Lacrosse Photos with the Nikon D5100

arv160

Finally moved up to a DSLR from a point and shoot. Can someone tell me in simple words how to set up my camera to take outside lacrosse photos? My son is a goalie and all of my past photos from my point and shoot are blurry. I really don't know how to set up my new DSLR. I tried the sports setting during basketball, but still got blur. I assume I'll get the same with Lacrosse. Can someone help me out?

Moose

Howdy @arv160 - The key with sports photography is available light. It determines how fast your shutter speed will be.

When shooting indoors or in low light, the shutter speed will drop which results in blurry subjects. When shooting outdoors in bright light, the shutter speed will increase, giving you the ability to "freeze" fast moving subjects.

To get sharp action shots in low light, you'll need to increase your ISO, which will introduce lots of image noise and grain. To keep the ISO down and still get fast shutter speeds, you'll need a lens that lets more light into the camera. One that can attain an aperture between f/1.2 and f/2.8.

For indoor basketball, you could start with the Nikon AF-S 35mm f/1.8G or the AF-S 50mm f/1.8G. Both of these lenses have a large "bright" aperture that lets lots of light into the camera. The links I mentioned (above) will take you to my visual guides for each lens which will answer many of the questions you might have regarding low light photography.

As for Lacross settings (outdoors in bright light), just enable Shutter priority (S), set your shutter speed between 1/500 to 1/1000, set your ISO to Auto, enable continuous (burst) mode and set your focus mode to AF-C. This particular setup will allow you to continuously focus on your subject by half-pressing the shutter. When you fully press the shutter, hold it down to rattle off a series of shots in quick succession. This will increase your odds of a "keeper."

Happy shooting! :)

yioties

The Nikon 70-300mm VR would be good outside. For indoor sports, the 85mm f/1.8G would be great because with the 1.5x crop factor your focal length would turn into a 127mm prime!