I'd would appreciate your opinion on this. I shoot H/S football and our field is like shooting in a dungeon. I shoot JPEG, wide open, Shutter at 400, ISO maxed out (6400) with a 2.8 700-200 IS.The images are O/K, when the action gets close pictures get better.
Question is; buy a MKIV for its increased ISO allowing me to shoot at 800 S/S? Or stay with the1D3 and buy glass, preferable a 300 2.8 IS ?
Just a suggestion .. drop your shutter speed a tad to say 1/320 close your lens down to say F4.0 and see how it goes at ISO 6400 with the IS turned off. This has worked for me by giving a slightly deeper DOF. These settings have worked for me with a 70-200 Non IS on a 1D Mk IV even slightly lower ISO as well generally between 4000 and your 6400 mark. I also shoot raw and edit in LR 3 which gets rid of a huge amount of noise.
BigPurpleOne wrote:
Just a suggestion .. drop your shutter speed a tad to say 1/320 close your lens down to say F4.0 and see how it goes at ISO 6400 with the IS turned off. This has worked for me by giving a slightly deeper DOF. These settings have worked for me with a 70-200 Non IS on a 1D Mk IV even slightly lower ISO as well generally between 4000 and your 6400 mark. I also shoot raw and edit in LR 3 which gets rid of a huge amount of noise.
Good luck.
So he can get even blurrier and more underexposed images
Good lenses are always a better investment hands down.
Cameras become obsolete in a heart beat due to limits in their technology. A pro L lens that is taken well care of should last well more than a decade maybe two.
While I am an amateur who only shoots his own children's sporting events - mostly poorly, I might ad! - I have to agree with Pixel. You might get a used 300 2.8 for around $3,500 - $3,900. A used Mark IV goes for at least $4,000. Check the buy and sell boards a few years from now. A used 300 2.8 will probably go for around the same prices you would pay today. I used Mark IV, however, will be way down in value as a newer camera with better features will be out, and you will still be lusting over a 300 2.8!
Spending a bunch of money for the extra stop isn't going to help the primary problem - this looks like just a terrible place to shoot. Even with some improvement in technique I suspect that you are going to have a tough time getting anything that you are really happy with. I would see what you can do on a decent away field and then decide if you want to make that kind of serious investment.
The problem here isn't focal length or DOF. A 300/2.8 won't gather any more light than a 70-200/2.8. Now, if you had asked whether to get a 200/2, now *that* would change something. You would be one stop faster at the same focal length and this would permit you to shoot at 1/800 @ ISO 6400, 1/400 @ ISO 3200, or somewhere in between. An old 200/1.8 would also work beautifully.
The fast telephoto primes (including the 300/2.8) will help with the image sharpness, but your camera settings and scene EV clearly show that the sharpness limiting factor is not the lens or DOF, but a combination of high ISO and insufficient shutter speed. The DOF at those subject distances is not going to be enough to get every player in sharp focus, but if you cannot freeze the action, a large DOF won't make any difference, as everything will be blurry. So don't even think about stopping down.
Assuming you did not bump up the exposure in post, I think you could afford to bring down the exposure by 1/3 stop. Note that in the last image, you have some blown highlights, for example.
Finally, the composition leaves something to be desired. Always be mindful of where you are relative to the action and the background elements. The white car, for example, is not aesthetically ideal--better would be to have spectators in the background. In this regard, a 300/2.8 would fill the frame with your primary subject and subdue the background. It is also likely to change the scene EV and therefore the camera's metering decision, because your background is under-illuminated. This is why I believe your subjects tend to be slightly overexposed. So you may see a slight indirect benefit of using a longer focal length at the same f-number. How much, though, I cannot say in advance.
The shooting conditions are far from ideal so there isn't going to be a perfect solution. So much of photography is about all the decisions that are made before the exposure, and in particular, the choice of tools that are most suitable for the intended result.
Lots of good ideas here... I'll will take this all in and consider my options. Thank you to everyone.. BTW The ID MK IV WAS on the short list due to the fact I would be selling my MK III to help with the cost..
I would go for the lens first. I shoot with the 1D III / 300 2.8 L IS combo. The look of your files will change with this lens. It is something you have to try to believe it. I suggest you try to rent one from lensrentals.com and then see. Personally I rarely have to shoot at 3200 or 6400 so if this is more important to you then of course the 1D4 could be the answer for you. Get a 300 now and and in a year used prices will come down a bit on 1D4s.
Quite like yourself, I am in this predicament and contemplated for moments if I should upgrade from a rebel XTi to 40d/5d and went with the former. This is allowing me to invest on glasses. There's a reason most people say it, that is the depreciation curve.
