topic Re: Indoor Sports Photography in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

EOS 60D Indoor Sports Photography Advice

carissawv — Thu, 05 Jan 2023 18:49:55 GMT

Hello,

I'm seeking advice on indoor sports photography, equipment, and software. I have 60D and use the 70-200 2.8 IS III. I have LR 4 and Photoshop Elements 13 and I'm trying to figure out if upgrading my equipment and software would help or if this is purely skills that need to be improved. I shoot in RAW.

1/5400 2.8 2500 WB fluorescent

1/500 3.5 6400 WB fluorescent

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

jrhoffman75 — Sat, 27 Nov 2021 14:05:57 GMT

Welcome to the forum.

You've got an outstanding lens. The 60D isn't the latest, but it is a capable camera.

What are you unhappy about with the images?

Can you post a link to a DropBox or One Drive folder with the two RAW images? The images look soft when I check them in FastStone Image Viewer, but they are only 1.5MB jpegs.

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

wq9nsc — Sat, 27 Nov 2021 14:43:22 GMT

As John stated, you have a great lens and a capable camera. The EF 70-200 f2.8 is always going to be on one of my camera bodies at sports events both indoor and out. The 60D is quite capable and its biggest weakness compared to current bodies is a little less ability in low light which is important for indoor sports but a lot of good sports photos have been taken with that body so you will be fine with it.

For basketball, you are pushing the envelope at 1/400 shutter speed. Basketball is one of the sports where you need about the same shutter speed for younger players as you do for older. 1/640 is as low as I like to go with 1/800 being preferable if there is enough light but you do have to account for less light. I wouldn't go below 1/500 for basketball. For sports action shots, your shutter speed has to be high enough to freeze action and the image stabilizer isn't going to help. I generally leave it turned off.

Location becomes more critical when you are in a difficult area of ISO speed for your camera with the less cropping the better. At ISO 100, you can crop severely and still retain good detail but as you push the ISO near the camera's limit you want to crop as little as possible which means in most cases getting as close to the action as possible.

Basketball works best when shot from a low position so if you can't get on the gym floor, try to sit in the first couple of rows and stay as low as possible shooting out and preferably up. With the lens at f2.8, depth of field becomes pretty shallow and you will probably find your best results are keeping a single focus point where you want it on the player but experiment between single point and a very small array of focus points to see what works best for you.

For sports, I shoot in manual mode with aperture generally wide open and shutter speed at 1/640 or better depending upon the light and sport. I set ISO to auto to let the camera choose the exposure.

The attached shot was from a really lousy game, the team I was shooting for was never in the game so there weren't a lot of good photo ops. Hopefully things improve after their opener! Shot at f2.8, 1/800, ISO 6400 with 1DX III and EF 70-200 f2.8 IS III

Rodger

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

Tintype_18 — Sat, 27 Nov 2021 14:54:22 GMT

Rodger, thanks for your reply. I find it interesting as to your experience along with various settings and advice on what to do in different situations. Shooting from a low position at basketball brought to mind many photographers sitting in the floot around each goal area. Hazardous is a couple of those players take a tumble and wind up in your lap. Had a request to photograph local high school games. Might contact the local editor to see if the offer still stands. They are local and the credits would look good on teh resume. I might be limited as I'm down the ladder with a T7, lenses are 18-55mm and 75-300mm.

Edit: I have taken lots of photos of my two grandson's baseball games. Had a time focusing on the player through the safety net.

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

wq9nsc — Sat, 27 Nov 2021 15:08:41 GMT

Tintype,

You are welcome and I am happy to share what I have learned through experience.

Basketball is the sport where photographers and fans are often in the danger zone so you have to stay highly alert at all times. I really don't like having fans so close to the playing area because things happen and it is often the player who gets hurt. One of the high school teams I shot for in the past puts their band on portable bleachers right behind the goal and every game has at least one player ending up there; it is a bad accident waiting to happen.

With every sport I shoot, I pay constant attention to the action AND I always know what is around me so that I can quickly get out of the way. With HS basketball, there are going to be cheerleaders just out of bounds at both ends and you will have to contend with limited space and some of them paying little attention to the game. It makes things more difficult in staying out of the way of the action.

But don't worry too much about the odds of injury because if you pay attention, you won't have an issue. And basketball is a lot of fun to shoot even when the team you are supporting is having a horrible night. I will be shooting another game for them Monday evening and hopefully the outcome will be better; I shoot the girls' team Thursday night and I think they are going to have a good season.

If lighting and lens force your camera into an ISO level beyond your comfort zone, think about getting some free throw shots where you can drop the shutter speed considerably. I don't bother to do this with the 1DX series bodies in this level of light because they handle high ISO well but with a slower lens this may be the sort of shot you want to emphasize. This free throw was shot with a 1DX II and EF 300 f2.8 at f2.8, 1/800, ISO 12,800 but a much slower shutter speed could have been used since the player was frozen while setting up his shot.

Rodger

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

ebiggs1 — Sat, 27 Nov 2021 15:24:17 GMT

"I have 60D and use the 70-200 2.8 IS III. I have LR 4 and Photoshop Elements 13 ..."

Your gear and software is fine. A more current camera like the 90D would always be a good idea. Newer tech is almost always a good choice. Your software is capable if you know how to use it.

Your shots appear as though you are shooting from the bleachers? If, yes, that is a real problem. Location from where you shoot is paramount. You don't see any of the fantastic sports shots you admire, Rodger's included, being shot from the bleachers do you? You are basically just doing snapshots with a high dollar lens.

