[Mangoman45]

I have just tried taking some football (soccer) photos under night time floodlight conditions and the results from using the Moving Object Mode on Auto Focus were frequently blurred. What should I do to overcome this?

[asp1880]

The blur could be due to slow shutter speed, or misfocus, or camera shake.

If it's slow shutter speed, try increasing the ISO to 3200.
If it's misfocus, perhaps you don't use your focus point selection the best way, or you don't pan smoothly.

Which lens did you use? You'll get the best results with a proper sports lens such as a 70-200/2.8.

Indoor or nighttime sports is inherently difficult. It's one of those rare cases where the saying "it's not the gear,
it's the photographer that counts" doesn't quite hold, unfortunately.

Can you post a sample picture, preferably with exif (image metadata, shooting parameter data etc) intact.
This is the single piece of info that will get you the best answers by far.

Regards,
--Anders.

[wsteffey]

I have tried using continuous focus on moving horses (large subjects filling most of the image area) in bright daylight and have never had success. It seems as if the camera never stops trying to focus, and nothing is ever correct. Your conditions were much, much more difficult, and I am not surprised. Perhaps someone can offer some tips on using continuous focus, but in the meantime I have gone back to single focus, center spot

[percy]

Is it motion blur? Are you using Shake Reduction? SR works best for static shots.

If you are panning it will be trying to compensate for the panning movement and will most likely not stabilise the image but introduce some motion blur (caused by the sensor moving while trying to stabilise). Checking the exif data with a program called ExifTool or pyExifToolGUI will tell you whether or not the SR has stabilised.

Try turning off SR and using a faster shutter speed.

(nb - some third party lenses have in built SR with a 2 position shake reduction mode - one which is designed for panning. But take care to use only the camera or the lens SR, not both together)

As far as Continuous focus is concerned, I generally switch between centre point and multi point depending on the situation I'm in at the time. They both work fine in different situations, but I tend to use centre point more.

[Mangoman45]

I was using a DA 55-300 lens. This picture was taken at 1/50th second at f4, ISO 1600

[asp1880]

I was using a DA 55-300 lens. This picture was taken at 1/50th second at f4, ISO 1600

That's just old fashioned motion blur. Actually it could be kinda cool if you cropped it, because the player in possession of the ball is sharpish while his opponents are a confused blur trying to keep up with his swift footwork. The shot could work with the appropriate caption.

The 1/50 shutter speed is the problem. You're strapped for light. Ideally you'll want 1/500th second shutter speed or better to freeze the arms and legs.
Perhaps the best you can do with your current equipment is set ISO to 6400. You'll not reach 1/500 but only 1/200. You'll still see some blur, and more noise, but better overall.

Get a sports lens with f/2.8 or better aperture. That'll give you 1/500 shutter speed at ISO 6400. Those are not cheap though.

Regards,
--Anders.

[Just1MoreDave]

The light is really working against you, as posted above. One alternative is to go with the type of shot you almost got, by panning. That is, following one player with the lens so that his motion is cancelled out by the following. Everything else will have intentional motion blur. I don't think any picture mode will help with panning. Here is an example I took recently:




I was using a 120mm manual focus lens for this. I focused on the road in advance. Panning works with a slow shutter speed. This shot used 1/20 sec., which allowed me to stop down a lot, f13 at ISO 100. It looks like she's going fast but it's only 15mph.

For your shot, you could focus in advance on a point on the field where you expect a player to cross at speed. Then turn off the autofocus. Set the camera to M mode, shutter speed to 1/30 or so, and take a shot of that spot. That should allow you to adjust aperture to get enough depth of field and ISO to get a good exposure. (The exposure shouldn't be that much different when the player is in the shot, unless the uniforms are all white.) Now you have to figure out whether that shutter speed is too fast or too slow with some more practice shots. The ideal speed is related to how well you can pan along with him, his speed, your distance and focal length.

I used a K-7 for my shot which has two burst modes. The highest speed setting is 5 frames a second, really too fast for this. There's a slower setting that your K-x should be able to match, and I used that for my shot. Then I could press the shutter button in advance, follow the action, and have several frames to choose from. Another alternative is to just take one shot when the player hits the right point.

[percy]

According to the picture EXIF it was 1/40th of a second, not 1/50th, which is fairly slow for that type of shot unless you are panning.

Try setting it to shutter priority with a shutter speed of say 1/200th of a second and let the aperture and ISO settings take care of themselves (make sure the ISO is set to auto). Set a lower shutter speed if you need to to get the correct exposure, but try and keep it above 1/100th. Then just play around and see what works for you.

But you may have a problem using faster shutter speeds if there is just not enough light available, and ultimately your best solution may be to get a faster lens.
The 55-300 is a good lens and excellent value for money (I had one for a while and would happily recommend it to anyone), but it's not the fastest focussing of lenses and works better with plenty of light available. To get faster autofocus and a lens that works better in lower light normally means spending in excess of £500 for something like a Sigma or Tamron 70-200 F2.8