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General discussion

FZ5 - Taking motion pictures in artificial lighting

Jun 27, 2005 9:58AM PDT

Hi All

I've just bought an FZ5 and i want to take photos at the football (Aussie Rules) at an indoor stadium under stadium lights. I took the camera to a rugby game recently, but could seem to get steady photos when the players were moving. when i tried to set a higher shutter speed the photos were coming out too dark. I wasn't using a tripod.

Is there some setting that's good for those conditions?

Discussion is locked

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Action photos
Jun 27, 2005 10:17AM PDT

If you were using "Manual" mode, and you increased the shutter speed, the camera will not change the aperture setting to insure a correctly exposed photo.
Manual mode means you have to change the aperture setting.

If you were using "Shutter Priority" mode, and increase the shutter speed, the camera will adjust the aperture to correctly expose the photo (if it can).
If the aperture is at maximum (f2.Cool the camera can not adjust it further, and you will get a dark photo.
The camera may adjust the ISO to provide more light (effectively), but you would need to verify that with the User's Manual.
You can always increase the ISO setting yourself.

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It would be helpful to know for sure what mode you were using.

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Motion Images under artificial light
Jun 27, 2005 11:03AM PDT

I was using mainly Shutter Priority, although i did use Manual mode as well. I even tried the sports mode under the scene setting, but was still getting shaky images, oh and the majority of these were zoomed between 8 & 12x.

I found that if i manually increased the ISO to 400 and increased shutter speed i could take pretty dark photos that weren't blurred. I was thinking there might have been some other setting that could compensate?

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Action Low Light Photography
Jun 27, 2005 1:31PM PDT

is the most difficult.

You are streatching the FZ5 to the limit of its ability.

You need more light or a slower shutter speed.

One tip....make sure that you have the flash turned off when trying to photograph anything further away that 20 feet. If the flash is turned on, the camera is expecting to get some light return to its sensor. It might confuse the camera into selecting a wrong setting.

Here is a write-up that explains the relationship between shutter, aperture and ISO:

http://www.pbase.com/otfchallenge/the_basics

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The DSLR cameras are better in low light situations because they have larger ISO numbers (up to 3200) and very little noise at those larger numbers.

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Action Low Light Photography
Jun 27, 2005 1:52PM PDT

I know, i'm really demanding! I bought it mainly to take outdoor photos for my cricket club's website, the majority of which will be taken in bright sunlight so this won't be a problem there!

Thanks a lot for your help!