topic Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51 in EF & RF Lenses

Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

Mmoitoso — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 15:28:20 GMT

I have a Canon Rebel T5i and my telephoto lens is not ideal for what I’m shooting. I shoot mostly baseball and cheer for my children and no matter what I do the noise in my pictures is terrible. I have an EFS 55-250. I just can’t seem to get a clear picture without a lot of noise. What lens would be a good choice for me to get a crisp picture when shooting sports? Any advice would be appreciated!

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

kvbarkley — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 16:05:20 GMT

Show us some examples, you can probably do better with your lens.

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

rs-eos — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 16:31:29 GMT

Without seeing examples, the following is going to be a guess...

I'm assuming you're at the telephoto end of your lens at which point the aperture is f/5.6. And your shutter may be a bit higher to freeze the action. With higher shutter and narrower aperture, the only thing remaining is ISO to balance out the exposure.

Are you shooting at night, or in full daylight? If daylight, the ISO shouldn't have to be raised too high.

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

Mmoitoso — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 17:18:50 GMT

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

Mmoitoso — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 17:21:16 GMT

This is one example and all my

picturea turn out with a lot of noise. With this lens I just can't get them clear day or night. I use a tripod and I've read forum after forum on how to adjust my pictures but I just can't seem to get a clear shot.

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

Mmoitoso — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 17:24:19 GMT

I have tried to take pictures at the end of my telephoto lens but it’s never clear enough so I have stopped. Most of my
Picture are take in mid range of my lens with a tripod but even the. They are very grainy. I’m not very knowledgeable but I have read a lot of forums and followed tips and advice but I still can’t get a clear shot.

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

Mmoitoso — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 17:26:53 GMT

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

rs-eos — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 17:30:16 GMT

Do you know the shutter speed and aperture that was used?

Sunny-16 rule, modified for f/5.6 would allow for a shutter 1/800s and ISO 100. More than enough to freeze the action and very low noise. If your aperture is much narrower and/or shutter speed faster, then ISO will need to increase so as to compensate. Of course this example would be for a bright sunny day.

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

Waddizzle — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 17:36:05 GMT

@Mmoitoso wrote:
I have tried to take pictures at the end of my telephoto lens but it’s never clear enough so I have stopped. Most of my
Picture are take in mid range of my lens with a tripod but even the. They are very grainy. I’m not very knowledgeable but I have read a lot of forums and followed tips and advice but I still can’t get a clear shot.

Also, what is your setting on the top Mode Dial?

What is the AF Mode you are using?

Which AF Point(s) are you using?

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

Mmoitoso — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 18:23:40 GMT

Most of the pictures I took last night were at the baseball field, lights on but at nite. I did change between M and AV setting to see a difference. I set the aperture to the lowest setting f5.6 and it adjusted to 1/500 6400. (Seems high?). That was the general setting for most pictures. No matter how much I adjust the ISO or any setting I still get a lot of noise.

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

ebiggs1 — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 18:36:53 GMT

Your camera is fine. Your lens is fine. Your technique needs help! First forget M mode. Use AV and set it to f5.6. Set ISO to 800. Daylight WB. Use only the center focus point turn all the others off. Evaluative meter. Always, always shoot Raw format never jpg. Try these settings and report back.

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

Mmoitoso — Thu, 08 Apr 2021 21:05:54 GMT

Ok thank you!!!! I will try these settings this evening and see if it works out better. I so appreciate the help!

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

wq9nsc — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 04:35:40 GMT

That lens is going to be at f5.6 once you get into the 150mm zoom lens and that is a very narrow aperture for sports under lights. Once you drop the shutter speed too much, motion blur is an issue and 1/500 is definitely on the ragged edge for motion blur for many baseball photos. So once you have a fast enough shutter speed to freeze motion, the f5.6 lens with night sports is going to push the ISO up and noise is the result.

Some possible options:

1. If you aren't shooting in RAW, do so because you can do some reasonable cleanup after shooting in RAW. Canon's DPP processing software is free for Canon owners and it works quite well at de-noising RAW files and converting to jpg. Shooting in RAW isn't a magic fix but it will help.

2. Get as close as possible, mostly to avoid having to crop because this makes the noise and loss of detail of high ISO shots far more noticeable. If you can use your zoom lens at a lesser telephoto setting where a wider aperture is available, that will also help.

3. Consider getting some shots when the player is frozen. This will allow you to drop shutter speed allowing ISO to decrease.

4. If your children play/perform in more than one stadium, try to concentrate on sites that have the best lighting.

5. If games start before sundown, capture as many good images as possible while there is still some natural light to supplement field lighting.

6. Light isn't distributed evenly across the field so when possible, try to capture your children when they enter one of the brighter zones.

