Camera advise needed?
- This topic has 13 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated Jul 15, 2008 at 11:38 am by
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Hey guys, I bought a Canon Xti a few months ago and I have been pleased with it so far but, I after trying to shoot ice hockey pictures of my kids I find the camera (or maybe the driver) kinda lacking. I have a sigma 70-200 f2.8 for the glass. I have been told that the 40d is the camera that I need. What do you guys say? I have four Canon lenses so I don’t want to change brands. I will have to say that after handling the 40d it makes the Xti feel like a toy. The problem with the Xti is that I get a few good shots with it and then I get a few soft focus ones as well. I am to blame but, like I said I have heard really good stuff a the 40d and it’s fast focus. I shoot at 1/500 F2.8 ISO 1600 with a mono pod. The Xti is not that great at 1600 and the lighting always stinks at youth level hockey rinks. Any tips on the camera or on the use of the camera will be put to good use. Thanks…….
A better body will lock on faster, however… if you are shooting in low light very little is going to help you other than higher iso or a faster lens…or a good flash… 2.8 is fast glass…
labrati, can’t use a flash. It’s not pro level hockey but, it is travel level and the powers to be don’t like flash.
Todd, first of all, indoor sports is about as hard as photography gets so don’t kick yourself just yet.
I wouldn’t worry about high ISO, set it to 1600 if you have to because a shot with some noise in it is better than nothing.
I don’t know the light where you’re shooting, but I would aim for at least 500th of a second at 2.8 or better a 1000th.
If the camera is in AV mode and set at 2.8 it will pick the highest shutter speed the light will allow.You want to put the camera on 2.8 and leave it there.
Next, shoot lots and lots, it’s a numbers game and you have to put big numbers in to win.
Focusing on fast moving subjects is a skill that takes learning, no camera can help you much with it.
I would start by shooting from the sides and avoid the subjects that are coming right at you or directly away, there easier to hit from the side when all your doing is moving the lens from left to right.
(or right to left)
Another idea is not toframe to tight as it makes it harder for the camera to lock onto a moving subject, back off a little until you get more fluid.A mono pod or tri-pod with loose head will help you steady up the lens and may up the hit rate, though again, shooting off a stand for action stuff is a skill.
The 40D is an excellent camera for the money and the 1D III an awesome sports camera, but IMHO your problems are user based not the camera so don’t worry about it and shoot like mad.
I’ve been a photographer for 20 years and have recently been shooting my sons rugby games and I was shocked at my low hit rate at first, but with practice it gets much easier.. 😉
Happy shooting.
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
I’ve found the noise to not be that bad when shooting at ISO1600 or 3200
http://society6.com/grainfarmer Fly Fishing and Landscape open edition Photography prints.
http://grainfarmer.vsco.co/ iPhone photos
http://instagram.com/chad_simcox InstagramHey guys, thanks for the info. Should I be shooting in raw or jpeg? I have a new Imac and was kinda thinking about Apt 2.0. Heck come to think of it since I found this web site I have a new IMac, camera and a couple of new fly rods. Hell no wonder I am broke. Â ;D Do you guys know if Iphoto will open and edit RAW pics?
I don’t know Iphoto sorry, but the softwear that comes with your Canon does good raw conversion and it’s free.. 😉
Raws will always give you better results than Jpegs, but are more work and take more room on the computer.
If you learn how to do good conversions your pictures will look better.I use PhotoShop 3 now for editing and conversion and it’s works a treat.
www.dsaphoto.com
A picture is thousand words that takes less than a second while a thousand words is a picture that takes a month.
Few things Todd. This is going to be long, hope you dont mind. There are some things you can do and some you cant control.
As others have noted, you want to set your aperature at f2.8 and leave it there. That means AV or M mode, M would be the better of the two. Reason being, as the action moves up, down adn around the rink, the light values will change. However, the ice and the white boards are going to fool your camera’s meter into thinking theres a bit more light than there is. You can use AV but dial in +1/3 exp comp as a starting point.
Shutter Speed.
1/500th should be enough to freeze most of the action. Sticks, pucks, the goalie shooting out an arm may have some motion blur but probably not much. Unless your right at ice level shooting through the glass ( I recomend not to) your going to be be far enough away from the action. Experiment, I would hazard a guess you can shoot lower than 1/500th. Â Theres a relationship between distance to target and shutter speed required to freeze the action. The closer you are, the higher the SS you need. Hockeys reasonably fast but its not THAT fast, aforementioned aspects ( sticks, pucks, extremities) exlcuded and besides some motion there will in all likely hood ADD to the photo, not subtract from it. What you want to freeze are the subjects body and head. If you can get their facial expressions…they impart intensity.
