Shooting in low light - people

[Ms Monny]

Hi

This has probably been asked a million times....maybe a zillion....but last night I was stuck. I was photographing our boys at footy training, which is about 4.30-5pm, with a couple of the Port Power players.

I was frustrated that I could not get a good enough speed so they wouldn't be blurry. I was using a 55-250 kit lens (yep, only gets down to f4) and I really didn't want to push it past ISO 400, as the noise gets too bad (for my liking).

My question is, how could I get my speed up with the equipment and settings I was using?? Prob couldn't, could I? I would prob need a lens that would stop down to f2 or something, hey??

I did have my speedlite but I knew I was too far away for it to even be of any use. Only TWO IMAGES were salvageable. Shocking. The following images are not the salvageable ones either.

Even when I did the posing photos, with the speedlite, they weren't perfect. Grrrrr.

The first image here was 90mm, f4.5, 1/125 sec and the flash fired. Both are ISO 800

I focused on the Port Player and it, I presumed, was in focus when I took the shots. When I zoom in they are sooo fuzzy and there is nothing I can see that is in focus.....even though in both images the speed was faster than the lens length, so hand held should have been fine!!

IMG_8034.jpg

The second image is 96mm, f5, 1/125 sec with no flash.

IMG_8025.jpg

These are SOOC, nothing changed.

I recently had my camera's sensor cleaned from a reputable place. Since I got it back I can't seem to get any decent shots and I half think it is me, being out of practice, but also have a doubt about that.

I also took pics of a morning soccer game, the day after I picked up my camera from the shop, and those were pretty hit and miss too!! Blurry (fuzzy) and not many keepers.

So frustrating!!

Maybe it is all me and I need to really consider what I am doing here.