topic Re: EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos

Panthergreen — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 13:29:15 GMT

Hello, I've got an old EOS 600D with an efs 55-250mm lens which I've started using for my kids sports photos. The oldest has started playing at night time under lights which are pretty bright but I know from my previous Nikon that taking photos turn out blurry etc. What are some settings I can try to get some decent shots? I know there are much better cameras and lenses out there but this is all I can afford at the moment. Thanks in advance.

Re: Night time sports photos

shadowsports — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 11:42:58 GMT

Greetings ,

This scenario is common for the gear you are using. It's not bad. It just doesn't have the capability to shoot well in low light.

You can try putting the camera into Av mode. The lens is variable aperture f4.5 - 5.6. you'll want to shoot at the widest aperture for the set focal length you can. You will also have to shoot at a fast enough shutter speed to freeze the action. Try 1/250th. The shutter speed you choose is going to have a direct impact on the ISO value. The higher that is the more noise and grain you're going to see in your photos. It's going to depend on the lighting conditions. You're welcome to post some RAW photos for us to evaluate. You can use a file sharing service for large files.

Re: Night time sports photos

wq9nsc — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 13:12:01 GMT

Excellent advice from Rick and I would add that location and selection of what shots to take are critical.

When you start with a somewhat noisy image from having to use a high ISO, you really don't want to crop at all. Your lens complicates this further because you lose a full stop going from the wide to the narrow end of its focal length. You would love to be close enough to get the image while still in the f4 part of its range but that probably won't happen however the closer you can get to the action, the better.

A lot of sports venues, particularly those catering to younger/less profitable events, have very uneven lighting across the playing area so try to choose the best illuminated area and concentrate on it.

The sport determines the general minimum shutter speed you can use to avoid player motion blur and for most sports 1/640 is the general safe minimum with higher being desirable. But that shutter speed coupled with poor illumination with your camera and lens setup is likely to result in unacceptably high ISO. Because of this, you may want to focus your attention on those points in the action where a player momentarily freezes so that action motion blur won't be an issue and then you can potentially get down to the 1/250 speed Rick mentioned although you will need to hold the camera VERY STEADY because you are now getting into the shutter speed range were difficulties with camera shake will be an issue at the mid and beyond points of the focal length of this lens.

If you can get close enough for an 85mm lens to be useful, the Canon EF 85 f1.8 could be a good low cost upgrade lens to consider and a good used copy shouldn't be too expensive. I used the EF 85 f1.8 fairly often for indoor soccer and basketball in really badly illuminated venues. It provides very good images wide open and provides very rapid focus acquisition; I think it and the EF 400 f5.6 were Canon's two best "value" lenses for sports with both performing far better than they should given the cost relative to the more expensive lenses.

You should also shoot images in RAW instead of JPG because the processing software can do a much better job of noise reduction with RAW files; you have access to the free Canon DPP software with your camera and I use it for the majority of editing. Shooting in RAW also means you don't have to worry about setting white balance for image capture because you can dial that in during post-event processing.

My shooting setup for sports is always shoot in RAW with manual exposure; set aperture to widest available setting and shutter speed as fast as you can without ISO becoming unacceptably high and set ISO to auto to complete the exposure triangle. Set AF to servo mode and I use a single AF point for most sports. Using a single point puts more load on the photographer to do the job properly but the trade-off is even more important with less advanced cameras like your 600D because it doesn't have the extremely fast AF system of more advanced cameras and having it choose where to focus from an array of points further slows AF performance.

The bottom line is you need to concentrate on the types of images you can capture with the setup you have and that means in a poorly illuminated venue you won't be capturing sharp fast action shots because you won't be able to set the shutter speed fast enough. I use Canon 1DX III bodies for sports and these have incredible low light performance with their full frame sensor and I couple these bodies with f2 and f2.8 lenses but even with fast glass I end often end up with capture ISO at 6,400 and above which isn't an issue with the 1DX series but that would be unacceptably noisy with a 600D. So you need to drop shutter speed as needed to keep your ISO within reason and that will restrict the types of action you can successfully capture within an event.

Rodger

Re: Night time sports photos

ebiggs1 — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 14:55:56 GMT

Panthergreen,

All photo gear has it limitations. You are most likely exceeding the limits of your gear as you saw with the Nikon. I doubt your camera has proper 'settings' that will allow any reasonably sharp photos if very much motion is involved. However it is free to try. Make sure you use raw and you have a photo editor like DPP4. DPP4 is free and can be d/l from the Canon website. These two, raw and DPP4, are the most important things you can do and fortunately they don't cost you anything.

Re: Night time sports photos

BurnUnit — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 19:46:38 GMT

I think ebiggs1 may have the best "workaround" solution for your situation. I occasionally push my old 60D into the 3200-6400 iso range, though not at the highest shutter speeds. Shooting in RAW the camera does what I consider to be a pretty fair job of dealing with noise. And with DPP and a bit of practice you can easily make further improvements.

DPP has another useful feature if you're editing a large batch of RAW files shot under similar lighting and exposure conditions. You can do the required editing to one image to get the best results. Then you can save all your adjustments made on that image to a "recipe" and apply that "recipe" to your remaining RAW images with just a couple of clicks. If you feel the need you can also go back and tweak individual editing adjustments. But all of the "heavy lifting" is already done.

And avoid pixel-peeping too deeply when editing. Try doing your editing at 100% magnification, maybe only occasionally 200%, but no higher.