ISO 800 1/800th
RAW vs Jpeg.
RAW, RAW, RAW. The lighting is going to play HAVOC with your whites and there are ALOT of whites in hockey. Set your body to AWB, shoot RAW then use DPP (came with your camera) to convert to jpeg. During that phase play with your WB to get your whites close to white.Monopod.
Dont bother. Â Monopods have their places, I have one, use it when I need to but no matter what a monopod will impede your ability to track. Tracking fast moving objects, be it hockey players, or birds that fly at 50mph is a skill and like any skill it takes practise. If your focus point slips off target, the body will in alot of cases jump to whatever is in the BG..So in hockey that could mean focus jumps to a player behind your son in the .5 second or so you focus point has slipped off target. Also at 1/500th or a bit lower you should have plently of SS to eliminate camera shake, hence no need for support. Its one thing to track a fast moving object that moves in a straight ( cars, bikes etc ), its quite another to stay on target with things that dart about, move erraticly and or change speed..Oh, and by the way ONLY use center point focus. One it means your in control and not the camera which might use any of the 9 focus points but more importantly it speeds up the focusing process.
On Noise
The 40D while better than than the XTI wil still produce noise at ISO 1600. No getting around that. Better some noise than a deleted image due to motion blur. Dont know if this will show or not its an old pbase account.30D at ISO 1600 and some noise clean up (neat image or noise ninja). The 30 and 40D are virtualy the same with regards to high iso noise performance.
My advice. Take your XTI to your store and a spare card. Get a couple shots in store (crap light) at ISO 1600 with your XTI adn their 40D…Get home, and check both images to see the difference.
Don’t expect miracles, the 40D is a bit better than the XTI at ISO above 800, its ok at ISO 1000 and at 1600 there will be noise.
On focusing. NO its not always you.
First make sure your using AI servo, (not single shot and not that other option the entry, prosumer bodies have where the body decides to use AI Servo or single shot). No other way to say this, so Im just going to say it.The cameras ability to track/predict focus (ai servo) is well, one of the areas you pay for that separates consumer, prosumer, pro bodies. Thats not to say the Rebels line is bad, its not. Its just thats its not quite as good as the 30/40D…Nether of which is in the same league as a 1D body. This is one of the issues I had with the current Canon Promotion for the XSI, they used extremely tough sporting/lighting with 1DmkIIIs and kind of alluded that parents could do the same with XTIs/XSIs. They cant, atleast not in that sense.
Another note on AI Servo and this to is likely a cause for some sharp, some soft images. As backgrounds become cluttered, o as something moves into the frame in front of your target, the camer body can and will jump to either. Nothing you can do about that, the better the body the better AI Servo is at “sticking” with your target and not jumping to something in the FG or BG. This is another reason to use center point focus only.
So sometimes you may slip of target and focus will jump, somtimes the camera will do it to you.
The best thing you can do is learn to “Snipe”. Dont get in the habit of taking extended burst with fast moving targets. One or two frames max, release the shutter, reaqure focus, one or two frames. Tap/tap/tap. That will lead to more “keepers”. If you take 5 frame burst, you might 1 or some in good focus, but if AI servo loses it (and it will) you’ll get more keepers by sniping. This includes the 40D btw. You’ll get more keepers by getting in the habit of tracking/shoot/release and reacquire/shoot.
AI Servo…40D vs XTI.
The 40D does have a little better AI servo, it does have faster fps (5 vs 3.5) and it does have better noise control all else being equal than the XTI. All critical things you pay for as you step up in body lines.Side note.
Noise is another good reason to overexpose a tad, from what the camera meter is telling you.Do you “need” to step up this soon?
No. Take the time now (this season) Â to learn. Use the XTI in the process and then decide..Stepping up isnt cheap. But if you do decide to, yes you will see impovement.Thanks for the info guys. John, are you saying that there is not that much difference in the 40D vs the Xti? Or that with my skills that I won’t notice it? LOL! If there is not much difference in the Xti and the 40D at what model does it show up? 5D or higher? Thanks again…..
There is a difference.
The 40D has better noise control at high ISOs, just dont expect miracles. It has better AI servo but still suffers from the same faults…just not as much.It also has a higher frame rate. Not the 5.5 advertised, its closer to 5 from testing, but still more. It has interpolated (not true) ISO increments. Basicaly where with the XTI you can only bump (or lower) ISO by full stops..with the 30/40D you can change it by 1/3 stops. All important things for action shooting.
