camera. Even if you boost an under exposed photo in post processing, it will reveal more artifacts and noise than just creating it in camera.
I got confused about taking a picture of the white piece of paper & storing it as a setting. I tend to blow out when taking😮 photos of a white bird. I don’t know how to fix it. you explain things quite well. will you get into A/V vs. TV mode? Thank you.
Excellent information
Glad it was helpful! Thanks for your continued support!
Thank you for another excellent video! Subscribed!
Glad you found this helpful and thank you for watching and for your support!
Great video
Sorry, I’m late to you channel. Shooting with Sony A7III. What metering mode do you recommend for baseball, football, and basketball?
Maybe you could cover metering and getting right exposure in difficult situations, say in windy partially cloudy weather when the light changes quickly and often. Fore example, when the light from the sun is unobstructed, then a cloud of unknown density gets in front of it and makes everything a shade and then it leaves, and then this kind of thing repeats itself constantly. :)
Set ISO on auto for those variable conditions, and maybe the quick dial to exposure compensation for some fine tuning on the fly
Great vids and thanks! To summarize, I shoot 12 yr old ladies playing bball in low lit gyms. I get away with 1/400-500 which helps with ISO being low(er). Do you think I need to transition to full frame mirrorless? Besides possibly more FPS is there any other benefit? Please keep em coming! Very informative and insightful, thank you again!
Thanks for watching! Funny you mention that Corey, my last video actually talked about some of the lowest shutter speeds you can shoot at, which is 1/400 or 1/500, particularly if you are shooting youth sports. The mirrorless v SLR debate is a good question. Quite honestly, the sensor technology and ability to produce great images is roughly equivalent. But the writing is on the wall and SLRs are getting near the end of their life cycle. They won't go away right away, but we're likely to see them slowly phased out in the next 10-15 years.
Shooting outdoors it's perfect but shooting indoors with these settings the image is blacked out
Informative sir 👍👌
Hi Rakesh! Happy to help, thanks for watching!
Hello Jerry this was daunting but really interesting tips. With regards to White Balance setting can you use a grey card as well. Thanks
Yes a grey card is good to set white balance. Using white for white balance actually tends to make for cooler (bluer) hues in your image.
Hello Jerry thanks for the run through, May I ask that at some point you include an overview of the industry standard for editing sports photography. How heavy or light a touch is the norm, ie what is acceptable to you when an image comes across your desk. I understand artistic impression is subjective and varies person to person but what are the parameters for processing images for commercial publication. We always live in hope of one day producing images of quality, thank you for the information
Hi Mihangel, thanks for watching. That is a great idea, regarding how much/how little editing is regarded as the norm, at least in my field. Adding that to the list of future topics. Cheers!
Muchas gracias, me voy ahora al estadio a fotografiar ColoColo vs Universidad de Chile Femenino, slds
Have a good shoot!
Thanks Jerry for convincing me to go full manual. Aperture priority for a youth soccer match last weekend didn't quite cut it - a few motion blur photos at f/2.8! A question: how reliable is auto ISO in manual mode?
Auto ISO is decent. If you must use an auto setting, that is probably the only one to use. But even with that, I only use it under variable conditions - like if the field is half in shadow or a day that is partly cloudy and the sun keeps moving in and out.
I was in this exact situation yesterday with an overcast-ish day where the sun popped in and out so went with auto ISO and got some awesome images!
This is great! I'm glad I have found your series. In a HS gym where the light isn't great but even and manageable would you start at 1600 shutter speed at 1600 or 3200 ISO? If the images are dark, will they be correctable in post?
Hi Jay! Welcome to the channel! So another viewer pointed out that 1/1600 would be difficult to achieve in a lot of HS or lower tier college gyms, which is true. It's my go to shutter speed, but you do need to adapt to your surroundings, especially if it's particularly dark. Truth be told, you can probably go all the way to 1/500 for shooting sports, if you don't mind a little bit of motion blur. Your tolerance to noise will be the driving factor in what you end up settling on. Unless you shoot in RAW, you are best underexposing your images because you can usually rescue detail/color from the file (you probably have about one stop of editing leeway). If you overexpose a JPG, that detail is lost forever.
@@JerryTLai Thank you! I don't have much tolerance for motion blur. I'm usually at 640 and sometimes 800. .... I think I have that right but I don't think my shots are too sharp, and that may be more to do with proper use of the BBF and such. I learned some new tips from that video that I'm gonna try.
I found 1/640 - 1/800 a decent sweet spot if you must drop your shutter speed to let in more light. At 1/500 you get a lot of finger tip blur with a fast runner, but especially at 1/800, any human running motion is stopped. You will however get some arm blur in very rapid motions like throwing a ball at that speed. Thanks for checking out the other vids as well. I think the BBF will help, as that adds another trick to your sports photography toolbox that you can use.
What’s a definition of pro and beginners and what’s entry level. Is there a level system you do to level up. It’s confusing.
Hey Jerry, one more question: I tend to have issues with a basketball player being in focus when they are dribbling straight at me. I'm obviously doing something wrong. What is your technique when a person is running straight at you. ... If you have the person in focus right off the bat and then let off the BFF with it stay in focus coming right at you or do you have to continue holding it. I know it's a dumb question. I struggle with it. TIA
Focus right off the bat, and continue holding down the BBF. Make sure you are also in continuous AF, and not single shot AF. Another tip for autofocus, is autofocus usually works by detecting contrast points. So it naturally has a harder time in poor lighting conditions you often see in gyms. You can help it out by trying to put your focus point on the letters or numbers on a player's jersey. And hope they are not wearing black on black!
@@JerryTLai Thank you! Gonna give it a shot tonight. I appreciate you taking the time to answer me.
