Camera settings

[hwm3]

OK, tomorrow is the first barrel race of the season and I'm wanting to take some pics. I'm using a Canon Rebel DSLR and the race is inside. I took a few last time we were at this arena, and they didn't turn out that great. Any suggestions on settings?

Oh, and I don't want to use the flash.

[Kitzy]

It's all in the glass.  I'm new to DSLRs but I do know if you want to take good inside shots you need a fast lense.  Everything I've read says atleast a 2.8 lense but man they're expensive.  You need to keep the shutter speed fast while still letting the light in.  You can always play with the ISO to help boost the shutter speed.  Take everything I'm saying with a grain of salt because it's mostly things I've read as I'm trying to get better with my D80.  I definitely don't know what I'm doing yet.  If you have something like photoshop and you shoot in RAW, you can save a lot of you images that didn't come out quite right.  There's not much you can do if they're blurry but if they're too dark or bright oyu can adust a lot of the settings to really help bring back how it looked to the naked eye.  Sometimes even better.  I just got Photoshop CS4 a couple weeks ago and I really like it.  A lot better than CS2 I was using.  You ca't really appreciate the RAW format until you use a program like photoshop.

[Rollingrock]

OK, tomorrow is the first barrel race of the season and I'm wanting to take some pics. I'm using a Canon Rebel DSLR and the race is inside. I took a few last time we were at this arena, and they didn't turn out that great. Any suggestions on settings?

Oh, and I don't want to use the flash.

If you are shooing inside with no flash in the "green" zone (fully auto) with a slow lens, the camera is going to select a higher speed setting thus I suspect your photos were very grainy?  Is that right?  If so, in the digital world we call that "noise"

Need faster lens and more light. 

Open one of your photos on the camera in play mode...hit display, and I suspect you will see ISO 800+

[Bunky]

You will definitely need to crank up the ISO.  You have decide how much depending on how much noise you can tolerate at higher iso levels (personal preference). Obviously you want to shoot as fast of a shutter speed you can and you will likely do it wide open. If you are at full zoom and in focus, you this make work from a depth of field perspective.

I would try to take some pics at the distance to check on exposure as soon as you arrive to see how fast you can go. If you do not do much cropping of the final image shoot highest MP and then crop.   Your ability to prevent blur you need skill in panning and a fast shutter.


Good luck. You will ideally need a F2.8 type lens.  If you can shoot raw, do it and see what post processing can do to improve noise.

[hwm3]

OK, tomorrow is the first barrel race of the season and I'm wanting to take some pics. I'm using a Canon Rebel DSLR and the race is inside. I took a few last time we were at this arena, and they didn't turn out that great. Any suggestions on settings?

Oh, and I don't want to use the flash.

If you are shooing inside with no flash in the "green" zone (fully auto) with a slow lens, the camera is going to select a higher speed setting thus I suspect your photos were very grainy?  Is that right?  If so, in the digital world we call that "noise"

Need faster lens and more light. 

Open one of your photos on the camera in play mode...hit display, and I suspect you will see ISO 800+

I tried to take a few in full auto and they were blurry. I tried to take a few in the "action" setting and they were blurry. So I played with the settings in manual mode and finally got a few to come out decent.

I'd love to drop $600+ on a good lens, but most of our races are outdoor and I can't justify spending that kinda money to take pics at 4 races out of the year.

Other than cranking up the ISO, what other settings should I adjust? Using the stock lens and a Canon 75-300mm f/4-5.6.

Thanks for the help guys.

[hwm3]

Here's one of the better ones from last time at this arena.

[Bunky]

What settings were you using for ISO, shutter speed, aperture, zoom level?

If you shoot at 75mm you will be 1 stop faster than full zoom. At 75mm you will get less blurring due to camera shake if handheld.
If shoot in highest rez mode, you can crop the picture.

[Old Dogg™]

Other than cranking up the ISO, what other settings should I adjust? Using the stock lens and a Canon 75-300mm f/4-5.6.
Thanks for the help guys.

Changing the ISO or shutter speed will help some but you are going to have to take some big jumps and your image quality will suffer with no flash.
 
You need to dump the lens you are using if the light is low and you want to capture action.  It's just too slow.  If you are on a budget and have to use it avoid anything over half of the lens zoom if you have to zoom at all.  You can slow down the shutter speed but then anything moving will be blurry since hand held you normally should not shoot any slower than the focal length of the lens.  (Example zoom at 75 means you should not set your shutter speed slower than 75).

Sorry to tell you but action photos, slow lens, low light and no flash will always equal poor results. 
Using that big zoom is going to force your shutter speeds to be faster and taking action photos will also require faster speeds so the only real variable you have left is aperture and the big slow zoom is limited to 4-5.6 minimum.

Flash would be the cheapest fix for quality photos. 
Just manually set it for a quick short little pop.
If you are shooting at distance...forget it.