LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

Went to the local community college last Saturday to shoot a basketball game. Wasn't trying to get photos for Sports Illustrated. Shot JPEGs just to see how my RF 85mm f/1.2 L lens would do. Started shooting in Manual at 1/1000 (later boosted to 1/1600) and f/1.2 with the ISO in Auto. I had Anti-flicker active as well as facial tracking. I had used facial tracking before with good results, but in a far less crowed environment. On a fast moving crowded court I finally had to switch to single point focus. Facial tracking kept jumping all over the place no matter how I changed the menu settings. Canon has issued a number of firmware updates to address these issues. Apparently they have a ways to go, at least for this type of shooting.
I also noticed that the picture I thought I was taking wasn't the one I ended up with in many cases. Primarily where the subject I was shooting was among fast moving players. I would end up with another player blocking the image I thought I was getting. I realized that the shutter delay that anti-flicker can cause was working against me. I disabled it and the problem went away. I had used it before without noticeable issue but this time I was shooting the basket and the foul shots from a different position and player interference was more noticeable.
The lens did good. My technique could use more work. You really need to anticipate player moves to get the best shots. Something that as a non-ball sports guy I have yet to master.
This was shot at 1/1600, f/1.2, 2500 ISO, SOOC:

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jameyward Loc: North Carolina

Great shot! Great info here as well. Anticipation is key in sports photography. Well done!

Notorious T.O.D. Loc: Harrisburg, North Carolina

I would not think that anti Flicker would cause any delay of more than a tiny fraction of a second as the lights are cycling at a fast rate. Did f/1.2 cause any DOF issues? I would think it very well might. The focus and tracking system may not be as robust as more sports oriented bodies, DSLR, nor offer as many tracking parameters. Keep at it and you will get some good shots...

JohnH3 Loc: Auburn, AL

I love my EOS R, but it is not my go to for shooting sports. It does seem to lag. For now, when shooting sports, I am going to continue to use my more than trusty 5DMKIV and 6DMKII. I will admit that it may just be my inability to use the camera (EOS R), but “for me,” it has not proven to be a good camera for shooting sports compared to my 5DMKIV and 6DMKII. I generally use both cameras with different lens. When shooting sports, I always use single point focus regardless of the camera. However, I love the EOS R for most every other situation. Again, it may just be my inability to use the camera for shooting a fast moving sports event.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

Thank You!

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

I wouldn't think that the anti-flicker capability would cause much delay either, but, once I disabled it I had little trouble getting the shot as planned. It may be that it takes a bit longer for it to synchronize to the cycle then we think.
As far as depth of field, I purposely shot at f/1.2 because I wanted to concentrate on the player's faces this time. There's another game tomorrow so, if I go, I intend to shoot more at f/8.
I stayed at one end of the court and 85mm is a pretty good length for that, although, it was rather short for action at the other end of the court. It should work well from mid-court. I'm also going to try out my RF 50mm f/1.2 L that I just got last week. Curious to see how that works out. In the past I used an EF 70-200 f/2.8 L II on a 5DIV, but, I sold both of those in making the switch to mirrorless so now I am just experimenting. About the only thing I used the 70-200 for was indoor sports. I want to see if a fast prime will do a good job or if I need to consider the RF 70-200 f/2.8 in the future.

amfoto1 Loc: San Jose, Calif. USA

I would have turned off face tracking (instead of Anti-Flicker). I'd have expected problems using face tracking, what with ten faces on the court and dozens more on the sidelines and in the bleachers close behind the players.

I'd have used Single Point AF... Or maybe Expansion Points or Small Zone AF (if the camera has them... I don't use a EOS R). I prefer Expansion over Zone patterns, when possible. But I most often use Single Point, since that puts me most fully in control of where the camera focuses.

One tactic in an environment like this is to first shoot for a while with one setup, whatever you feel most confident about. Then when you know you have some results captured, switch to a different setup. Same with lenses.... I'll usually shoot with zooms initially. Then, when I know I've got a good number of "keepers", I'll sometimes switch to primes and start looking for some more "specialized" types of shots.

How is the focus speed of the RF 85mm f/1.2L? I ask because I know the EF 85/1.2L isn't the fastest focusing lens. The II is better than the original, but both the EF 85/1.2Ls emphasize accuracy over speed, due to the extremely shallow depth of field the large aperture can render. The "lowly" EF 85/1.8 USM is faster focusing and a better choice for indoor sports shooting. But I really have no idea how the RF lens compares. I haven't used it or the R.

I also would have tried to avoid wide open f/1.2... I'd want to stop down to at least f/2 or f/2.8. ISO... 2500 in your example... could have been increased to compensate. Slightly lower shutter speeds could have been used, too. 1/1600 also is faster than necessary. 1/1000 or 1/800 should have been fast enough and would help keep the ISO from getting too high when the lens is stopped down a little. Combined, ISO 5000 and 1/1000 or 1/800 should have allowed f/2 aperture.