Re: Night time sports photos

Panthergreen — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 22:41:56 GMT

Thanks everyone 👍 I'll experiment on some senior games being played at the same field this weekend.

Re: Night time sports photos

BurnUnit — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 23:25:20 GMT

Be sure to post some samples of your shots if you've still got questions. You'll get lots of solid advice and suggestions from this crew.

Re: EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos

Panthergreen — Sun, 05 May 2024 05:22:53 GMT

Here's some shots, I'm surprised 4 turned out okay (I've added them here too) but the rest were blurry etc as expected. The boys ended up playing on the field with the worst lighting, if they had been on the main field the lighting there is much, much better. The weather conditions were atrocious as well, the field was a mud bath...

Re: EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos

shadowsports — Sun, 05 May 2024 14:51:47 GMT

Greetings,

There is no EXIF information included in your .jpg's. We need RAW files, or you need to tell us what shooting mode, shutter speed, aperture, ISO, etc. you are using. This will provide a basis. You can use a file sharing service as I mentioned above.

Re: EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos

ebiggs1 — Sun, 05 May 2024 14:58:49 GMT

You or your software stripped all file info so no camera settings are there but your SS was too slow. However even using the slow 55-250mm zoom, if you had more proper settings you should be able to get useable photos. Try Av mode and set the lens to wide open aperture. Camera does SS automatically. One shot AF and just the center focus point. ISO 3200 but at least 1600 minimum. Use raw and DPP4. Most importantly use raw and DPP4.

The Rebel T3i has a limited upper ISO range, at least performance wise, so you may have exceeded what it is capable of doing. The settings I suggested will get you as close as possible with what you have. The key is raw and DPP4, these are mandatory.

Re: EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos

Panthergreen — Tue, 07 May 2024 00:47:55 GMT

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10161710536581763&type=3

Here's a facebook link that hopefully works with the RAW files

I've also snipped the info from one of the pics too

Re: EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos

deebatman316 — Tue, 07 May 2024 00:35:42 GMT

There isn't EXIF (metadata) with these pictures. They also appear to been have converted from RAW to JPEG. If you have Google Drive you could share them that way with a link.

Re: EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos

wq9nsc — Tue, 07 May 2024 13:47:13 GMT

Your shutter speed is WAY too slow for action sports! I try to stay at 1/800 minimum but with a f4 lens you will have to go lower but 1/500 is marginal shutter speed for any fast moving sport and anything much slower is just going to be motion blur.

I shoot RAW files in manual mode (shutter speed set fast enough to freeze motion, lens wide open (lowest aperture number), and ISO set to auto to complete the exposure triangle.

These were from senior night boys' soccer shot at night on a field with OK but not great lighting @ 1/1,000 shutter speed using a f2.8 glass and camera bodies that handle high ISO very well. You are using a f4 lens and a camera with lesser high ISO capability so your shutter speed will be below optimal but it has to be MUCH faster than what you used for those photos to freeze motion.

Rodger

1DX Mark II, EF 70-200 f2.8, 1/1000, f2.8, ISO 10,0001DX III, EF 400 f2.8, 1/1000, f2.8, ISO 10,0001DX Mark II, EF 70-200 f2.8, 1/1000, f2.8, ISO 12,800

Re: EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos

deebatman316 — Tue, 07 May 2024 13:56:31 GMT

The OP's lens is a variable aperture lens F/4-5.6 so the more they zoom the less light enters the camera. The OP will most definitely have to push the ISO to ISO 1600 or ISO 3200 (if available) a lot of older cameras like my EOS 40D had a max of ISO 1000. Then the expanded ISO range was ISO 1600 (H1) and ISO (3200) (H2). It also depends on how far the OP is away from the action. They may not have to zoom in as much decreases the maximum aperture.

Re: EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos

Panthergreen — Wed, 08 May 2024 02:07:12 GMT

Thanks everyone, I'll be at another game this Friday so will continue practicing, clearly the shutter speed is an issue, I thought I had it set much faster but it mustn't have been...

Re: EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos

ebiggs1 — Wed, 08 May 2024 14:29:40 GMT

" If you have Google Drive you could share them that way with a link."

To what end they won't look any different except to be much larger files. The issue is oblivious.

Re: EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos

deebatman316 — Wed, 08 May 2024 14:34:26 GMT

I wanted to look at the EXIF Data to see what settings they used. The OP later edited their post to include a screenshot of the EXIF Data. But the slow shutter speed is causing the pictures to be out of focus.

Re: EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos

ebiggs1 — Wed, 08 May 2024 14:36:45 GMT

I am going to repeat this advice.

" Make sure you use raw and you have a photo editor like DPP4."

It is you best course for better photos. Along with that reset the camera first off. Do it now, complete reset which means clearing all custom settings, too. After reset, set it to Av mode. ISO 1600 or 3200. WB doesn't matter as it can be set in DPP4 as many other settings can be. Use One shot and just the center focus point, turn the others off. Never use Ai-servo. With these settings the camera will select the fastest SS it can for proper exposure relieving you from that setting. Good luck.

Re: EOS 600D Advice for nighttime sports photos

Architect1776 — Thu, 23 May 2024 13:33:09 GMT

Take photos setting your ISO higher and higher until it reaches a point where noise is unacceptable to you.

That becomes your working ISO. Always keep your aperture wide open and set the shutter as high as you can with the highest ISO. under field lights or indoor lights the light will be consistent.