U14 girls soccer

Civchic · May 21, 2014

Yesterday I forgot my "Don't push the T3 over ISO400 rule" and as the Grinch says - "NOISE NOISE NOISE!!" But it was a 7pm game, in the rain, in very grim grey clouds. I lowered the shutter as much as I could. This was way more challenging than my first go a few weeks ago in bright sunshine!

Also, quite a learning experience with the lights when they came on during second half. Much less of a plus than I would have figured. I know everyone says "the camera does not see light the way your eye does" and last night taught me that!

may 20 rachel 2 by civgirlca, on Flickr

may 20 candace by civgirlca, on Flickr

may 20 lexie kick by civgirlca, on Flickr

This was a learning experience!

Big Mike · May 21, 2014

Yesterday I forgot my "Don't push the T3 over ISO400 rule"

Where did you ever hear that rule....it's utterly rubbish.

Any photographer (who knows what they are doing) is always making some sort of compromise with their settings...usually between wanting a faster shutter speed and wanting a lower ISO. It's perfectly acceptable to use a higher ISO, if that is what you need to do to get a shutter speed that is fast enough for your needs.

Digital noise won't necessarily ruin a photo. Plus, you can apply noise reduction in post process. A blurry photos from too slow of a shutter speed however, is good for nothing.
So if you must choose between a higher ISO or a slower shutter speed, the better choice is usually the higher ISO....but it's on you to decide on that compromise.

I have DSLR cameras that are much older than the T3 (and thus probably show more noise at similar ISO numbers). ISO 400 is just fine and even ISO 800 is passable. I'll even use ISO 1600 if I need to. Like I said, it's better than getting blurry photos.

Another thing to note, is that if you nail your exposures or Expose to the Right, then you will end up with less digital noise that if you underexpose your photos and have to make them brighter in post. This is a big reason why 'good' photographers usually aren't afraid of higher ISO.

(I can't see the photos, my firewall doesn't like Flickr).

Civchic · May 21, 2014

It's not a rule I've heard, it's my own thing!

I have never once been completely happy with pictures I've taken at ISO800 or higher, but I also haven't begun really exploring the powers of post production besides a bit of exposure correction or white balance correction. Maybe I'm just a chicken!

Thank you for the info on exposure correction - when I shoot birds I tend to underexpose a touch so I can pull out feather details in post, and I'm almost always shooting in conditions that allow me to stay at ISO400 or less. For the next dim soccer game I will bite the bullet and push the ISO higher, stay on the positive side of the metering, and see what I come up with - for the record, I did stay faster than 1/180 at shutter speed, so I only got a bit of blur on the ball and feet. But that means that they were mostly a bit (or more than a bit!) underexposed, which as you say probably increased noise. My blurry shots were due more to missed focus point (hitting the chest or knee instead of the eyes) than slow shutter speed.

I will save these shots RAW files to prod myself into learning more noise reduction in PP. Thanks!

TheNevadanStig · May 21, 2014

I think you could of used a faster shutter speed here. There are parts of the players bodies that are blurry due to the slower speeds that would have been better sharp, even at the cost of more noise, I think it would have made for better photos overall. I don't really look at any of these and think my goodness, you need noise reduction.
#3 could have been excellent with a faster shutter. Try for more face and eye contact in the future. Soccer isn't the most action-packed sport, so for shots that aren't showing some super cool move or something like that, you need to go for good face contact and showing of emotion during the game.
It's interesting to see what settings others use in less than ideal conditions, and I wonder if the lens you were using isn't very good at gathering light. What time of day was it? The sky doesn't look that bad to me in all honesty. I did a shoot recently during a hailstorm when the sky was completely covered in really dark storm clouds, and I could still get 1/1250, f/8 at 800 ISO out of it, and it's not like I'm using top end gear at all either.

KmH · May 21, 2014

The 3 photos you posted are under exposed to one extent or another. The last is under exposed a lot.

Under exposure makes image noise more visible so digital photographers learned to expose to the right of the histogram (ETTR) to ensue image highlights get sufficient exposure to minimize image noise. Increasing exposure post process makes image noise even more visible.

Optimizing Exposure
ETTR
Exposing to the right - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The T3 does not have Spot metering mode which is one reason I never recommend the camera.
The light metering mode you set the camera too will also affect exposure.
Understanding Camera Metering and Exposure

Post process noise reduction softens image sharpness and reduces detail, so there are limits to how much image noise you can eliminate.
Some of the lost image sharpness and detail can be retrieved by judicious image sharpening.

Sharpening & Detail

Civchic · May 21, 2014

Thank you all! This is super helpful and a wealth of information, which I will take my time to peruse.

TheNevadanStig - it's the Canon 55-250 f/4 -f/5.6 with IS, not a high-end lens by any means. This is only my second time attempting sports so I'm really a beginner with this. It was around 7:30-8:05pm and quite dark, heavy cloud cover and light rain with occasional bursts of downpour. I was using shutter priority mode and at 1/250 and ISO400 the meter was flashing at me, indicating it was more than 3 stops underexposed. I went up to 800 and 1600 towards the end of the night but most of those were garbage.

Next game I will be more brave with both ISO and shutter speed. Besides, nobody is paying me for this, so it doesn't matter to anyone but me if I bin a whole night's worth of photos!

Of course, the girls love the photos since most of them have never had anything but P&S shots of tiny little players on big green fields in their whole playing careers. I want to be able to get some really nice shots for them by the end of the season.