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09-08-2021, 11:15 AM   #46
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QuoteOriginally posted by ramseybuckeye Quote
I'll agree with several others saying your shots aren't that bad, and that you don't need that high of a shutter speed. Soccer is not easy to shoot. It's a very free flowing game and action can easily be missed, don't expect to get every great play, you may get a great shot on any play. I'm guessing it is high school since they are playing on a filed also lined for football, and a lot of these venues are not lit well at all. The KP does help you a lot here with it's low light abilities. You can push that ISO and do well if you don't need to do heavy cropping. I personally would shoot in Tv mode, I think the camera does a good job of selecting aperture and ISO. Always take a few shots to test what type of shutter speed you can get. I've always been a center spot AF user, but I have been experimenting with multi point on flying birds and such, and getting results that are way better than I expected. It seems to me the continuous autofocus works better with 9 points. So do some trials. You shooting position can really help you too, of course you want to be as close to the field as you can, if you can get beyond the goal lines (and actually behind the goal) you can get some really nice viewpoints. I haven't got to shoot soccer for a while, but I always got ready for any set piece action, because it is more predictable than any other part of the sport. You have a ton of suggestions, try several, good luck, and enjoy the games.
I think you do need a high shutter speed. I shoot a lot of youth soccer, and in good light 1/1000th is the minimum I'd use, and even at 1/1250th you'll sometimes get balls and feet with some motion blur. Sometimes with very poor lighting I'll go as slow as 1/500th, but understand that those will often or usually have some blur and the ball will show obvious blur.


I always shoot sports in TAv, and allow the ISO to float as necessary. On my old K-3 II I'd cap it at 12800, but anything over 3200 or 6400 was not great, and reserved for nighttime shots in poor lighting. With the Mark III I have no problems going to 25600 or even higher if the light isn't great. I'll take that over motion blur.

I'm usually using the 55-300PLM, and shoot either wide open or a few clicks down from that. It has a narrow enough max aperture that it provides good depth of field even wide open. And it's sharp enough, too.


With the K-3 II or K-30 I would always, always, always use center point autofocus with back button focus. That was really the only way to get decent results with soccer, any of the expanded areas just wouldn't keep up. With the Mark III Expanded Area (S) or (M) works quite well, and I still use back button focus. After years of doing that tying the shutter to the focus seems weird and unnatural and I'm always getting refocus when all I want to do is hit the shutter.

My other rule of thumb for soccer is "two eyes and the ball". I almost always get better results standing near one of the goals than on the sidelines. If the subject of interest has their back to you something extraordinary has to be going on to make a compelling photo. If your favorite player's face is in the scene and the ball is there, too, you'll often get good shots with nothing of particular note going on.

09-09-2021, 05:32 AM   #47
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QuoteQuote:
My experience has been that ISO 6400 on a K-3 II is about equivalent to 25600 or even higher on a K-3 III. You're not going to pixel peep heavy crops of distant birds at ISO 25000+ on a K-3 III, but you get several stops gain over the last generation K-3. Everything I've read says the K-5 is roughly as good as a K-3 or K-3 II if you crop those to 15Mp.
You and I have different standards. Every one of my shots can hold up to pixel peeping, or they are discarded. While I find noise offensive, I don't mind a bit of motion blur. Different strokes and all that. I'm just not one of those guys who bought a 24 or 36 MP camera to get the same resolution as 8 MP images.

Last edited by normhead; 09-09-2021 at 05:39 AM.
09-10-2021, 01:48 PM   #48
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QuoteOriginally posted by normhead Quote
You and I have different standards. Every one of my shots can hold up to pixel peeping, or they are discarded. While I find noise offensive, I don't mind a bit of motion blur. Different strokes and all that. I'm just not one of those guys who bought a 24 or 36 MP camera to get the same resolution as 8 MP images.
I'll do what I need to get results out of the conditions I'm handed. If something exciting is happening on the far side of a poorly-lit soccer pitch I'll take something that won't stand up to pixel peeping. If I have to crop heavily and use ISO 25600, so be it. It's more about the memories and emotions of the moment than not being able to view it at 100% on a 4K screen with zero degradation. But like you say, different strokes and all that.
09-10-2021, 02:03 PM - 1 Like   #49
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QuoteOriginally posted by ThorSanchez Quote
I'll do what I need to get results out of the conditions I'm handed. If something exciting is happening on the far side of a poorly-lit soccer pitch I'll take something that won't stand up to pixel peeping. If I have to crop heavily and use ISO 25600, so be it. It's more about the memories and emotions of the moment than not being able to view it at 100% on a 4K screen with zero degradation. But like you say, different strokes and all that.
I understand where you are coming from. I have one shot of my daughter in the air coming off the board at a swim competition. She was 1/100 off the time to qualify for the Olympics. I wouldn't trade it for anything. She's small fuzzy and out of focus (film image and the high speed film was grainy.) But it's been years since I was taking that kind of image.


