football again

[briandee]

So, i have been applying to a pay site to cover some football games. I have had my images rejected because of "to much color noise at 100% in the image" what can I do to solve this besides lowering the ISO. I am at 1/800 f4 at iso 2,000. I cant lower the shutter and i dont have faster than f4 unless i go to my 134 f/2 lens. The 135 is a bit short in the coverage of the field tho. short of buying a 6,000$ lens, how do I get rid of the noise. Look at my image and do you think it is under/over exposed ? and noise ninja and neat image just make it to soft of an image for my liking as well.

anyway. enough with the rambling, here is an image.. also a link to all the images i took at the game this last saturday.

Camera: Canon EOS 7D
Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture: f/4.0
Focal Length: 300 mm
ISO Speed: 2000




link to the whole gallery...

homegame 4 10-24 - a set on Flickr

thank you, and please don't hold back, I need the advise.

[Canonball]

hi briandee,i had a look at your gallery and you have a lot of awesome images there,the only thing i can say about your hiccup is if you can't drop your ISO to around 800 is to bite the bullet and invest in a f2.8 70 - 200mm IS,after all if your serious about your sports photography {you obviously are} you have to have the right gear,perhaps a pro photograher like Jim Bryant may offer expert advice here,cheers,and keep up the good work.

[mikedugganphotography]

As for your concern with the noise I do not think it is that bad. Even with a lens that is fast (f2.8) you would still have to go with the higher ISO, maybe not 2000 but up a bit. Not sure about Cannon but I'm sure it has a internal ISO noise reduction setting, if it does was it used? I liked the portfolio of the game.

[briandee]

7D has 4 noise settings " off,low,normal,high " noise reduction. The high loses to much detail so I use the normal. It does a good job In camera.

[lputman]

I agree that you will need to bite the bullet and invest in a faster lens. You are going to have noise regardless of what lens/ISO combo use, it's just a matter of how much.

[WooD]

Although a faster lens would obviously get you better results, I try dropping my ISO down to 1000, and shoot at 1/400.

[briandee]

Here is a 2nd shot that was rejected because of lack of 'Focus/Sharpness'
I am just not sure how to make it 'sharper' than what I have. Iso is only 800 and I still have a 800 shutter speed. not sure if this would be a user error or the lens needs adjustment.

Exposure: 0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture: f/2.0
Focal Length: 135 mm
ISO Speed: 800

[Jim Bryant]

What equipment are you using, especially the lenses? As for in camera sharpening.....turn it off! Sharpen only in photoshop and this should be your very last step before saving the final image.

[briandee]

canon 7d with either 135mm f/2.0 L lens or my other lens a canon 300mm f/4.0 L lens

I don't have the camera do any sharpening, I leave it at neutral, same with noise reduction in camera. I will double check camera settings tho for later.

[Jim Bryant]

One of the problems you might have is re-cropping the image to a larger size. I know at most night football games here in Seattle we shoot at ISO 800-1000, which gives us a shutter speed of 500th at 2.8 using the 70-200mm, 300mm and 400mm f2.8 lenses. And we don't use any noise reduction in the camera either. Most of our camera menu settings are geared to what Sport Illustrated photographers use. A ton of info an be found here: sports illustrated camera settings - Google Search