The key reason for stopping down a little is to increase more depth of field a bit for slightly more focus accuracy "forgiveness". A very large f/1.2 aperture leaves little room for minor focus error, which will occur no matter how good and fast the camera's AF system and the lens' AF drive might be.

More often than not, in a gym like that the lighting is even enough that Auto ISO can be turned off and fully Manual can be used, to really lock down all the exposure parameters. Next time, do some test shots of different parts of the court and compare. If there's a stop or less variation, switching to fully Manual exposure mode might be a good idea. Otherwise specular highlights or shadows can effect exposure one way or another, depending upon what metering pattern is being used (the smaller and more precise the metering pattern, the more you need to compensate for variations in tonality or worry about oddities such as deep shadows or specular highlights/reflections).

Do similar with a custom white balance. Test if it can be used throughout the court or arena.

In some cases you might restrict your shooting to a portion of the court or arena, where lighting is most favorable and you can use both Manual exposure settings and a custom WB. When you see professionally shot sports photos, they're often working as a part of a team, each of whom are dialed in to shoot just one part of the arena or court.

I'd have kept Anti-Flicker on too. I've been using cameras with it for several years now and it makes a huge difference reducing the number of under-exposed images to almost 0 when shooting "under the lights". It very rarely shows any delay... Maybe one or two shots out of 100 I notice any kind of delay that's enough to upset the timing of my shots. Since the lighting cycles on and off 60x per second, shutter release is only shifted a very tiny fraction of a second in most instances, when Anti-Flicker times it to coincide with the peak output of the lighting.

Experiment with different things, to see how they work for you. Practice also makes a difference... as you become more familiar with the subject matter and how the action "flows", you'll get better capturing it.

Even doing everything you can, don't beat yourself up. There's no such thing as 100% accuracy all the time. Focus will miss at times (we just don't share the "misses"!) It's really just a matter of keeping that to a minimum... Of getting as high percentage of "in focus" shots as possible. The same with timing of shots... You'll miss some peak moments. Or someone will step in front of you... or the ball will get stolen and the action will go a different direction than you expected, so you'll be panning left when you should be panning right!

It's a whole lot easier now than it was back in the days of film and manual focus! Even so, sports photography is some of the most demanding. Especially indoors!

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

I'm quite happy with the R also, which is why I sold my 5DIV. I had stopped using it. Shooting games with the 5DIV I always used single center point focus so I never had any issues with auto-focus tracking. Once I switched the R to single center point I had no further issues. Do you have the latest firmware update, Ver 1.4.0? I believe that may have addressed a lag issue. The only lag I seemed to experience was when using the anti-flicker.

LFingar Loc: Claverack, NY

I pretty quickly realized that the facial tracking got confused with all the available targets even though I tried every setting I could think of in the menu. I almost always use single center point focus and after I reverted to that setting things went well.
The RF 85 focuses very quickly. In almost everyone of the 500 or so shots I took if the focus point was on the player then the player was in focus. Other times either the facial tracking or my tracking came up short.
I agree that 1/1600 was overkill. 1/1000 did just fine, but, that was why I did the comparison.
I'm not sure that full manual with a set ISO would have worked well. At 1/1000 the ISO was from 800 to 2000 and at 1/1600 it ran from 2000 to 3200. I used Evaluative metering and it seemed to work out good with the auto ISO. I only found one shot where the exposure was noticeably off and that was after turning off the anti-flicker.
I have always used anti-flicker under artificial lights since buying a 7DII years ago without issue. Why I would see a difference this time I have no idea, but, turning it off definitely seemed to cure the timing issue with some of my shots. More experimentation is required before I can say that it was definitely the problem.
'Film and manual focus'! I can say one thing with certainty: All those Hog members who belittle burst shots and auto-focus wouldn't make much of a living in today's world shooting sports!
This is all just a time of experiment and learning for me. I want to find out what the RF 85 is capable of and, since there is a game tomorrow, if I go I will also give the RF 50 f/1.2 that I just got a try also. I think it will work quite for shooting near the basket.
Anyway, it's just a hobby. Something fun to do. While shooting I spoke with the team photographer. Photography seems to be an afterthought for the team. From the looks of the camera and lens the team gave him to use (appeared to be an older Nikon APS-C and a lens that reminded me of the 18-55 on my T3i) and his general lack of knowledge, I guessed he was just one of the students doing his best to help out. I showed him some of my shots and he was impressed.(They always look great on the small screen don't they!). He told me the players always want shots of themselves on the court so I told him I would drop some off later. Put about 200 on a disk and dropped it off at the college today. They were quite happy. If I shoot tomorrow's game I'll drop off more. Making somebody happy. That is more then enough pay for my work.
Thanks for your comments. I appreciate the info and ideas.