Last edited by normhead; 09-10-2021 at 06:38 PM.
09-11-2021, 06:53 PM   #50
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New Soccer Photos

Thursday night I was able to get down on the field instead of being in the stands. I think being close to the action helped quite a bit especially with shots later in the evening under the lights. I also think shots where I don't have the zoom fully extended are sharper. And obviously I can get more shots with shorter focal lengths when I'm down on the field.

Hopefully all of the exif information transferred this time. I shot in TAv mode with ISO maxed at 3200. It made some of the shots a little dark. This week I'll go higher on the ISO and see how it does. Under the lights, I'm pretty much limited to f2.8 unless I want to bump the ISO way up there.

I just ordered a new SD card (SD extreme) - not sure if that will help with the burst speed or not. I haven't held the shutter down that long to make much of a difference I don't think - a couple seconds max. But I currently have a very old card (ScanDisk SDHC).

I also might try my 18-135 Pentax and maybe even my 55-300 pentax - early in the evening. Maybe try it on my K30.

I also just realized after messing around with my camera, that while the autofocus (back button) is pressed, the burst rate is much slower. So many hobbies, but only so much time to learn the nuances of them all...

I'm taking photos for the coach so she can put together a slide show at the end of the year so it's not like I need SI quality photos, but at the same time I don't want to put trash out there either.

I also don't fully understand the number of photos we can have attached within our account. I think I"m pretty close to the max, but it looks like if I make another donation it will increase the space?
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Last edited by schnur07; 09-11-2021 at 07:12 PM.
09-12-2021, 04:46 AM   #51
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QuoteOriginally posted by schnur07 Quote
Thursday night I was able to get down on the field instead of being in the stands. I think being close to the action helped quite a bit especially with shots later in the evening under the lights. I also think shots where I don't have the zoom fully extended are sharper. And obviously I can get more shots with shorter focal lengths when I'm down on the field.

Hopefully all of the exif information transferred this time. I shot in TAv mode with ISO maxed at 3200. It made some of the shots a little dark. This week I'll go higher on the ISO and see how it does. Under the lights, I'm pretty much limited to f2.8 unless I want to bump the ISO way up there.

I just ordered a new SD card (SD extreme) - not sure if that will help with the burst speed or not. I haven't held the shutter down that long to make much of a difference I don't think - a couple seconds max. But I currently have a very old card (ScanDisk SDHC).

I also might try my 18-135 Pentax and maybe even my 55-300 pentax - early in the evening. Maybe try it on my K30.

I also just realized after messing around with my camera, that while the autofocus (back button) is pressed, the burst rate is much slower. So many hobbies, but only so much time to learn the nuances of them all...

I'm taking photos for the coach so she can put together a slide show at the end of the year so it's not like I need SI quality photos, but at the same time I don't want to put trash out there either.

I also don't fully understand the number of photos we can have attached within our account. I think I"m pretty close to the max, but it looks like if I make another donation it will increase the space?
I think those look pretty good. You can see at 1/500th you still get some motion blur, especially with the ball and feet. But at 2000 or 3200 I don't see anything objectionable with the noise. I would try letting ISO go up several stops higher and use faster shutter speeds, see if you like those results.


I would also try pulling up the exposure in photos like the middle one, which is a little under-exposed and dark. This is where shooting RAW would be an advantage, although you have some latitude even with jpegs.

Just keep shooting and trying different things, experience will certainly help. I've been shooting soccer for most of a decade and still learning new techniques. With night games under poor lighting you always have to make compromises with either shutter speed, ISO or aperture, often more than one. You just have to figure out which compromises work best for you.
09-12-2021, 07:27 AM - 1 Like   #52
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I'm going to shoot in raw next week and see how it goes with the post processing.

09-12-2021, 02:56 PM   #53
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I took a few shots today at my older son's game in Olney, north of DC. Nothing outstanding, but a good lesson in nothing beats good light and fast, accurate autofocus. Very sunny day, so lots of light for the K-3 III and the 55-300 PLM to work with. Fewer compromises make for better photos.

But even in full sun shooting at 1/1250th you'll get a bit of blur from the ball and sometimes feet or hands.
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