Night Football Shots too grainy

[Jim Bryant]

Looks are if they were also underexposed about two stops as well, which would bring out the heavy grainyness. I shot night soccer last week and football and have included the frame capture info. Hope this helps.

Soccer
Date: 10/8/09
Time: 6:53:26 PM
Latitude:
Longitude:
Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark II
Serial #:
Firmware: Adobe Photoshop CS3 Macintosh
Frame #: 440
Lens (mm): 300
ISO: 1600
Aperture: 2.8
Shutter: 1/500
Exp. Comp.: 0.0
Flash Comp.:
Program: Manual
Focus Mode:
White Bal.:
ICC Profile: Adobe RGB (1998) (embedded)
Contrast:
Sharpening:
Quality:

Football
Date: 10/9/09
Time: 7:46:47 PM
Latitude:
Longitude:
Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark II
Serial #:
Firmware: Version 1.2.6
Frame #: 1287
Lens (mm): 300
ISO: 1600
Aperture: 2.8
Shutter: 1/400
Exp. Comp.: 0.0
Flash Comp.:
Program: Manual
Focus Mode:
White Bal.:
ICC Profile: Adobe RGB (1998) (embedded)
Contrast:
Sharpening:
Quality:

[tiffythom]

Oh my those are excellent shots. And thanks for the shot info. I will hopefully be able to try all I have learned here this Friday Nite!

[Jim Bryant]

The lighting or weather conditions of your field might be different from mine. So you might want to take test frames and adjust. I set the camera on manuel with the aperture set at f2.8 and shutter speed at 500th. The light is pretty much constant between the 20-yard lines from one end of the field to the other, but falls off in the end zones to about 200 or 250th.
good luck!

[richardandre]

most of my nigth games are shoot at iso 1600 640-800 2.8 with my 1dmkii's aswell.


this is shot with my 400 at 2.8.

i use Noise ninja in post prod. and levels/curves in Photoshop.

out towards the sidelines i have to drop as low as 320+ to get useable pictures.
try to use manual control and 2.8 and experiment with the shutterspeed and try not too get below 500 as the pictures will get motionblur.

[Jim Bryant]

Good to another who takes sports seriously Nice shot!

[tiffythom]

I always set the shutter speed way high, like 640 or higher because I want to stop the ball, but then I have to bump the ISO up higher. I see you use 400 or 500 and seem to be stopping the ball just fine. Tonight is Homecoming, with lots of different photo opportunities besides the game; fireworks, homecoming queens and of course the game so I will be going crazy!

[humperdido]

Is this photo a crop? It reminds me of when I have to use a high ISO and then try to crop it. That is when the ISO really begins to become problematic. I know that when I have a higher than ideal ISO that I need to make sure that I am not going to have to do a lot of post editing. That means making sure the exposure is as good as possible (like a previous post said) and that the crop is as close to what I want it to be (even if that means making dramatic changes in my position).

[wamplers]

Since I was mentioned earlier in the thread, thought I'd sign up and put in my $0.02.

The original shot looks like it was shot at ISO 12800, not ISO 500. This is due to increasing the exposure so much in post. As Lori may have mentioned, I shoot a 50D as well and here is one of my shots from last night, in the rain.

Generally, shoot at the ISO you need for the proper exposure. Lower ISO is better, unless you have to brighten it in post, which brings me to... Expose correctly as increasing exposure in post increases noise. Use noise reduction if necessary. It's better to have a grainy shot, than a blurry mess.

50D @ ISO 12800, f/2.8, 1/640


Steve Wampler
Mid TN Sports Photos

[Refusionx]

This was shot at taken last night ISO 1600 1/100th with a Tameron 70-200 2.8
I used dpp to reduce the artifacts
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2672/...83b559020d.jpg

[richardandre]

if you asked about my picture being a crop it is
have too crop tigth its just what they want.

in my experience 640 is the minimum to freeze the ball (in normal play)
and its better to have a grainy shot than not having it.

i hate shooting at nigth and im going to invest in a 7d to get more "keepers" at my nigth games.