70-200 2.8 II - Image stabilization during sports photography... ON or OFF?

[mikeB]

Hi all!

I have been shooting my daughters indoor volleyball games for a while now and have found that over the years I get a lot of blury shots.  I recently purchased the 5D MK IV (and love it!) as an upgrade from my T4i (I had to save a lot of pennys). I did this for the boost in speed, low light and to go more "pro". 

During our last tournament the image stabilization on my 70-200 got switched off when it was hanging against my leg... and I started to notice a big difference in the quality of the pictures went up!  There were a lot more keepers then before?!?!?!  That was the only setting that was switched on the lens or the camera. 

Have I been shooting wrong all these years?  Should this realy be the case or is it a coincidence that this has happened? 

I typically shoot manual with the iso set to auto (capped at 6400), shutter speed at 1/400 - 1/500, AWB(w) love that new feature by the way.... spot metering and AF Servo.  The focus points are AF point expansion (Manual selection, surrounding points) and Large Jpeg.

Any comments or thoughts would be awesome.

Thanks!

Mike.

Shooting with:

Canon 5D Mk 4 (with grip)

Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS II USM

Canon 24-105 f4L

Canon 50 f1.8

[ebiggs1]

"... with the girls running away and towards me in various directions, ..."

Make sure it is NOT set for the camera selecting which of the AF points are targeted for focusing. When the camera chooses where to focus it can often pick the wrong thing. If you have a subject that is behind something in the foreground the camera will usually pick the closest object, which is not your intention, and you’ll end up with the wrong thing in focus.