Football Blurry pics

[jdmcpherson]

Hello from a newbie.  I have a Canon Rebel T7i.  I have been using my 75-300mm lens to capture my son’s high school football game.  They are now a 7-0 team and are going to the playoffs, for sure.  It’s my son’s senior year, so I don’t want any more lost shots to blur.  I am struggling with capturing non-blurry action shots.  I realize I need to get out of these auto programs into manual mode.  The fields are well lit, as they have to be for football.  I had a suggestion from another "fairly new to photgraphy" person of 1/400 on the shutter speed (this camera’s range is from 30 to 1/4000).  That seems slow to me, given that the range is so vast.  Should it be quicker?  I also had the suggestion of the aperture at 8?  Does that sound right?  I am having difficulties trying to decide leaving ISO on auto or setting it.  Any suggestions?

[jrhoffman75]

Hi Jennifer.

I will post my screenshot first and then talk about it.

Your exposure triangle values show that you are definitely light limited.

f/4.5 is the maximum lens opening your current lens can provide.

While your camera can go higher than ISO 6400 quality really starts to fall off.

With those two settings (I can't tell from the metadata what mode your camera was in) the camera selected a shutter speed of 1/1/25 - too slow for what you want to do. It's even to slow for handholding your lens at 135mm.

You also have the camera set on AI Focus. That is an automatic sensing mode where the camera evaluates an image and decides whether to set One Shot AF or AI Servo. AI Servo is a mode where tghe camera will measure the speed of an object approaching the camera and do some math to adjust focus so that the image is in focus when the shutter fires.

I forgot to highlight this, but the camera is also on automatic AF point selection.

I suggest you try the following settings. If you don't have the manual you can download a PDF from the Canon website.

1. select a single center focus point. 

2. set the camera to Tv mode and set 1/640 as discussed above. This will lock the shutter speed at 1/640.

3. set Auto ISO

4. set One Shot AF - put the red square on your son

With these settings the camera will maximize the lens opening first, and then, depending on the lighting conditions, start increasing ISO. You may get a noisy image, but that is preferable to a fuzzy image. As Rodger said, you can try lowering Tv to 1/500 and see how that works. If you get a sharp image then you will have the benefit of lower ISO - lower digital noise.

Another option would be full manual with aperture at f/4, but given the low lighting levels you will be at max anyway and Tv gives you one less thing to worry about setting if you happen to change lenses.

The T7i is a very capable camera, and the 70-200 f/4L that Waddizzle recommended is an outstanding lens. One step down from the f/2.8L version you will frequently see on NFL sidelines.

[Waddizzle]

The AI Focus mode setting is a direct result of selecting the "No Flash" automatic shooting mode.  This is locked into the camera's behavior.  Using one of the Creative Shooting modes , P, Tv, Av, or M, would allow the user to select a better AF mode, like One Shot or AI Servo.

The biggest problem that i see with sample photo is motion blur in the subjects, which is due to the relatively slow shutter speed for action photography.  Your sample also shows an f/4.5 aperture.  If you had a faster lens, f/2.8 or faster, you could have easily doubled your shutter speed, which have helped to significantly reduce the amount of subject motion blur.

Photographing Friday Night Lights is a pretty demaniding challenge.  I see that your focal length is under 200mm, which would suggest that a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens might be beneficial.  In fact, any lens with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 or faster would take a lot of the bite out of the challlenge of night time sports photography.

[jdmcpherson]

Good morning, Waddizzle.

I am definitely getting the faster lens!  Thank you for all your help and guidance.  🙂

~Jennifer

[jdmcpherson]

Good morning, John.

WOW!  I am astounded!  I did not know that the pictures could provide so much detail.  I am assuming (still new at this) that that information in stored in file's properties?  May I ask how one gets to that information?  Is it a program?  

I really appreciate the information you provided and the suggestions as well.  

Thank you!!

~Jennifer

Honestly, everyone, I am so appreciative of all the feedback and suggestions!  

[jrhoffman75]

Good morning Jennifer.

It's all available, along with editing capability, using the free Canon Digital Photo Professional.

https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/details/cameras/eos-dslr-and-mirrorless-ca...

[jdmcpherson]

AWESOME!!  THANK YOU!!!

~Jennifer

[jrhoffman75]

You're welcome.

I noticed the image you posted was a JPEG.

To get the best results when processing your images, especially the nightime images where you will most likely be needing some noise reduction, I recommend you shoot RAW. DPP and most other editing software seamlessly import the RAW images.

If you want images for quick emailing or sharing you could shoot RAW plus JPEG.

THis is based on an earlier version of DPP, but the basics are the same.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kIqd1OTcWLQ&list=PLCD7AA7E58615DDBB&index=1

What software are you currently using?

[jdmcpherson]

I copy my images to a file and when I want to crop or adjust, I just use the edit options in Photos.  I will look in my manual for RAW.  I've only heard of it in this thread.  I have A LOT to learn!

Thanks again!

~Jennifer

[shadowsports]

Jennifer,

Credit to Wadizzle, jrhoffman75 and wq9nsc...

These guys are real pros, and rodger always has the best footbal pics.

The data you asked about is called EXIF data and is embedded in each photograph.

I suggest you install Canon's DPP (Digital Photo Professiional) which can display this infor for you.  Its free.

https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/support/details/cameras/eos-dslr-and-mirrorless-ca...

EDIT - Guys beat me to it...

[wq9nsc]

Rick,

Thanks for your kind words!

The lens is the most critical and a good f2.8 lens like the EF 70-200 f2.8 on a lower level DSLR body will provide better results than a slower 70-300 or similar on a 1DX series body.  A 1DX model and fast lens are a great combination but if I chose one or the other I would go with good glass over a better camera body in a heartbeat.

And an often overlooked low cost Canon lens is the EF 85 f1.8 which can do a very good job for night and indoor sports when you are close enough particularly since it provides a 135mm on an APS C body.   The 70-200 f2.8 is a much better and more versatile choice but at around $300 new it is a very capable lens for poor light, at one point I shot a bunch of indoor soccer with it and if you can get sidelines or near sidelines access in football then a lot of good shots are within its focal length capability.

Rodger