Its also little more sensitive. This means that when using center point focus it will snap to initial focus a little faster…..The down side to this is when your center point slips off target, it will snap to whatever is in the BG faster to.
Practise…practise alot. Sea Gulls make great practise targets. They are everywhere.
As for which body after?
None really unless you want to look at 1DmkII, a 1DMKIIN or a 1DMKIII.One thing I dont like about Canon is the jump between their prosumer 40D and the 1D MKIIn and 1DMKIII.
No matter your skill you will notice a difference. Both in the noise level at iso 1600 and in your keeper rate.
But your going to take a fair financial hit stepping upto it.
Why not use the XTI until you outgrow it?edit add.
Want to make it clear when I use terms such as “faults” or not as good, or whatever…its relative.
Im not syaing they or it is bad…they aren’t…they just have limits and in my experience people starting out often dont realise that, or sometimes feel let down.AI servo…the bodies ability to track and predict focus is limited by how much Canon puts into the chips. Even 1D bodies such as the 1DMKIIn and 1DMKIII ( canon top flight action bodies) have their limits.
Cant recall exactly but I beleive the “hit” rate even on pro bodies is around 70%. Meaning if a Track Athlete ran the 100 sprint heading at the shooter only 7 of 10 from an extended burst will be critically sharp. And they have 2 chips, prosumer, consumer bodies have 1…Their hit rates are considerably lower.
Also no matter the body…AI Servo will, track, predict and keep focusing better when the movment is lateral. Targets heading at or away from the shooter are harder for them.
I won’t rehash alot of the good advice that has been give here, only say that i play/shoot hockey as well, and its probably not your fault.
Just to add a little bit what both Labrati and Eric have said.
When Labrati talks of continous focus and the subject possibly being oof (Out of Focus) and whether or not you can or can’t take the image, thats a Custom function setting. I don’t beleive the XTI has it, the 40D I’m reasonably sure does…Certainly all 1D body’s do.
Bascially its a custom setting that toggles whether or not the shutter will trip (or not) when the camera has yet to attain focus. For action shooters you want it on, basic premise being you can start shooting when the subjects oof, looking to get them in focus by frame 2 or 3.
Others prefer to to turn it off, logic there being they dont want to start recording frames until focus lock is acheived.On metering.
I’d use spot as well in that situation but M not AV mode. Reason being it’s difficult and takes a ton of practise keeping your center point on target. It’s easier with human subject than with widlife being larger and slower but its still not easy.If your in AV mode, the moment center point slips off target a *new* meter reading is registered and the camera adjusts your SS..it happens faster than you can blink. So one moment your targeting a player in a dark blue jersey, a “proper” exposure is calcualted and set by the camera for the dark Blue…the player jigs, you start to record images, you slip off target just a bit but still have him in frame and in focus. The camera however is immediately blinded by the white of the ice, as thats what your center point is on. As a result it guts your shutter speed and what would have been an in focus image is badly affected by motion blur.
A good example of this occurs when shooting birds in flight and AV mode. Dark Bird in a bright blue sky. Your exposing for the bird (as you always should) you slip off target a bit and the bright sky overpowers the meter reading and you go say from 1/1000th to 1/250th.
1) Motion blur
2) The birds badly underexposed
3) but the sky sure looks exposed nicely 🙂AV is great, it can also be very bad leading to alot of deleted images.
Something Eric touched I want to add to.
Your better off spending the time to figure out what angles, shots, etc. will work for your setup and tyr and repeat.
ALL cameras and lenses have their limits. Whether its an entry level body/lens a pro body/lens or any combination of the two. Learn the limits of whatever it is you have and as long as you stay within the limits, your keeper rate will go way up.
If your body and lens can’t get really fast action…Don’t shoot it, rather shoot what it can. When I used a 30D and a slower lens (f2.8 rather than f1.8 I use now) to shoot my daughters gymnastics I didnt bother trying to capture the spins, vaults, dismounts etc…They were simply occuring too fast for the shutter speeds I could get. The lighting for gymnastics is litteraly about as bad as it can get.
Rather I concentrated on getting images of the slightly slower action like leaps in the air, coming out of spins and flips, poses, hand stands, etc and came away happy with what I got each time.
Eric as good as the 100-400 L is, at f3.5 at the short end it’s too slow for indoor sports where flash isn’t allowed. You really need f2.8 and faster. Even at f2.8 I often struggle to acheive 1/500th at ISO 1600 and will then move to the f1.8, where even then 1/500th is often not a given. Some gyms I rarely get above 1/300th.
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