topic Re: I need a camera for high school sports in General Discussion

I need a camera for high school sports

Lisawit — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:00:37 GMT

I use a T7i, I shoot high school wrestling and football, so lighting is not the best. I use a 28-75 matside and a 70-200 from sidelines.
I find I’m getting a lot of noise. I’m open to crop or full frame. What will be good upgrades? I need to stay around $1200

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

ebiggs1 — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:09:57 GMT

You may not need a camera as much as a better lens. The Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens would be a good place to start. And even faster lens may also be good, perhaps the EF 50mm f/1.8 STM Lens but you lose the ability to zoom for the faster aperture. An off brand excellent lens is the Sigma 18-35mm f/1.8 DC HSM Art Lens for Canon.

I don't know what 28-85 you have but I bet it is a slow variable ap.

The T7i should do the job if you give it good glass.

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

Lisawit — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:16:07 GMT

I’m using Tamron SP 28-75mm f/2.8 XR Di LD-IF Autofocus Zoom Lens for Canon EOS

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

ebiggs1 — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:20:56 GMT

I am not a fan of that Tamron lens. It has a poor reputation for bad edge sharpness. Perhaps that is what you are seeing. What is the 70-200 you are using?

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

Lisawit — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:24:20 GMT

I was given that lens so I wouldn’t be bothered replacing it.
Tamron SP 70-200mm F/2.8 Di VC G2 For football

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

ebiggs1 — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:58:01 GMT

The Tamron SP 70-200mm F/2.8 Di VC G2 is a fantastic lens. In my estimation it is the 2nd best 70-200 zoom.

How does it perform on your Rebel? If it is good, the other lens may be the culprit.

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

Lisawit — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 01:01:10 GMT

Pretty good from what I’ve seen so far. I got it at the end of the season so I haven’t been able to play with it a lot.

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

Waddizzle — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 02:16:27 GMT

@Lisawit wrote:
I use a T7i, I shoot high school wrestling and football, so lighting is not the best. I use a 28-75 matside and a 70-200 from sidelines.
I find I’m getting a lot of noise. I’m open to crop or full frame. What will be good upgrades? I need to stay around $1200

Your shooting scenario, low light sports, is a pretty demanding one for any camera. Your gear should be able to handle most of it fairly well. I can see how noise could be a problem, but even the best gear would likely capture images with varying degrees of noise.

The T7i is a pretty decent camera, and so is the Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 lens. An APS-C sensor is not always the best low light performer. But, I would be curious to know what camera and exposure settings you are using. Can you post a sample of a “noisy” photo that includes the EXIF data?

I am also curious to know if you save photos in the camera as JPG or RAW files. What type of post processing software that you use, if any? If you save your files as RAW, then you can use Canon’s Digital Photo Professional software to reduce much of the noise in the images. But, you will not be able to perform any lens correction because of the non-Canon lenses.

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

Lisawit — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 13:04:57 GMT

I shoot in raw, use Lightroom. I actually didn’t know there was canon software 28-75 2.8 6400 1/250

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

Lisawit — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 13:05:31 GMT

It won’t let me add a photo

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

Waddizzle — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 17:48:40 GMT

The most common reason for being prevented from adding photos is file size. If this is the cause, then you should have received a message saying maximum image file size is 5MB. In practice, there is some overhead. I limit files to 4.5MB.

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

Waddizzle — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 17:52:58 GMT

You will visible noise at ISO 6400. But, LR should clean that up, provided you do not crop a whole lot.

Why not use the 70-200?

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

wq9nsc — Mon, 14 Jan 2019 17:57:51 GMT

If you click on the photo symbol near the middle of the control bar of the edit window there is a picture icon that should let you insert an image.

High school football field lighting is generally horrible with few exceptions so noise is a fact of life. Wrestling is usually easier because it is easier to get close to the action with a shorter fast lens and for many of those shots you can slow the shutter speed a bit. The local high school just upgraded their gym and it has good lighting now so a standard exposure can be made at 1/640, F2.8, @ ISO 4,000 Their football field is at the other extreme and the image below was at 1/1000, F2.8, @ ISO 40,000 It was processed just using Canon DPP with no additional de-noising software.

But nothing is a substitue for good lighting and the second image was taken at an afternoon game @ 160 ISO and the only negative was the university wanted the photographers in an area where the players were often illuminated from behind but I will take backlit over "no-lit" anytime 🙂

Rodger

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

ebiggs1 — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 02:17:45 GMT

"It won’t let me add a photo ..."

Probably too big resize it in LR. While on the subject of LR how are you doing your post editing? You can reduce visible noise with LR. ALso make yourself a preset that does lens correction upon import. This should be mandatory.

The T7i is a seriously good camera. Unless you go mega bucks any other camera is only going to show minimal improvements in noise. Don't pay any attention to folks that tell you otherwise.

Take a look at the Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM Lens for your T7i. But even then it will be only slightly better that what you have.

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

Lisawit — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 13:59:51 GMT

I haven’t been able to get on the computer and I don’t see where to add the photo on my phone.
I will look into the lens. I think I figured since the T7i is a rebel that’s entry so there has to be better...

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

Lisawit — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 14:01:56 GMT

@waddizzle , it’s still really new to me lol. I tried it once and felt that it was too much at matside. I should try again

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

Lisawit — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 14:10:19 GMT

Someone suggest the 7d mk 2, and the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV 16.1 or thr 5d mk 3 or4.
I’ve akways loved taking photos, and I think I take good ones, but now I’m doing it for the school
And want to start a little business, so I just want to make sure ... we’ll i just don’t want to suck lol

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

wq9nsc — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 15:15:34 GMT

This is a good site to compare noise performance of different bodies at different ISO speeds: https://www.the-digital-picture.com/Reviews/Camera-Noise.aspx?Camera=1111&Test=1&ISO=25600&CameraComp=1074&TestComp=8&ISOComp=25600

Your placement and the lens you use play a critical role because you want to minimize cropping to avoid accentuating the noise. Of course this puts more pressure on you to properly frame the shot because the lens filling capture that leads to less noise in the final image puts more pressure on you to track and time the unfolding play. Lens focus speed, which is highly dependent upon the body used, is another critical component.

Rodger

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

Lisawit — Tue, 15 Jan 2019 18:50:42 GMT

The sigma or canon lens?

Re: I need a camera for high school sports

Waddizzle — Wed, 16 Jan 2019 02:19:44 GMT

@Lisawit wrote:
Someone suggest the 7d mk 2, and the Canon EOS 1D Mark IV 16.1 or thr 5d mk 3 or4.
I’ve akways loved taking photos, and I think I take good ones, but now I’m doing it for the school
And want to start a little business, so I just want to make sure ... we’ll i just don’t want to suck lol

If you are looking for lower noise than a T7i, then you probably would want a 5D series out of those choices. Even a 6D or 6D2 would be a significant improvement. But, LR should be able to clean up your current photos a LOT, enough to gain at least a full stop in improvement. You could sacrifice resolution, and get rid of ALL of the noise if you wanted.