Tips for shooting College Hoops with 1DMKIIn

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BobMarkey
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p.1 #1 · Tips for shooting College Hoops with 1DMKIIn

I've been shooting sports for years with a 1D and 40D (and many other Canon bodes). I recently moved to a 1dMKIIn and find that my images are not as sharp and lose focus more easily.

I use mostly the Canon 85 F/1.8 lens at ISO 1600 at 1/400 to 1/400 at F/2. I use the center focusing point (with expansion to 7 or 13 points). I am experimenting with various AF tracking modes, from average to fast.

At FAU arena, 1/500 is fine for Caucasian and lighter-skinned black players, but I need to drop to 1/400 to get some detail in the darker players' faces. Perhaps I am causing some motion blur by dropping the speed? When I see the off-focus, I cannot seem to find the actual focus point.

I tried shooting with a 550EX flash with battery pack, bounced off the ceiling, but the MKIIn has a flash sync speed of 1/250 and I wound up with some blur and overexposed images. This process worked fine with my 1D, which has a 1/500 sync speed.

I am trying to avoid ISO 3200.

Please offer some tips and tweaks to my process. Thanks.

Nov 07, 2012 at 10:09 PM

Carl Auer
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p.1 #2 · Tips for shooting College Hoops with 1DMKIIn

So are you looking for help strobing or just how to use your 1dMkIIn? Strobes, we can help with here. But how to use your camera? Please post that in the Canon Mount-SLR Gear board.

Nov 07, 2012 at 10:22 PM

Lutefisker
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p.1 #3 · Tips for shooting College Hoops with 1DMKIIn

I can't help you with the strobe as I only shoot with ambient. However, for the college basketball I shoot, I need at least 1/800 to stop action. For me that means ISO 6400 and f2.8.

Nov 07, 2012 at 10:41 PM

Geoffrey Bolte
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p.1 #4 · Tips for shooting College Hoops with 1DMKIIn

With college basketball I am more comfortable shooting at 1/800th or so. So you'll need to push the ISO up.

Also I am very surprised that the NCAA let you use a speedlight on the court... Anyways more info would be needed to help you out with the speedlight, as for shooting ambient, 1/800th is where you should want to be...

Nov 08, 2012 at 12:09 AM

Jeff_Stapleton
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p.1 #5 · Tips for shooting College Hoops with 1DMKIIn

The sync speed of any Canon camera outside of the original 1D is 1/250th of a second (outside of using HSS).

You either need to shoot totally ambient, or keep your SS down to 1/250th. I don't see the latter being possible with a speedlight

Nov 08, 2012 at 02:32 AM

Scott Sewell
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p.1 #6 · Tips for shooting College Hoops with 1DMKIIn

Bob, this shouldn't be that big of a jump from the 1d to the 1dMk2n. I'm using a Mk2n and Mk2 and shoot ISO3200 all the time. You really don't have a choice. Either you shoot at 1/400 and ISO1600 and risk having blurry images for the sake of lower noise, or you bump up your ISO so you can shoot at 1/500 or 1/640 and have usable images.

I've been shooting Big 12 basketball in NE Kansas for several years and 1/640 works fine. Unless you're shooting teams that are much faster than Kansas, Texas, K-State, etc., I can't imagine 1/640 is going to be a problem.

This is just basic exposure for sports action photographer and really doesn't matter what body you're using (other than how that body limits what you can do with ISO).

Good luck.

Nov 08, 2012 at 02:51 AM

cocodrillo
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p.1 #7 · Tips for shooting College Hoops with 1DMKIIn

The trick with the really high ISO is to nail the exposure down to a third of a stop and use noise reduction software. If you're spot on with the exposure it holds up really very well. I'm old school (read too cheap to buy new software before I need it) and have shot and published a stack of stuff at 3200 on a Mark II and Ds Mark II, all cleaned up a bit with Noise NInja. I think you can do much the same work with new versions of Photoshop and Aperture -- others here know more about this than I.

Nov 08, 2012 at 09:59 AM

BobMarkey
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p.1 #8 · Tips for shooting College Hoops with 1DMKIIn

Thanks. No, I don't use strobes.

No one complains about using the Speedlight, pointed straight up. It's no different than the other guy who shoots his strobes into the ceiling. I mostly use available light and make acceptable photos, but I guess the 1/400 is causing much of my not-too-sharp problem.

My main question was about AF preferences on the MKIIn, such as using center AF plus 7 points, or center AF plus 13 points; and the speed setting for the AF tracking.

I will try 3200, but I need to post images on a Web site during and just after the games, so I do not have much time for editing and noise reduction.

Nov 08, 2012 at 07:39 PM

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