Help! Blurry soccer photos - EOS Rebel series & 70-300mm lens

[joannatalbot]

Hi all,

I'm taking pics of my son's high school soccer games using a Canon EOS Rebel 17 with a 70-300mm lens (in the daylight) and find many come out blurry. 

I have tried the AF and sports settings but still most of my photos are out of focus. Sometimes nothing in the photo is in focus -- it's not even like the camera is focusing on the wrong thing.

As a beginner, I do find that my pictures are wider than I would like -- it's hard to get in close when the action moves so quickly -- so I'm sure that isn't helping, but even wide shots come out blurry.

Please advise!

[Danny]

Thanks for joining the conversation, joannatalbot!

So that the Community can help you better, could you please double-check the model number on your EOS Rebel camera? That, and any other details you'd like to give will help the Community better understand your issue!

If this is a time-sensitive matter, click HERE search our knowledge base or find additional support options HERE.

Thanks and have a great day!

[kvbarkley]

Can you post a few examples?

If you take a picture of things standing still do things come out OK?

Is the IS on for the lens?

[ebiggs1]

joannatalbot

First I am going to assume you have a Canon Rebel T7 with the two kit lens combo. First all photography gear has its limit to what it can do. If you have the gear I mentioned you will run into that limit quickly. However, there are a few things you can do to get good or at least better images.

A few things you can do that don't cost anything. Learn the sport. Majorly important if you don't know what is going on you will never get good shots unless you are extremely lucky. Always set the camera to record raw and never, I mean never, jpg. Get DPP4 form Canon also free to d/l. Learn it and use it to do all your photo importing and saving and printing or social media work. With DPP4 you can do some amazing editing and cropping. Things like exposure, color balance, sharpening and way much more as much as you want or as little as you want but it's free so no reason to not use it. Lots of Youtube tutorials about DPP4.

"I have tried the AF and sports settings but still most of my photos are out of focus." That will virtually guarantee you will get blurry images. It is best to stay out of the full auto side of the mode dial. Let's try Tv  Av mode on the other side of the mode dial. Now set your lens to its most open aperture, you may need to consult your manual to do this if you don't know how. This is going to let the camera set the fastest shutter speed, SS, it can for proper exposure. Again your gear will hits its limits quickly. Set the ISO to a higher number like 1600 or 3200. Set it to use One shot and not any AF assisted settings, none, never, preferably use just the center focus point. Now give this a try and let me know how it went.

[kvbarkley]

"Let's try Tv mode on the other side of the mode dial. Now set your lens to its most open aperture, you may need to consult your manual to do this if you don't know how."

Isn't this contradictory? If you are in Tv mode, you set the shutter speed and let the camera set the aperture.

[ebiggs1]

Yes it is sir thank you for catching that pooh-paw. It is edited and corrected. 🙄

[wq9nsc]

Assuming the model you mean is a T7, it should be capable of decent photos during the day with that lens but night games would be an issue.  As others noted, post some examples and if you use software to reduce the jpg image size make sure that the exposure information is retained in what you post so that we can see shutter speed and other info.  If everything looks blurry, it sounds like motion blur possible due to a combination of speed and camera shake. 

Rodger

[ebiggs1]

"... a T7, it should be capable of decent photos ..."

Absolutely, it won't be the T7, if indeed it is a T7, that shows the limits, it will be the lenses.

[Tintype_18]

I have a T7 and found that lens speed and F stop are critical. Lens is the 75-300mm. I have taken photos of kids running cross country and caught them with both feet off the ground; baseball coming off the bat; pitched baseball between the pitcher and home plate. Have fun and experiment with different settings as noted here.

[wq9nsc]

I haven't seen sample photos yet...  BUT for soccer, absolute minimum shutter speed is 1/640 to freeze motion and in daylight the 70-300 with the aperture set to its widest position should allow for 1/1,000 shutter speed without pushing the ISO too high.  1/1,000 is my preferred minimum for soccer.

In short, for sports set the camera to manual mode with ISO set to auto.  Set shutter speed to 1/1,000 and aperture as wide as possible (f5.6 at the tele end of your 70-300 lens which is where you will probably be much of the time).  Set the AF to servo and for best performance set the AF point to center only and keep that on your subject.  The AF system of the T7 isn't as robust or capable as many of the other Canon bodies and it will perform better if you help it by using on the more accurate center point which provides faster focus acquisition and better tracking than letting it choose multiple AF points.

Shoot your photos in RAW instead of JPG, it allows you to do far more in post-processing.  The free Canon DPP program will provide all of the basic editing you need.  The best camera gear in the world won't acquire good images if not set up and used properly while pretty basic gear can catch exceptional images if the user makes the best use of the equipment.  Most important is your placement near the field and understanding the game, next is setting the gear up for the situation, third and fourth is the gear and what you do to edit the images post-capture.

The images below were captured with a higher end body and lens than you are using but the same principles were applied, manual mode with auto ISO couple with fast shutter speed and wide open aperture.  Shot in RAW and processed to JPG after the event.

Rodger