Sports/action

[gstaska]

Good morning all, I have a question that I could use some help on. I get to shoot high school basketball for our school and have an issue with some of the pictures being blurry. how can i fix this? I am shooting with a Cannon Mark ll 5D, using a 28-80 lense, shooting in P, ISO 1600 depending on the gym and 1/100s average. is blur normal? or is there a way to tweak this to do better? I am totally an amatuer and still learning, so please keep it simple for me! Thanks

 

[KmH]

1/100 is to slow a shutter speed.

For action sports a shutter speed of at least 1/250 is usually needed, and often as much as 1/500.

A stop faster shutter speed from 1/100 would be 1/200. You can get that one stop increase by changing the ISO from 1600 to 3200.
A 1 stop change is a doubling or a halving. In this case, in order to halve the shutter speed, you have to double the ISO.

Note that an additional 1 stop of shutter speed, to 1/400, may be needed which would necessitate changing the ISO from 3200 to 6400.

Your basic problem is that you need more light to use the gear you have, but image noise is preferable to blurry.

 

[fjrabon]

shooting sports in P is rarely advisable. You need a shutter MUCH faster than 1/100, which is actually too slow for people walking normally, let alone playing basketball.

Typically I find that 1/320 is the absolute minimum I can get away with for basketball. And even with that, I generally can't shoot players running perpendicular to the angle I'm shooting at without panning a little bit. 1/400 is usually what I end up shooting at, but if I can get to 1/500, all the better.

Basically my thought process is this: my fastest aperture on the lens I shoot basketball with is f/2.8. I wouldn't want to shoot any lower than f/2.8 anyway because of depth of field concerns. but regardless, it's not available to go lower anyway, so f/2.8 it is. Next, I put my shutter speed at 1/400, then ISO 3200. Those are about average setting for a high school gym. Then I point my camera at the gym floor, at a non painted, non glaring portion, I then see what the light meter in the camera says for that (typically I use center weighted average for this metering wise). I know most gym floors are about a half stop brighter than neutral. So, I expect my light meter to read roughly a half stop too bright. If that's off, I adjust my settings accordingly. First I adjust ISO. If I run into ISO 6400 I will usually drop down to shutter speed 1/320. If I can't get a good exposure with ISO 6400, SS 1/320 and f/2.8, I know it's going to be rough shooting anyway.

Basically, to shoot basketball well, you more or less MUST have the ability to shoot at f/2.8. There is a reason why sports photography is considered one of the most expensive genres of photography there is, because you need really good lenses to shoot it well. There are plenty of genres where you can get away with even entry level lenses (landscape and portraits can get great results with even a kit lens that comes with the camera), but indoor sports require the big lenses.

Here is a shot from the last game I covered:


IMG_3792 by franklinrabon, on Flickr

here were the settings for the shot:

[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR="class: lookatme"]
[TH]Camera[/TH]
[TD]Canon EOS 7D[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: lookatme"]
[TH]Exposure[/TH]
[TD]0.002 sec (1/500)[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: lookatme"]
[TH]Aperture[/TH]
[TD]f/2.8[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR="class: lookatme"]
[TH]Focal Length[/TH]
[TD]80 mm[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TH]ISO Speed[/TH]
[TD]3200[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]


And this was a fairly well lit gym AND I used pretty good noise reduction software. It took a lot of things coming together to get that shot: 1) fast glass 2) fairly well lit gym 3) good anticipation 4) quick, accurate focusing lens and camera 5) knowing the player was right handed, seeing him get the steal, running to the side of the rim I shot from by knowing he'd dunk with his right hand 6) a good crop to get the framing just right, a tiny bit of straightening 7) using noise reduction software in post, sharpening, and evening the light out a bit.

 

[gstaska]

Thanks what mode do I want my camera in? P TV Av?

 

[fjrabon]

Thanks what mode do I want my camera in? P TV Av?

In a gym I almost always shoot manual. I'll also have aperture priority set and ready to go in case I take some crowd shots. Basically I shoot all the game action on manual, and flip over to aperture priority whenever I shoot the crowd or bench area, since the crowd and bench area typically aren't evenly lit the same way the gym floor is.

Another option, if you don't want to shoot manual is shutter priority (Tv), with auto ISO on. Shutter set to 1/320-500, depending on what you can get away with.

 

[gsgary]

Your also using an old slow lens that is not capable in low light

 

[fjrabon]

yes, your camera body matters much less than your lens, and specifically what aperture is can go down too. Also 80mm is pretty short for a full frame camera shooting action.

Pretty much what most everybody shoots basketball with is a 70-200mm f/2.8 constant aperture lens.