My personal bias is noise is preferable to motion blur so attempting to drop shutter speed below the minimum to freeze action isn't useful. But ISO 6400 on a lot of cameras is going to have a lot of noise and loss of detail.

If you are trying to capture night sports events in places that aren't illuminated like a NFL stadium or major D1 football field a faster (wider aperture) lens is the only viable path. If you can get close enough, a fairly low cost lens like the Canon EF 85 f1.8 is good for low light sports but the caveat is you have to be able to get very close to the action with an 85mm lens. I have used this lens for indoor soccer and as a close work football lens in really poorly lit stadiums and it does work well with very fast focus.

Good night sports photography is highly dependent upon wide aperture lenses and those are usually coupled with a camera that provides good high ISO performance. I recently took the photo below at a field that has extremely good lighting for a high school field and it is better than many college fields but even with an expensive 400mm f2.8 lens it still pushed the ISO up to 6400 at my desired 1/800 minimum shutter speed for football. This was captured with a camera that does extremely well at higher ISO but there is still a large loss in quality compared to what it provides at a lower ISO setting, captured with aperture fixed at f2.8, shutter at 1/800, and ISO allowed to float to provide for the proper standard exposure.

Bottom line, once the sun goes down there never seems to be as much light as you would like for sports 🙂

Rodger

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

ebiggs1 — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 14:24:46 GMT

I am pretty much in concert with what Rodger is recommending but keep my suggestions in mind to start.

"Use AV and set it to f5.6. Set ISO to 800. Daylight WB. Use only the center focus point turn all the others off. Evaluative meter. Always, always shoot Raw format never jpg."

Here is where I don't go along with them.

Do use Raw and the free from Canon DPP4 to edit. It does make a huge difference. It can be a photo saver! Your ISO is not a consideration since you will fix it at 800 and your Rebel should do nicely at that ISO. Your lens is a tad bit slow but again fixed at f5.6 it will not be helped a great deal by the one stop difference between full zoom FL and the none zoom FL.

This is a learn to walk before you learn to run deal. We want to keep the settings simple to start. You can jump into the more advance stuff that Rodger has mastered later on. Lets get some keepers right now.

A big factor most people forget is, all camera gear has it limitations, Some shots are simply not possible or at least possible without huge expenditures of time and money. Let's start slow and get some shots!

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

Waddizzle — Fri, 09 Apr 2021 16:24:13 GMT

@Mmoitoso wrote:

Great shot. It needs a little post-processing work, though. Level the horizon. I would be tempted to crop it square, cutting off off the top portion and some of the bottom sliver of the original shot.

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

Mmoitoso — Sat, 10 Apr 2021 16:26:38 GMT

Thank you! I set the setting as you suggested and the pictures are way better! I haven't taken under the field lighting yet but I'm hopeful it will be great. When taking picture on the field during the day should I keep the setting but change the ISO?

ISO800 250mm f/5.6 1/160

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

Waddizzle — Sat, 10 Apr 2021 18:16:36 GMT

@Mmoitoso wrote:
Thank you! I set the setting as you suggested and the pictures are way better! I haven't taken under the field lighting yet but I'm hopeful it will be great. When taking picture on the field during the day should I keep the setting but change the ISO?
ISO800 250mm f/5.6 1/160

Nice shot, once again! How well, or quickly, can you read the display data in the viewfinder?

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

ebiggs1 — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 14:31:30 GMT

"When taking picture on the field during the day should I keep the setting but change the ISO?"

Yes these are starting point settings. In good daylight you might want to change the Av setting to f8 for instance which would give you deeper DOF (depth of field). That means more of the shot will be in good focus.

ISO800 250mm f/5.6 1/160 is a certain EV (exposure value) setting. If you changed the ISO to 400 still 250mm, change to f8 and still keep the 1/160 the EV is the same. The difference is the increase of DOF. Even more DOF with ISO 200 still 250mm, change to f11 and 1/160. Do you see how the numbers react to each other? Of course using Av the camera will make any SS adjustments needed.

The available light determines how much of a change you can do. When you have great light as a sunny day the EV can be set in many different ways. But when you are in a challenging light like a night BB game the setting choices will be limited. Sometimes very limited. Sometimes impossible!

To help keep grain or noise low and acceptable you want low ISO numbers so use the lowest you can get away with and keep the proper EV.

Re: Advice on a lens for Cnon rebel T51

ebiggs1 — Sun, 11 Apr 2021 14:49:44 GMT

Next step is to jump into Raw and DPP4. Set the file format to Raw not jpg in your camera. Download the free from Canon DPP4. You will upload your photos to DPP4 on your computer just like you are doing now without DPP4. The conversion to jpg is automatic.

Now you can mess with the controls on the right side of the screen. If you totally screw up your shots simply don't save it and then you can start all over or you don't have to do anything at all. But the ability to do amazing edits is there for you to learn.