I am trying to take action photos with a Nikon D90 using a 70-300 VR lens at night with low light. Pictures are blurry?

I am trying to take action photos with a Nikon D90 using a 70-300 VR lens at night with low light. Pictures are blurry. What settings should I be using to catch the motion (quick shutter) vs low light?

Asked by gup 23 months ago Similar questions: action photos Nikon D90 70 300 VR lens night low light Pictures blurry Arts > Photography.

Similar questions: action photos Nikon D90 70 300 VR lens night low light Pictures blurry.

The specs on the Nikkor 70-300 VR is minimum f/4-5.6 f/4 and f/5.6 refers to aperature size, the larger the number, the less light entering into the lens. Usually you only find one f/stop number on a lens spec, but on zoom lenses, you can sometimes find two, e.g. F/4.5-5. On the nikkon 70-300 VR.

The f/4 will apply when the lens is set at 70mm end of the zoom, and the f/5.6 will apply when the zoom is set at the 300mm end of the lens. Basically what I am saying is the 70-300 VR is a slow lens..... a fast lens will have a very low f/stop number like f/1.4.... you will get some blur no matter what you do versus fast action subject matter, but let's work with what you have.OK... at night time you aren't gonna get much light.In order to shoot at night I recommend the following equipment, and/or D90 camera settings, the pros/cons of each. 1) a tripod.

This will help you A LOT. If you are gonna hand hold the camera at night, and try and shoot action photos, you are just setting yourself up for a lot of frustration. If you can't get a tripod, try and see if you can rest and balance your camera on a ledge or something.

Anything to keep the camera steady, so when the shutter opens and the camera vibrates, it will be minimized and the photos will be sharper.2) set your D90 to "Tv" shutter priority mode. If it is on "P", or "Av" the shutter speed may vary as you shoot. With shutter priority, you simply set one shutter speed, and it will stick.

If there is enough light, I recommend you set the camera to a minimum 1/60 speed. That will stop the action enough to minimize blur unless the subject is too fast, or if there is not enough light 3) set your D90 to a high ISO number. Minimum 640.

Don't worry about graininess. We are not using film cameras anymore. A digital camera will have less graininess and noise in the photo than film.

Just as long as you are exposing the image correctly (don't underexpose, or set the EV to minus 2 or something) the image will come out ok. ISO numbers basically amps up the sensor makes it more sensitive. An analogy: it's like boosting the gain on a stereo amplifier in order to hear a weak signal; there will be some hissing noise due to the amplification, but the music signal will be audible.4) use flash.

It will help a lot. I will also recommend you set the shutter speed to 1/60 when you use flash. Also set the metering point mode to "spot", and not to "evaluative" or "matrix", or "Center-Weighted Average" you want the camera to judge the exposure based on the subject matter, not the background.

Settings: IF you are shooting something outside illuminated by a street lamp, the best settings you can muster with this lens will probably be ISO 800, 1/4 shutter speed, at f/5.0 that is slow. If we double the ISO from 800 to 1600, we can now speed up the shutter speed, but to 1/8. Still too slow.

If we also use flash on these settings, we can up the shutter speed to 1/125. That is sufficient for stopping lens blur and stopping action. If the camera complains that the lens aperature is out of range, then drop the shutter speed down to 1/80 to see if that helps.

All using flash of course. ---- if you can't use flash, welp... just crank up the ISO number as high as you can. Use "spot" metering mode, and use "Tv" shutter priority camera mode, start at 1/125 shutter speed, and work the shutter speed down until the camera stops complaining about the f/stop number.

Sources: experience .

Let me explain you the way it works... Let me try to explain you how it works so that you can always decide yourself what are the correct settings for the effect/look you want. In the "old days" of film cameras, for the film to register the picture, a certain amount of light had to reach the film during a certain amount of time. This is called Exposure.

Let's pretend that it is noon, the sun high in the sky, there are lots of light, and the correct exposure was 1 second. On that same day, close to sunset, the available light was half the one that was available at noon. How long will be the Exporure?2 seconds.

We had half the light, so we needed twice the amount of time to received the same amount of light. Apart from Exposure, we have other important variable: Aperture. Each and every lens have a certain aperture.

This is basically the size of the opening inside the lens that will let light go through. When the Aperture is big, more light gets in. When Aperture is small less light gets in.No with these 2 variables (Exposure and Aperture), if you want a smaller Exposure time, you need to let in more light, so you will need to increase the Aperture.

On the other side, if you want a longer Exposure time, you need to decrease the Aperture (to let less light in). There are other colateral effects on Exposure and Aperture - I will explain it right away. But first, let's go to the 3rd and last variable: Sensitivity.

Back in the old days of film, most people would use an ISO 100 film. This is a reference number for sensibility to light.An ISO 200 film would be twice as sensitive. And a 400 ISO film would be 4 times more sensitive than a ISO 100 film.

