mrtobin Loc: North East Ohio

The canon 1DX and Nikon D3X and the like are much more capable to use "very" high ISO with very little noise. That's why people pay six thousand dollars for a camera with a relatively low pixel count.

Novots Loc: Grand Forks, ND

It was mentioned in one comment but trying to compare shooting a high school basketball game and any related camera settings to what a pro photographer is shooting on the floor of a NCAA playoff game, is nearly impossible. The lighting for these venues is generally better in the first place and then all the additional lighting brought in for national HD television broadcasts make our normal shooting numbers moot. On the floor of these events it's brighter than outside daylight at noon! I'm actually surprised that they needed ISO 8000. Just my 2 cents worth.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Yes, there are "compromises" to be made; not every shot is going to be from the point-of-view of the defensive player trying to stop this action. But the pictures at MSNBC show that you can catch the essence of the action from slightly farther away.

Don't under-sell our gyms either. In 1976 I was a grad student at Indiana University, the year after IU lost the regional final to Kentucky because the IU star had broken his arm in the final game of the regular season. After that one-{critical}loss season, with the heart of the team back, IU students were ready to watch an undefeated team this time around {and we did}. As a student, I was able to get tickets to one-third of the home games, with the seats rotating from OK to having my view of the scoreboard blocked by the rafters. My camera at the time {remember, I was a relatively poor student} was a Canon rangefinder camera; the best aperture was f/1.9, but the focal length was fixed at 45mm. My regular film was Kodachrome 25 {ISO=25!}, and no, I did not unload that film and use ISO=400 color negative film during basketball season. The pictures below are accurate scans of pictures I took from several different seats. These days one would want to go with a higher shutter speed {I'm guessing I was using 1/125}, but I obviously had plenty of light. This was forty years ago, so I'm guessing that many gyms have lighting at least that good with more modern technology; one of these years I'm going to a local high school basketball game with light meter in hand, because some actual facts would be useful in this discussion.

Yes, but as I said above, "tight action" shots may be all the rage these days, but a shot like the ones MSNBC published would be better than nothing.

My ultimate point applies to next December, when very predictably someone will post a message here asking "what lens do I need to buy in order to get better pictures of my son / grandson / daughter / grand daughter playing basketball?" People here always recommend a $$$$ constant f/2.8 telephoto lens that may give them limited utility in other areas. I'm merely suggesting that another option is a $$$$ camera upgrade that would yield benefits in other pictures s/he takes.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

Well, looks like they are using f2.8 lenses anyway...

The "real" reason pros shoot with f2.8 and faster is because the larger aperture lenses allow the camera to focus faster and track movement better... not because they need (or want) to use them wide open for max light gathering capability.

Primarily, stopping down a bit gives more depth of field, which in turn can hide any slight focus errors (which are more likely down to the user than the gear, considering that in this case it's a 1DX Mark II, with a very high performance AF system).

It looks to me like their other consideration was a minimum of 1/1000 shutter speed to be certain to freeze the action. If they didn't use fully manual mode, they probably set the shutter speed and the aperture to lock those down, then let the sensitivity float with Auto ISO. The lighting in those arenas was probably optimized, too, and I bet lot better than many places I have to shoot!

Yes, the newest cameras are capable of higher ISOs than we ever imagined in the past... However, it's not just the cameras. Software has also improved and is better able to deal with image noise, than it was in the past.

And, yes, one of the reasons they limit these high end pro cameras to 18 or 20MP is for their noise handling (also because that's plenty of mega-pixies for an excellent quality magazine two-page spread... and way more than enough for an online usage). Compare the full frame, 50MP 5DS/5DS-R with it's 100-6400 ISO range, expandable to 50 and 12800... with the full frame, 20MP 1DX Mark II's 200-51200 ISO range, expandable to 50 and 409600! (I'll leave it to you to judge if those insanely high ISOs are actually usable or not.)

I don't know much about shooting video, but I understand that another reason for keeping these cameras to 24MP or less is to be able to shoot 4K... which also might be usable instead of high frame rate still shots, with frame captures of approx. 8MP at effective frame rates of 24 or 25 per second, maybe possibly even faster (30 fps? 60fps?). A sports shooter might find this useful.

Jer Loc: Mesa, Arizona

If they were shooting at those settings it means that the lighting wasn't set like it is a many Pro arenas. A 1dx Mark II can handle it and that's what he was using.

mas24 Loc: Southern CA

The new Nikon D5 has an expandable ISO of 3280000. I couldn't believe it when I read the specs.

granbob Loc: SW Wisc; E Iowa; W Illinois

Clapture48 blames global darkening, and I think he's (she's ?) on to something. There seems to be an increasing interest in nighttime star photography which would logically follow global darkening. Also, since mid-March it takes the sun about an hour later to make an appearance in he morning.

Jer Loc: Mesa, Arizona

Unfortunately, it looks like it was shot at 3280000. I saw some demo photos. Would be fine if you were a private eye because you could make out who the suspect was (somewhat).

chapjohn Loc: Tigard, Oregon

Camera Technology changes the how we shoot. I had some conversations with other photographers who overwhelmed that the speaker (Geoerge Lepp, a Canon Explorer of Light) was showing printed images shoot at ISO 3200 and ISO 6400 with no noise. I see the EXIF date you showed is the same camera George was using for his images.

With the Sony A7Rm2 I am often at ISO 6400 with no noise. My point is that as new technology is put into our cameras, we also need to be willing to use it. This may mean that many things we did with film do not fit with digital technology.

Joecosentino Loc: Whitesboro, New York

I have bee shooting my 610's with auto Iso on set to 5000 ISO with a minimum SS go 1/100sec. and so far the results have been fine. Sensors now days and the built in noise reduction (not long exposure noise reduction) have made it possible to get those shots, you need to try features out see what they do. if they don't fit your shooting style then shut it off. the only thing really lost is a few shutter clicks

SteveR Loc: Michigan

Frankly, I think that ISO 8000 was used both for the 1000/sec AND for dof. Next time somebody asks how to shoot in a gym, we should recommend using the highest ISO possible with the highest speed and widest aperture combination that works.

foathog Loc: Greensboro, NC

I don't believe you were shooting K 25 indoors. LOL

Photocraig

In most if not all major Basketball and Hockey arenas, the Press Photographers are able to remotely fire large diffused flashes in the high ceiling. The one (and only) time I got to sit in the floor seats at the Boston Garden, the Globe photographer 'splained it to me. That's how they're able to get the action shots with depth of field without blinding the players. (The refs were already ;-)). They seem to boost the light levels a stop or so and fill in the shadows that otherwise would make the faces and features too dark.

And notice, on the EXIF, that the body used for the photo is designed for fast action photography and costs as much as a late model Used Car. I'm sure the high ISO performance is optimized. I'm not trying this with my 50D anytime soon.

MIke Kenny

Something else may be at work here. I've shot state basketball championships at Bankers Life Field house and there are six large strobes situated around the floor in the rafters above the seats. The venue hires photogs who then use the radio triggers and get great shots with lots of DOF. Of course I don't know if this was done at the NCAA championships, but it is possible.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

Yes, that was why I started this thread, to encourage us to think in that way.