It’s pre-season for the A-League and Melbourne Victory have started their training matches. These matches are at the grounds of semi-professional teams from the Victorian Premier League. The grounds are lit well enough for playing but for photography it’s a challenge. To stop the motion it’s best to shoot at 1/000th of a second. At these grounds, even with a f2.8 400mm lens that means shooting at ISO 6400-8000. As these shots show, with a bit of noise reduction in Lightroom the results are excellent. More of a problem is the dynamic range when players are directly under the light. Shooting in RAW allows the highlights to be recovered and the shadow detail boosted. It’s actually a lot of fun to shoot night matches with the D4! Just click on the photo and you can see the EXIF data if interested. More photos here: flickr.com/photos/syd/sets/72157630773802770/
Some camera settings: Manual exposure. Manual white balance 4550 kelvin (approx). AF-C, 9pt, Raw