Hi Jerry! New subscriber here. Wanted to thank you for sharing your experience through your videos. I photograph my son's hockey games and am always looking to improve. What are your thoughts on increasing exposure compensation in camera as a means to correctly expose indoors rather than cranking up the ISO and introducing noise? I'm currently using a Canon 5DMIII body with a 70-200 f2.8 lens.
Hi Skippy, and welcome to the channel! I think generally you are going to be better off dialing a set manual exposure while indoors, instead of using one of the preset modes with exposure compensation. The problem with exposure compensation is it can get influenced frame-to-frame on a multitude of factors, from jersey color, to background. Hope that helps!
This is very helpful & thanks for posting this! I just got my Canon 5D Mark IV last week and heading down to shoot King of the hammers tomorrow. I've become comfortable shooting in TV mode and going to try Manual mode this trip.
I usually wrap my cameras with a bandana or something like that to protect against the dust but do you have any tips for shooting in desert/dusty conditions (or in any kind of severe weather)?
Interesting, not heard of that event but I just looked it up. Sometimes slower shutter could work well for those kind of races, because then you can get some wheel spin or dirt kicking up. Speaking of dirt kicking up, be sure you have UV filter on your lens, so that takes the beating and not the lens itself. As for the camera and the lens body, I use a ThinkTank cover - it comes in different sizes. www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1431015-REG/think_tank_photo_740619_emergency_rain_cover_medium.html/?ap=y&ap=y&smp=y&smp=y&lsft=BI%3A514&gclid=Cj0KCQiAx9mABhD0ARIsAEfpavSe6iv-NKDxD03D0tdTy7auisC-5Y66xw0XCpI-pz8fRHp0UQvuLjkaArUpEALw_wcB
@@JerryTLai Thanks for the reply! I've been going to that event as a spectator for the past 10 years but this is the second time I'm going with media credentials.
@@JerryTLai Just wanted to follow up and let you know that I shot most of my photos using manual mode and they came out awesome! I did have to do a bit of tweaking due to the lighting situation but this video really helped me out!
Sorry but I watched again and I have another? Is noise a real concern if most pics stay on our gadgets or may be on a 4x6?
This is a good question too... if most pics are being used for web or social, it really does hide a lot of quality concerns, and you can get away with older gear or higher ISOs. The small size of images on the web or social will mask a lot of noise and to some degree, sharpness issues.
Hey Jerry, what is your tolerance for noise, especially at night or in a HS gym? Can you go to higher ISO to offset higher shutter speed? Will that introduce too much noise?
Hey Jay, well sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do 🤷♂️
That said I prefer to have motion blur vs too much noise. I have a video out about lowest shutter speeds you can use for specific sports if desperate.
@@JerryTLai Thanks!
Hey Jerry, got any tips on making sure you nailed focus everytime?
I shoot on Canon 1D classic that has poor 2 inch display with no preview zoom... So in a bright daylight I can't tell if my focus was off.
I tried shooting with 5D mk2 but it has way to slow burst, and pretty bad focus system :(
Hi Mihajlo... yes I've used both the original 1D and the 5D, and even though the 5D is much newer, the original 1D is a superior sports camera. It has a much better, faster, and more accurate focusing system. That said, the 1D is a good camera, but it's not going to get the focus 100% every time - at least not compared to maybe the new Canons and Sonys. It has been a few years since I have used the 1D, so let me see if I can remember some of the tricks I used. First, switch to back button focusing if you haven't already. You'll also want to do single point AF... the 9 point surround is ok as well. Stick to using the center point, because it's the most sensitive one out of all of them. Also when focusing, try to put the focusing dot on a high contrast area of someone's jersey like where the text is. Avoid putting the dot on solid colors, particularly black. Give those a try and see if that helps boost your focus percentage.
@@JerryTLai I've been doing most of the things you advised except focusing on high contrast area, I've been trying to focus on player's face which made me miss a lot, and because I was using central focus point it left a lot of empty space above player's head, but I was fearing that focusing on jersey would leave me with a blurry face because of shallow depth of field at f2.8... Another thing is I can't find how to set up back button focusing on 1D classic :(
I've seen on your other videos that you have an 1Ds classic, which I know it has back button focus and preview zoom, but I can't find those things on my 1D classic
Once again, thank you for your helpfull reply!
I charged an old battery in the 1Ds and tried to view the menus. I think it's Custom Function 4, Option 3. That's what mine was set to, but then the battery died again because they are very old batteries and hold very little charge now. This is for the 1D Mark II but if I remember, the custom functions were mostly the same. www.naturescapes.net/articles/techniques/personalizing-the-eos-1d-mark-ii-with-custom-and-personal-functions-part-1/
@@JerryTLai OMG you were right Mr. Lai it was under custom functions 4. I feel so stupid for not seing it... On my 70D it was visual so I set it up pretty easy, and my 5D came already set with back button focusing... On 1D is very confusing but i tried every option under custom functions 4 and there it was :D
Thank you so much!
So if you shoot in manual mode, will you not miss the action when trying to balance your exposure triangle rather than using one of the semi auto settings e.g aperture priority or shutter priority?
You can set your ISO to AUTO if you want to.
Since shutter speed and aperture are pre determined do you use auto iso?
I only use auto ISO under variable settings - like in the mid afternoon when the stadium or seating sections may cast a harsh shadow over the field or under partly cloudy situations. If I know the exposure is going to stay the same across the playing field, I dial everything in manually as I don't want things in the periphery or jersey colors influencing what ISO the camera selects.
@@JerryTLai Do you use the cameras metering system to determine iso or separate light meter?
I use the in camera metering to ballpark it, and adjust as necessary based on what I see in the back of the camera.
Great video