Question:
Do you have any tips for shooting high school football night games and basketball games? I have tried the Sports shooting mode and I'm still getting blurred action.

Answer:
The Sports shooting mode does a good job shooting sports in the daytime when there is plenty of light, but shooting night games and indoor sports require different settings. Professional sports venues have very high light levels to support television broadcasts. Photographers who photograph indoor sports such as basketball may also have powerful flash systems setup in the rafters of an arena to stop action. Light levels at high school sports venues aren't nearly as high as venues for pro sports, so your camera must be set up to stop the action using high shutter speeds.

The first step is to select a high ISO-800 or higher. This will allow you to use higher shutter speeds to stop the action. Instead of the Sports mode, use the A (Aperture Priority) mode so that you can select the brightest aperture. Select the brightest aperture your lens will allow, example: f2.8 or f3.5. In the A mode, the camera will select the Shutter Speed once the Aperture is fixed. If your shutter speed is not at least 1/500th of a second, you will need to raise your ISO higher than 800. Using a high ISO may elevate the digital noise in images, so set the Noise Filter in the menu to Normal or High. Tracking or panning with the players as you shoot will add a bit more sharpness to the subject and blur the background giving the effect of movement. If your camera has Image Stabilization, using the I.S. 2 setting is the best for tracking football or basketball players. I.S.3 will allow you to track the subject while holding the camera in the vertical position. C-AF (Continuous Autofocus) can refresh the autofocus as you shoot. It is more suited to moving subjects that move in the same direction—it cannot follow-focus zigzagging runners because it cannot predict the focus point if the direction and velocity of the subject changes. One technique to speed up autofocus is to constantly half-tap the shutter button to refresh the autofocus point. This is called "feathering" the shutter button. Using the HI Sequential Shooting mode will increase the number of "keepers" from your shoot.

Lighting in school gymnasiums might not fall into any of the White Balance presets and may not be completely compensated for using the AUTO White Balance setting. The camera can create a unique white balance using the One-Touch White Balance technique. The camera captures and registers a unique white balance setting by taking a shot of a white piece of paper that fills the frame. Your camera may have a One-Touch White Balance button, or the function may have to be set into the camera's Function (Fn) button. Refer to the manual for your camera for details on using One-Touch White Balance. Remember to set the White balance back to AUTO after the game.

---

---

Submit your question using the form below and we may feature it in our next edition!

Please note: Questions submitted to Olympus will not receive individual responses.

If you have a specific tech support issue for which you need immediate assistance, please contact our technical support group by sending an email to distec@cs.olympus.com, or by calling 1-888-55-DIGITAL.