Heres my rant for the day, I'm bored and in my highschool digital photography class, so you shall be my victim! If I'm wrong with anything I'm saying, please point it out :thumbup:
This is a bit excessive in noise for use I'd say.
But as KmH stated, pros with the top of the line camera bodies, still get noise in photos.
The problem is your trying to capture incredibly fast actions, in an indoor, poorly lit stadium, without a flash.
Just happened to read this article this morning and was shocked at the poor quality of the photo they used. I think my D3000 could have taken a clearer picture.
http://aol.sportingnews.com/nba/sto...nd-cavaliers-return-miami-heat?ncid=webmail11
Consider the nikon d3000 has a Iso Range of 100-1600, or with Iso Expansion the equivalent of 100-3200.
The canon 1D X has an Iso range of 100-51200, or with Iso Expansion 50-204,800
Now we look at lenses!
The canon 70-200mm F2.8 IS- This is one of the basic standard lenses that most canon shooting amateurs-pro'togs will have in their aresenal. This is one of the cheapest most common lenses I see being used.
With the lens you have to consider depth of field, depending on what you want to capture you need to change your depth of field accordingly, which means changing your aperture, which means changing your Iso. Maybe 200mm @ f2.8 is too shallow for what you want to capture in the image, so you stop down to f4 for the sake of simplicity, this means you need to increase your Iso accordingly.
BASICALLY WHAT I AM GETTING AT:
Its difficult to say that a sports photo is bad, or too noisey. If you really inspect images used in newspapers, sports articles, ect. You will find they are usually rather noisey.
With sports photography you have to carefully consider your depth of field, focal length, the lighting conditions, aperture, and Iso. You must understand how these all relate to shutter speed.