With film cameras, if you wanted to change Sensitivity, you would need to change the film loaded in the camera.It is all much easier now with the digital cameras because we can control the Sensitivity of the sensor - because there is no film - and we can change it on each and every shot. Assuming we have a specific Aperture setting and a specific Exposure time, at ISO 100, if we change ISO to 200, and keep the Aperture, the Exposure time will be half what we had because the sensor is not twice more sensitive and so needs just half the amount of light. So basically we have 3 variables we can control: Aperture (the opening in the lens), Exposure (the amount of time the light hits the sensor) and Sensitivity (also called ISO, which is the sensitivity of the sensor).

What can we achieve with certain settings: if you have a long exposure, it is comon to get blurred pictures unless you have a tripod. Smaller exposures are able to "freeze" the action (good for sports, for example). With big apertures, you tend to get the main subject in focus and all the rest out of focus.

With small apertures, you get more things in focus (this is called Depth-of-Field). If you are getting blurred pictures at night, if the subject was standing still, it was you moving during a long exposure and it can be fixed using a tripod. If the subject is moving and it is blurred, then you need faster Exposure.

You can increase the Aperture size and if it is not enough, you can also increase the ISO (Sensitiviy). You can control your camera in one of 2 major ways: Exposure Priority (S mode on the top dialer ion your camera) and Aperture Priority (A mode on the same dialer). If you choose Aperture, then you change the aperture values and the camera adjusts the Exposure automatically.

If you choose the Exposure mode, you change the Exposure time and the camera adjustd automatically the Aperture. The camera evaluates the light available and determines how long or how much light must be used to a correctly exposed picture. Remember there is always the ISO setting available too.

This is indeed very simple principles and once you understand them you will be able to make your own decisions based on the available conditions and the result you want to have. I hope this helped you. Please feel free to contact me in case you want to clarify anything.

If you're happy let me know by sending me a compliment. Thanks for your time!.

Dial up your ISO, use shutter priority, and possibly underexpose using RAW, and crop It could be tricky and may not be feasible (without flash) at all, depending on how dark the place is and how fast the subjects are moving. The key is to fix the shutter speed (that is fast enough to freeze the subject) and do everything you could to get enough exposure. Try to set the shutter speed that is fast enough to freeze the subject, e.g. , 1/60 sec (you have to try to find out).

Once you know, you can keep the shutter speed by setting the camera to shutter priority mode (T). Increase the ISO to very high, probably 1600 or even 3200 to get the picture brighter: the higher it gets, the easy for the picture to get sufficient lights, but the picture would be more nosiy (not as pleasing) If it is still blurry, set the exposure compensation to -1 or -2. Make sure you shoot in RAW mode. The picture will still be dark.

But you can use post-processing tools (the one Nikon provides, Photopshop, Lightroom, etc.) to brighten the picture. The picture will look even nosier but there is just not much choice. Shooting RAW (as opposed to jpeg) will give you the best quality.

Lastly, if your zoom is closer to 300mm end, try to shoot one at 70mm and crop the picture afterwards. It helps in two aspects: a) at 70mm you could get more light by opening it to f/4.5 (of one more stop technically speaking), and b) you also reduce the likelihood the picture gets blurry because the camera is shaky (at 300mm it'll be more sensitive to any movement of your hand, setup, etc. ) Extra bonus tips: If you feel the resulting picture is too noisy (with lots of little spots with wrong color), you could also consider convert the picture to Black-and-white, basically to hide the defects. Sources: 1st hand experience of shooting low light with D90 orion_orange's Recommendations Understanding Exposure: How to Shoot Great Photographs with a Film or Digital Camera (Updated Edition) Amazon List Price: $25.95 Used from: $15.93 Average Customer Rating: 4.5 out of 5 (based on 710 reviews) If you feel some of the explanation sounds too technical, Understanding Exposure is a great book that could help you to understand the basic concepts to unleash your creativity!

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1 If the pics are blurry the shutter speed is too slow. Use shutter (S) mode to set the shutter speed very high and the aperture should adjust accordingly. Try increasing the ISO to 600 or 800 in low light.

If you are shooting from a tripod, turn the VR off.

If the pics are blurry the shutter speed is too slow. Use shutter (S) mode to set the shutter speed very high and the aperture should adjust accordingly. Try increasing the ISO to 600 or 800 in low light.

If you are shooting from a tripod, turn the VR off.

2 But just be aware: as ISO increases, the image quality goes down. Especially, noise (grain) increases and color accuracy decreases. That lens is not particularly designed for low light shots.

If you are able to borrow/rent/buy a faster lens, that might allow you to keep ISO low enough for a decent shot. Fast tele-zooms are expensive, but that is why sports photographers can take good shots at night games.

But just be aware: as ISO increases, the image quality goes down. Especially, noise (grain) increases and color accuracy decreases. That lens is not particularly designed for low light shots.

If you are able to borrow/rent/buy a faster lens, that might allow you to keep ISO low enough for a decent shot. Fast tele-zooms are expensive, but that is why sports photographers can take good shots at night games.

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I am looking to buy the Nikon D90 but want to know a good lens to go with it.

Looking for a Macro/Portrait lens for my Nikon d90.

Am using analogue nikon f4 what lens would suit to give great portrait pictures, especially low light stuff.

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