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I need help with low light Sports photos
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Oct 31, 2017 21:33:35   #
gray_ghost2 Loc: Antelope, (Sac) Ca.
 
I've read post in the sports gallery regarding low light photography triangle, ISO, Fstop & Shutter speed. I'm using a Canon 40d with a, new to me, Sigma 70-200, 2.8 EX DG OS HSM. I'm a long time amature/hobbies mainly shooting my kids and grandkids in daylight sporting events with dabbling in landscape and nature areas. But now my granddaughter is playing Soccer at night and I really need to understand this triangle relationship. The field is grass and my lens is mounted on a mono pod. I usually keep my fstop open at 2.8 and adjust my ISO from 800-1000, but my shutter spd stays around 80-200. Any higher or lower just ruins the shot. I adjust my shutter speed thru the view finder. Keeping my arrow btwn CTR to +1.
The focal point was my grandughter in the yellow jersey and pigtails. But to screw up the goalie blocking the ball up into the air. Sad to ruin that shot and she was my focal point.
So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I also have a Varsity football game on Friday night.

f2.8 1/20 ISO 800
f2.8 1/20 ISO 800...

f2.8 1/20 ISO 800
f2.8 1/20 ISO 800...

f2.8 1/20 ISO 800
f2.8 1/20 ISO 800...

f2.8 1/25 ISO 800
f2.8 1/25 ISO 800...

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Oct 31, 2017 21:43:43   #
sterrill Loc: missouri
 
You need a higher shutter speed about 1/800sec. To do that you will need an iso that is quiet a bit higher perhaps 6400. If you have good field lights maybe a little lower. Shutter speed is the priority to stop action.

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Oct 31, 2017 21:50:09   #
sterrill Loc: missouri
 
Your light meter may say you are underexposed but look at what ther pictures look like. The light meter looks at the whole scene . You are concerned with the players. Cameras newer than your 40d have better light sensitivity in low light but experiment and see what works. I also use single point focus. Good luck.

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Oct 31, 2017 21:50:20   #
treadwl Loc: South Florida
 
OK. Here is the simple fix. I'm looking at that field and it is dark. Your ISO is going to have to be between 1600 and 3200. Your lens is fine----keep the f stop at 2.8.
Your shutter speed is way to slow. On two of the photos is show you shot at 1/25 of a second. If you will note, even the girls standing still and not sharp. You are going to have to have a shutter of around 1/800 if you want to freeze running soccer players. That is why your ISO is going to have to be very high.

Two parts of the exposure triangle are fixed. Your lens is a 2.8---it cannot be changed to a faster lens. But that is OK, 2.8 of plenty good. Your shutter speed is fixed because you have to stop high speed action---so you need the 1/800, maybe because those girls are young you might get away with a 1/640 but any slower you are going to have blur. Thus the ONLY THING you can adjust is the ISO. I assume you are either shooting in a park, or a school. Their light are going to be awful. So your only option is to push the ISO high. I would bet on above 1600, probably 2500 but you may have to to go above 3200. I have shot games at 6400 ISO so you may have to go that high. Set your camera on manual----the light is not going to change on the field so you don't have to meter anything. Take a test shot, if it is too dark----raise the ISO and try again until you get an acceptable shot.

Post processing programs have all sorts of options to reduce noise which you will get because of the High ISO, but you can fix this in post.

Have fun.

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Oct 31, 2017 21:53:15   #
RichardTaylor Loc: Sydney, Australia
 
In addition, I would shoot RAW as the will give more control when post processing, especially noise reduction (posibly selectively).

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Oct 31, 2017 22:51:02   #
imagemeister Loc: mid east Florida
 
To ultimate answer to improve your ISO/noise you will need a newer camera ......

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Oct 31, 2017 23:07:47   #
mas24 Loc: Southern CA
 
gray_ghost2 wrote:
I've read post in the sports gallery regarding low light photography triangle, ISO, Fstop & Shutter speed. I'm using a Canon 40d with a, new to me, Sigma 70-200, 2.8 EX DG OS HSM. I'm a long time amature/hobbies mainly shooting my kids and grandkids in daylight sporting events with dabbling in landscape and nature areas. But now my granddaughter is playing Soccer at night and I really need to understand this triangle relationship. The field is grass and my lens is mounted on a mono pod. I usually keep my fstop open at 2.8 and adjust my ISO from 800-1000, but my shutter spd stays around 80-200. Any higher or lower just ruins the shot. I adjust my shutter speed thru the view finder. Keeping my arrow btwn CTR to +1.
The focal point was my grandughter in the yellow jersey and pigtails. But to screw up the goalie blocking the ball up into the air. Sad to ruin that shot and she was my focal point.
So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I also have a Varsity football game on Friday night.
I've read post in the sports gallery regarding low... (show quote)


You have the proper lens for sports. A 70-200mm f2.8. However, your camera is 10 years old with only 10.1 megapixels. If you were to put that lens on a Canon 7D Mark 2. You would be at advantage over the one you currently have.

