[mapguy]

I am using my K3II with a FA 200mm f2.8 lens at night taking pictures of the football team and marching band under outdoor stadium lights.

I set the aperture wide open and the shutter for 1/250 and let the camera decide the iso speed. Not sure what mode I had the metering set on.

I got a lot more light that I expected to, but the pictures seem off a little. The lighting seems weird.

Are there any built in camera settings to adjust for the outdoor stadium lighting?

[mhoule418]

TAv should be your friend. And also auto white-balance.

[bschriver11]

I think your best option would be to set the white balance off of a gray card. I use center weighted average most of the time but might use spot metering in certain situations, the lighting is never evenly distributed so there are still lighter and darker areas especially when your talking high school sports. I've never had success with auto white balance, going gray is your best bet.

[mapguy]

I think your best option would be to set the white balance off of a gray card. I use center weighted average most of the time but might use spot metering in certain situations, the lighting is never evenly distributed so there are still lighter and darker areas especially when your talking high school sports. I've never had success with auto white balance, going gray is your best bet.

Can you walk me through how to do that?

Im just an amateur at this stuff, who happens to have a few nice lenses. Also would I have to do that from the field?

I am not officially doing this for the school; just my nieces and nephews, I won't be able to get on the field under the lights.

---------- Post added 10-15-18 at 12:23 PM ----------

And 1/250 may be a little slow

I was just doing the old 1 / focal length rule for hand held shots, because I had a 200mm lens. I could bump it up to 1/500.

[bschriver11]

Go to the white balance setting and scroll to the manual setting and select, then simply use the shutter to take a photo of a white or gray card under the lighting you will be shooting in and then hit ok. The trick is to have a card that is true white or true grey for best results but i have used plain printer paper with decent results.

[mapguy]

Thanks for the advice, just ordered a white/grey card off amazon, hopefully I have it for Friday night. I ll try to go through some of that in the backyard with the flood light on.

One more question....

You mentioned 1/350 being good enough for football players being parallel to me, do the shutter speed have to be faster if they are coming towards you?

I wouldn't have thought it matter, moving being moving?

Truth is, Im not in a great position to get many game shots of my nephew playing, I am mostly shooting my niece in the color guard and this week they have the families walk on the field as they call their names out. My sister was looking for a few photos of that.

[cdd29]

I shot at my daughter's marching band comp Sat. night and was about midway up in the stands with a K-3ii & 18-135mm. Used auto WB (I can change in photoshop if desired) and was shooting 1/125-1/250, F/4-5/6, ISO 800. Most turned out fine (a few out of focus but exposed fine).

[bschriver11]

You could change them in photoshop and that would work fine. My goal is to get them right straight out of the camera and the manual white balance does the trick. He doesn't know yet how to set manual white balance so i doubt he is up to speed with photoshop.