Football photography.

[Danthus]

I am hoping Derek W can chip in here.

I want to have a bash at snapping a couple of pre season friendlies. One game is an afternoon kick off, the other in the evening.

I have a Nikon D7100 and will hire the Nikon 70 - 200mm f2.8 lens.

From what I have read so far you want to be low to the ground to capture the action if possible.

In terms of camera settings, I guess that continuous focus would be better, what about metering?

I imagine because of the fast paced nature I wouldn't want to be in manual mode, so is aperture priority the best way to go?

 

[Rojin]

The lower angle gives a nicer perspective. For metering you'll have to make that call on the day. Spot metering could be all over the place dependant on the shirt colours, where will the sun be with regards to your position etc. I just wouldn't over think it at this stage, just try different approaches if one isn't working for you. Shutter speed is key, so change your settings around that. For football I'd try to keep it above 1/800 if you can for the evening game but that will depend on the lighting you have. During the afternoon you hopefully won't have too many issues getting way above 1/1000.

You will be cropping a fair bit when the action is away from you, but that shouldn't be too much on an issue. Continuous AF is your best bet, I'm afraid I don't know anything about the specific options you have on the D7100. You might want to try slowing down the AF Servo acquisition so players running between you and the target don't take the AF focus away (if you have that option?). If using aperture priority gives you the shutter speed you need, then that is fine. You can always ramp up the ISO to help if needed.