Jules Karney Loc: Las Vegas, Nevada

I went to a dungeon for a basketball game and I am throwing this out for the club. Is this motion blur??
I was shooting at iso 8000 using a D500 85mm 1.8
1/800 @ 2.2

I seem to be having trouble getting shots sharp using the D500. If I raise the shutter the iso goes up and there is only so much you can push this camera with iso even with Topaz Denoise AI. I know people are going to say I am to picky but for my boss I am not. If I drop the shutter then I really have motion blur. So you see my problem. I have asked this question before, just looking for fresh ideas if there is one.
Let me know what you think.
thank you,
Jules

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Cheapshot Loc: California.

Shallow depth of field? See jersey and pant lettering. Pretty strange.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

This particular image reports ISO-4000.

It also reports CS6. Could you do better with different software, especially the noise processing? The viewers are going to go straight to the player's eyes. But, it seems at f/2.2, the focus is best in the center on the jersey number. If the original reports that AF there, you might do better with a specific AF point positioned on the face / eyes.

Jules Karney Loc: Las Vegas, Nevada

This shot has little to no editing a little cropping. I wanted to show right out of the camera almost.

PHRubin Loc: Nashville TN USA

I believe what you are seeing is a combination of limited depth of field (caused by wide aperture setting) and noise caused by high ISO but not motion blur. Both can be somewhat minimized by software.

As you have recognized, in the level of lighting available and with a non-stationary subject, there are only conflicting adjustments you can make. What helps one problem intensifies another.

joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

Wonderful capture 🎯🎯🎯🎯🎯

jim quist Loc: Missouri

The background does not look blurred, it just looks out of focus. So it’s not blurr motion. You need a longer shutter speed so you can pan your subject while blurring the background.

Jules Karney Loc: Las Vegas, Nevada

I think the lens was not auto-tune correctly. I worked on the lenses today and feel confident that my shots for under the basket will be much better.

Bobspez Loc: Southern NJ, USA

I'm going to guess the boy was in motion. At 100% resolution the subject has sort of a pixelated border and the eyebrows and hair is not distinct, and if you look at his irises they are not perfectly round, have a slightly irregular shape.

picsman Loc: Scotland

I have used this lens for mountain bike photography and found its auto focus is slow, or at least not as fast as the movement of the cyclists. In your case this might have an impact but I think you didnt focus on his face which is the major contributor to the issue.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

To keep the sharpening away from the noise, make it edge-based. In Lightroom that means using the Masking slider in the Sharpen section. If you limit the sharpening to the edges you can use more of it without needing much denoise.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

No. The softness you are seeing is due to shallow depth of field AND very aggressive noise reduction. If you are shooting in these conditions you'd be better off with a full frame camera. The D500 is NOT a great low light/high ISO camera. If cost is an issue, try finding a nice clean D3S or D4, which you can use at ISO 25600 and get better results than the D500 at ISO 4000.

Also, with typical lighting, you'll need to have the anti-flicker feature turned on.

You are learning that for this kind of shooting, a fast lens used at or close to its maximum aperture is not your friend, other than for providing a nice bright viewfinder.

Getting the current version of Lightroom and Photoshop, and one of the noise reduction programs (Topaz, On1) will give you considerably better results than using software that was written nearly 30 years ago (it was released 2/13/1990).

Also, for these kinds of shots where you will need some post processing - shoot raw. It provides many more options than trying to work an SOOC image, especially if your camera setting choices have tossed all of your detail and texture.

ELNikkor

1/800 will stop the minimal motion in this photo. Focus point was the lettering, not the face. In such dire lighting, I compromise by setting manually 1/500th, (with auto ISO), which eliminates most motion blur.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

To get slightly more DOF try shooting in continuous shutter release mode while using a slightly slower shutter speed and slightly higher f-stop. You say that motion blur is a problem with slower shutter speeds but with multiple shots to choose from you should get some shots where the motion blur is minimal.

If you're not shooting raw and have in-camera picture adjustments set (in particular in-camera sharpening), save as raw and learn to do your own editing (in particular the sharpening). If your posted example is anything to go by, it's showing pronounced signs of sharpening and it looks like the sharpening has aggravated the noise. If you use Nikon software to render the raw files you'll have to set the Picture Control settings to zero. If you don't the software will automatically apply them, even if it's set for Natural, Neutral or some such.

yssirk123 Loc: New Jersey

Jules - for very high noise images I use both DxO Pure Raw and Topaz Sharpen AI. Attached is an image shot at ISO 10,000 (test shot) to see if I could get a fairly clean image.

(Download)