Second most important thing to good sports shots is "know the sport". If you have no clue as to what is going on and what is about to happen you will never get 'that shot'. This is true even if you are in the most desirable place to shoot from with the latest and greatest gear.

If possible go to the gym before hand and do some practice shots. This will give you some clue as to settings for your camera.

Otherwise nobody here can tell you those settings without seeing the gym. They can only guess. They may work, they may not. But game time is not the time to find out.

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

ebiggs1 — Sat, 27 Nov 2021 15:29:50 GMT

"I shoot in RAW. ... WB fluorescent"

Lighting temperature is of little concern if you use Raw. I would just set it to Average WB. Raw file is not affected with almost no camera setting. Your choice of in camera settings is only used by the software to created a viewable image on your computer.

Critical focus and exposure is all you really need concern yourself with when using Raw.

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

carissawv — Sun, 28 Nov 2021 23:58:55 GMT

Thank you, John!

I would like to reduce the grain and sharpen my images.

Do these link work?

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19JVeKE6ilIt4HEysxoKDz_1G1K7i_0mH/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ykBVsnhrGZETP9HoUFqLgJHrLP1CiMyI/view?usp=sharing

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

carissawv — Sun, 28 Nov 2021 23:59:34 GMT

Thank you, Rodger! I don't know why I hadn't thought of sitting closer to the court.

There was not enough light when I increased the shutter speed...hopefully sitting closer will help that.

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

carissawv — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 00:00:07 GMT

Thank you, EB!

Yes, I'm going to try different locations next time.

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

jrhoffman75 — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 00:32:33 GMT

There seems to be a download block on the gymnastics image, but I could download the basketball shot.

I suggest you download and use the free Canon DPP software to process your RAW files, then if you want to do more you can send to Lr or Ps.

Here is a quick edit just in DPP.

I will also send to Lr and see what that can do.

I sent a TIFF from DPP to Lr and did a little more work.

I have a Lightroom plugin (can also be used as a standalone app) the uses artificial intelligence for image sharpening (called Topaz AI Sharpen). Here's what it can do:

Noise is much easier to deal with than motion blur, so when i doubt aim for a higher shutter speed and deal with the noise in post.

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

carissawv — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 01:55:49 GMT

Thanks, John! I love those edits! I'm going to work on getting more familiar with LR.

I may have fixed the other link??

https://drive.google.com/file/d/19JVeKE6ilIt4HEysxoKDz_1G1K7i_0mH/view?usp=sharing

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

jrhoffman75 — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 02:02:01 GMT

Give DPP a try. The advantage of DPP is that Canon is frequently updating the processing engine along with lens image correction in DLO. If you export a TIFF from DPP into Lightroom you can do further editing, but since you are using LR4 I would say that you may not be getting any benefit from LR.

You can do your own testing and decide what works best for you.

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

FloridaDrafter — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 02:48:43 GMT

@jrhoffman75 wrote:

"I have a Lightroom plugin (can also be used as a standalone app) that uses artificial intelligence for image sharpening (called Topaz AI Sharpen)."

I use Topaz Sharpen AI and their Mask and DeNoise standalone apps on occasion. Usually don't have to, but when needed, they are excellent. Kind of expensive when you consider that they just do one thing (they do it extremy well), but they are nice to have in the toolbox.

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

ebiggs1 — Mon, 29 Nov 2021 15:09:17 GMT

"Give DPP a try."

2nd that.

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

Tronhard — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 19:39:36 GMT

I have the 60D and I still love using it! Like you I have Topaz noise reduction and that can be very helpful in situations such as this. As several people have said, the 60D is a capable camera and you have an excellent lens there. You are very wise to consider technique before upgrading to different tech.

I am curious about what you produce from your shots: do you create for on-line or digital viewing or produce prints - if so, how big?

Definitely getting as close as possible to the action is important for a couple of reasons:

1. You can use a shorter focal length when the players are closer to you, which should help reduce camera shake

2. As you and others have said, the light coming to your camera should have more intensity (the inverse square law of energy dispursion applies here!).

3. Also as has been said, shooting low offers more dramatic composition.

One always has the challenge of balancing Depth of Field, Shutter Speed and ISO. In the first shot, taken at 1/5400 sec, I would have thought your SS was higher than you actually need, even dropping down to 1/1500 or 1/2000 would help with the ISO and DoF. If you want the boy to the left to be more in focus you could thus gain some DoF.

It's worth experimenting a bit to see what SS you can get down to for the type of movements you are working with.

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

jrhoffman75 — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 19:40:57 GMT

Typo by OP. It was 1/400 for one image an 1/500 for the second.

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

Tronhard — Tue, 30 Nov 2021 20:05:31 GMT

@jrhoffman75 wrote:
Typo by OP. It was 1/400 for one image an 1/500 for the second.

Ah THAT makes more sense!!! I DID read the thread but must have missed that one...

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

carissawv — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 03:20:49 GMT

Trevor,

I mostly just post online or do small prints for family and friends. Thanks for the advice.

Thanks for catching the typo, John. I don't know how I missed that!

Re: Indoor Sports Photography

Tronhard — Wed, 01 Dec 2021 03:23:33 GMT

@carissawv wrote:
Trevor,

I mostly just post online or do small prints for family and friends. Thanks for the advice.

Thanks for catching the typo, John. I don't know how I missed that!

For me, the output is the major question, and given the profile you have described I would certainly say that the 60D is still a good contender and you seem to get some great shots with it. Just getting closer and lower may be all that you need to do to tweak your imagery!