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Nov 1, 2017 06:41:41   #
Robert Bailey Loc: Canada
 
Obviously, your shutter speed is too low and you need to crank up the ISO.
You don't happen to have a polarizing filter on the front of the lens, do you?

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Nov 1, 2017 09:01:17   #
AFPhoto Loc: Jamestown, RI, USA
 
I agree with all above that your shutter speed is way too low. I shots a lot of night high school football and the 70 - 200 f2.8 is my go to lens but I almost never shoot slower than 1/500. Suffer the noise that you will get from the higher ISO and use post processing to remove as much as you can. In the mean time there is software available ( Picurra+) that you can use to remove some of the blur from camera shake on the pics that you have. Good luck

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Nov 1, 2017 12:25:54   #
speters Loc: Grangeville/Idaho
 
gray_ghost2 wrote:
I've read post in the sports gallery regarding low light photography triangle, ISO, Fstop & Shutter speed. I'm using a Canon 40d with a, new to me, Sigma 70-200, 2.8 EX DG OS HSM. I'm a long time amature/hobbies mainly shooting my kids and grandkids in daylight sporting events with dabbling in landscape and nature areas. But now my granddaughter is playing Soccer at night and I really need to understand this triangle relationship. The field is grass and my lens is mounted on a mono pod. I usually keep my fstop open at 2.8 and adjust my ISO from 800-1000, but my shutter spd stays around 80-200. Any higher or lower just ruins the shot. I adjust my shutter speed thru the view finder. Keeping my arrow btwn CTR to +1.
The focal point was my grandughter in the yellow jersey and pigtails. But to screw up the goalie blocking the ball up into the air. Sad to ruin that shot and she was my focal point.
So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I also have a Varsity football game on Friday night.
I've read post in the sports gallery regarding low... (show quote)

I would say your problem is not with the low light, but with focusing your image! Why the shallow 2.8? That makes it especially tough focusing,specially with a lens that is known to not focus very accurately!

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Nov 1, 2017 15:40:18   #
gray_ghost2 Loc: Antelope, (Sac) Ca.
 
Thank you all for your comments. Yes, I do use a single focus point and I will stay at f2.8 and set my Shutter spd at <800. Then crank up my ISO and see what happens. Although the 40d is 10+yrs old, it has served me well. I just checked my ISO and max is 1600. Had to go into creative mode to ISO expansion and enable it to allow up to 3200. We'll see how that works.
I am looking at the 7d mII but I have concerns whether or not my Sigma 70-200 f2.8 will work. I have heard/read yes and no. Sigma says they are not aware of any problems with the Canon 7dmII. The 40d and 7dmII are both APS-C cameras while my Sigma 70-200 f2.8 DG OS APO HSM EX is a FF lens. Could that be a problem. The Sigma lens appears to work fine with my 40d. Anyone using a 7dmII with the sigma 70-200 f2.8? How is it working for you?

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Nov 1, 2017 16:05:55   #
Robert Bailey Loc: Canada
 
With a 10-year-old camera, the images will be quite "noisy" when you go above ISO 800.
Probably even at ISO 400, they will be "noisy".

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Nov 2, 2017 12:47:59   #
papa Loc: Rio Dell, CA
 
Really? How could shooting RAW help a focus issue? Please describe how you do that.
RichardTaylor wrote:
In addition, I would shoot RAW as the will give more control when post processing, especially noise reduction (posibly selectively).

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Nov 2, 2017 12:49:43   #
papa Loc: Rio Dell, CA
 
Are these daylight shots, because your shutter speed just doesn't jive.
gray_ghost2 wrote:
I've read post in the sports gallery regarding low light photography triangle, ISO, Fstop & Shutter speed. I'm using a Canon 40d with a, new to me, Sigma 70-200, 2.8 EX DG OS HSM. I'm a long time amature/hobbies mainly shooting my kids and grandkids in daylight sporting events with dabbling in landscape and nature areas. But now my granddaughter is playing Soccer at night and I really need to understand this triangle relationship. The field is grass and my lens is mounted on a mono pod. I usually keep my fstop open at 2.8 and adjust my ISO from 800-1000, but my shutter spd stays around 80-200. Any higher or lower just ruins the shot. I adjust my shutter speed thru the view finder. Keeping my arrow btwn CTR to +1.
The focal point was my grandughter in the yellow jersey and pigtails. But to screw up the goalie blocking the ball up into the air. Sad to ruin that shot and she was my focal point.
So any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I also have a Varsity football game on Friday night.
I've read post in the sports gallery regarding low... (show quote)

Reply
Nov 2, 2017 12:54:09   #
gray_ghost2 Loc: Antelope, (Sac) Ca.
 
I don't shoot RAW and the low light concerns are for night time Football and Soccer games.

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