Help with soft or out of focus results

[ebrim12]

I am shooting soccer with a Canon T3i with a Canon 70-200mm 2.8 IS II Lens plus a 1.4 Teleconverter. Often I get Soft or out of focus results as shown in the attached photo. I am not a trained photographer but gotten much better results as well. Can anyone help with what I am doing wrong? This shot was 1/1250 sec at f/4.0 280mm ISO 800.

 

[The_Traveler]

what part is too soft.
The person doing the header is quite sharp, especially after a little bit of sharpening in post-processing.
the rest are just out of the depth of field of the lens, I think.

 

[ebrim12]

Thanks for your feedback. Maybe I am too critical of my shots. What type of edits do you recommend in post?

 

[The_Traveler]

What do you do now?
Do you shoot in raw?
Do you reduce noise?
Do you sharpen routinely?

 

[ebrim12]

Honestly, this is all new to me. Just subscribed to Adobe CC and started playing with Photoshop this week. Most of the sports photos have been shot in Large jpg as the Raw seems to be to slow with the Canon T3i. Thinking of looking for a different body that has faster FPS and better ISO for indoor sports. Again your help is greatly appreciated!!!

 

[The_Traveler]

What do you do now?
Do you shoot in raw?
Do you reduce noise?
Do you sharpen routinely?

The picture looks really nice (with a tiny bit warming to account for daylight bluish tones using the player's shirt as neutral)

 

[The_Traveler]

Honestly, this is all new to me. Just subscribed to Adobe CC and started playing with Photoshop this week. Most of the sports photos have been shot in Large jpg as the Raw seems to be to slow with the Canon T3i. Thinking of looking for a different body that has faster FPS and better ISO for indoor sports. Again your help is greatly appreciated!!!

Well, you have a good start.
It's a steep hill so take it a bit at a time.
Learn about your camera, start learning to take and then process images.

Lew

 

[KmH]

Start your image editing in Photoshop CC Camera Raw.
Starting in Camera Raw instead of Photoshop | Learn Photoshop CC | Adobe TV

Learn Photoshop CC | Adobe TV

 

[bratkinson]

It looks to me that your camera 'chose' the back of #21 as the focus point. Perhaps it's just the way the computer at work shows it. Although I am not a sports photographer, I've found my best luck at setting the camera to use only the centerpoint for AF and that way, I KNOW where it will focus.


I'm also thinking your depth of field is a bit thin at f4. As a result, with the focus on the back of #21, the face of the player in the maroon shirt is just a tad soft, but correctable in post. The player directly beneath the ball, perhaps 4 feet to the rear, is well beyond the DOF. I'm also thinking that with the teleconverter, f4 is wide-open on the 2.8 lens. It's common knowledge that very few lenses are at their sharpest when wide open. I'd try boosting the ISO to 1600 to get to f5.6 for a larger DOF, unless the shallow DOF is your goal.

 

[ebrim12]

bratkinson - thanks I think you are correct. I am using center point focus but seem to have a problem focusing on the correct player. I am using back button focus and AIServo but still trouble. Any suggustions.