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11/11/2002 06:11:15 AM · #1 |
I recently went to a cross country meet and wanted to take pictures of the high school kids running. I'm only 13 and new to photography so my Dad, who is very experienced with 35mm cameras, and I bought a digital camera to save money. We got a Fuji Finepix F601Zoom. The problem with it is when you go to take a picture you have to wait a while. This anticipation makes it extremely hard (for me anyway) to take pictures of runners. The aperture settings are from F2.8 to F8 with shutter speeds of 1/4 to 1/2000(programmed auto), 1/4 to 1/1000(aperture priority), 2 to 1/1000(shutter priority) and 2 to 1/1600(manual exposure). Does anyone have any suggestions as to what shutter speed and aperture setting to use or just any helpful information that I could use at next weeks meet? Thanks
Edit: Some replies have asked what I want focused and what type of blur effect I would like. If at all possible I would prefer the whole scene to be in focus(jsut out of curiosity and in case I change my mind the exact opposite, jsut the subject in focus, might be helpful too) and for the subject to be without blur.
-Thank you to all who have replied. I have a much better understanding.
* This message has been edited by the author on 11/11/2002 12:19:52 PM. |
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11/11/2002 06:39:25 AM · #2 |
Your answer lies in what you want your final photo to look like... do you want to stop the motion or do you want to allow motion blur?
THIS tutorial may answer some of your questions...
The delay you are experiencing may be autofocus. If you press the button half way to compose your exposure, pressing the rest of the way should give you a fairly quick response... i'm not sure on your particular camera though...
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11/11/2002 06:41:15 AM · #3 |
You can probably 'pre-focus' the camera, by half-pressing the
shutter, then moving it around to get the actual picture you want,
and press the shutter all the way down. This usually cuts
the shutter-lag dramatically.
Look in your manual for 'pre-focus' techniques. For sports/
action, you can lock the focus / exposure in by pointing at the
track where they will be then reframing once you've half pressed
the button and wait til they come into the scene then press
the shutter.
You can also do panning with this technique - try shutter speeds
in the 1/20s range probably, or if you want sharp action, somewhere
around 1/125s or so.
Wider the aperture (f2,f2.8 type range) the faster the shutter speed,
as more light is getting in. |
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11/11/2002 07:10:01 AM · #4 |
Originally posted by theanswer397:
I recently went to a cross country meet and wanted to take pictures of the high school kids running. I'm only 13 and new to photography so my Dad, who is very experienced with 35mm cameras, and I bought a digital camera to save money. We got a Fuji Finepix F601Zoom. The problem with it is when you go to take a picture you have to wait a while. This anticipation makes it extremely hard (for me anyway) to take pictures of runners. The aperture settings are from F2.8 to F8 with shutter speeds of 1/4 to 1/2000(programmed auto), 1/4 to 1/1000(aperture priority), 2 to 1/1000(shutter priority) and 2 to 1/1600(manual exposure). Does anyone have any suggestions as to what shutter speed and aperture setting to use or just any helpful information that I could use at next weeks meet? Thanks
That, friend, is not an easy question to answer. (My answer is that I would start manual shooting at 1/500 and f/5.5 and adjust from there until I get what I like, but that's not much of an answer, is it?)
Answer two questions... How frozen do you want your action? And, How much of the field do you want in focus? Then decide how much of a compromise you can handle.
It may be useful to allow the photo to gain some blurring effect around legs and arms and such to imply motion; or you may want it stopped as a tight moment in time... (Select your shutter speed range)
You may want to isolate the runner you are shooting by causing the rest of the field to be soft; or you may be interested in capturing all of the runners in a dead heat as sharply as possible. (Select your aperture range)
These questions are precisely what Aperture-priority and Shutter-priority modes are designed to address. You are telling the camera which aspect of the photo, aperture or shutter-speed, is most important to you (thus "priority") by manually setting that aspect, and allowing the camera to change the other setting automatically to compensate for exposure.
This can have some undesirable effects, though. If you set your shutter speed too low in SP mode, the camera will set the aperture very small to avoid overexposing the shot. This causes your depth of field to be very deep, and may thwart your attempts to produce a well-isolated subject.
On the other end, if you select a very small aperture to force a deep field and very sharp images, there might not be enough light to expose a shot at the shutter speed you would want, so you wind up with motion blurring because the camera exposed too long. Or perhaps you select an aperture that is wide enough to isolate your subject, but because you are in full sunlight, there is not a shutter speed fast enough to prevent overexposure, and the camera cannot compensate.
Personally, I would start shooting Shutter-priority for athletic events. Get a feel for what the lowest speed is that gets good stopped motion and work from there (something faster than 1/250 or so), shooting faster speeds and slower speeds, to establish a range. Then, knowing what speeds you want to use, shoot some in Aperture-priority mode to get an idea of how the depth of field works, and what shutter speeds the various f-stops generates in the program for the current conditions. (This is another bit of trickiness. Conditions change quite drastically when shooting outdoors. So, your aperture and/or shutter selections for now may not be appropriate in 5 minutes!)
You may find that, in full sun, all aperture settings produce acceptable shutter speeds, and you can go forward with that mode. But, under overcast skies, you might find that the smallest apertures cause the camera to expose too slowly. So, you might want to go with Shutter-priority to select your speed, and just accept the depth of field that the auto-aperture gets you. It's really a matter of what's going on in the environment where you are shooting.
There is some pretty solid and straightforward math that can be done to predict exposure for a given shutter and f-stop in any particular lighting situation, but very few (if any) folks bother with that. Mostly, people just get a "feel" for speeds and apertures and how they work, and you will too. The glory of digital is that you can play with that stuff and get feedback in real time. The "feel" will come faster for you because of this. Just remember that the "feel" is really an awareness of how you are going to compromise hat you WANT to do with the camera versus what is POSSIBLE.
You know, I don't know if any of this was helpful. I just started typing, and here's where we wound up... I will try to collect my thoughts and type something more concise later. Good luck!
Best,
Mark
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