Help with grainy photos

[EJean82]

I have a Canon 80 D with a Canon 70-200 f2.8 is iii lens. I have been shooting my daughters gymnastics meet which tends to have poor lighting. I am struggling with getting the appropriate setting to get clear shots. They either have a lot of blur or are super grainy. 

I attached an example. This is post processed in Photoshop to lighten up the image and try to reduce the grainy stuff

My setting are

RAW

f2.8

IS on

1/400

ISO 2500 ( and this is typically dark right out of the camera)

Al Servo

any tips would be great. Im getting super frustrated!

[wq9nsc]

Thanks Ernie and my only complaint about the newly renovated gym is that the lighting would be very good except it is highly mixed.  The strongest contribution is "old school" strip style florescent with a few high pressure sodium lights around the perimeter which bounce off the walls and floors adding their own special color cast. And some of the florescent tubes are of radically different color temperature, too bad they didn't go with LED strips when they did the update 2 years ago. 

I shot one HS football game last year in a stadium that used lights I had never seen before.  At the source they were narrow horizontal beams but at the field they provided very nice consistent light across the field and I would love to shoot more games there.

The closest I have found to realistic is using florescent as the white balance choice when processing the RAW files.  In the past I tried shooting cards for custom white balance and they work perfectly for the location and angle where recorded but not well elsewhere in the gym.  At least the school is consistent in their inconsistency because the football field uses a mixture of mercury vapor and high pressure sodium lamps creating the same issue for football (and JV soccer which is played under lights early in the season).

I shot their final home wrestling meet a couple of weeks ago, the first time I shot wrestling, and the combination of varied lighting plus the reflections from an assortment of different wrestling mats made for some really odd coloration.  Fortunately soccer season is about to start with lighting kindly provided by mother nature 🙂

Rodger

[ebiggs1]

Well setting WB in levels in PS doesn't change the shot very much.  It may have lightened her shirt a bit.  So you did do a goood job with your chossen WB setting.  Again good job as always.

Whatever, anyway, I bet she is going to love this photo.  Make her a print!  

[wq9nsc]

Thanks Ernie, your PS (and photography expertise in general) is always appreciated!

Rodger

[PhotoGerry]

Thats one hell of a great picture (of the hawk) taken (at max reach?) with your EF 100-400 L IS II and 1.4x extender.  I'm still thinking about purchasing the 1.4X extender for my kit.  I like what you've done with the sharpening and masking in Lightroom which I don't have.  Hopefully the same can be accomplished with photoshop of which I'm still learning on.

G

[ebiggs1]

I am not a tel-con fan. I don't recommend them at all.  If you must get one, though, make sure it works with your lens or the lens you intend to use it with.  They do not work at all with some lenses. They are always a compromise.

[PhotoGerry]

I will be mounting the extender (if purchased) on my 5D Mark III with the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Len. Would appreciate any tips from anyone similarly equiped.  I hope to spend some time at Bald Eagle nest this summer with enough reach to the nest.

-G.

[ebiggs1]

Keep in mind beside losing some IQ you will lose a full f-stop.  That means you will be an f8 lens at 400mm. Neither is a big deal, you just need to be aware of it.

[wq9nsc]

Be sure and use the micro AF calibration setting to calibrate your lens with the extender in place at both ends of the zoom range before heading for the eagle nest.

I use a slightly modified version of the Canon AF calibration procedure to speed setup.  I use their specified micro focus adjustment process EXCEPT I initially take a set of test photos at the -8, -5, -2, 0, +2, +5, and +8 points and examine those carefully on the computer screen and that will let me zero in on the setup with high confidence with one additional set of test shots.  For example if the proper offset looks like it is at or very near +5 then I will take a second series at +3, +4, +5, +6, and +7 and check these on the computer so basically with two sets of test photos I will know exactly what the calibration adjustment should be and this can be easily done in 10 minutes total.

A tripod will be EXTREMELY beneficial for your eagle photos this summer.  With the extreme focal length, stability is critical and with some loss of IQ from adding the extender you want to be able to run your camera as close to its base ISO as possible to preserve the greatest detail and a stable camera perch will allow you to use the slowest shutter speed that doesn't introduce subject induced motion blur.

Rodger

[coachboz68]

I've been shooting gymnastics for about 13 years.  Everyone is going to have great advice, so this is just mine, FWIW.  

1) I never worry about the white balance.  I shoot everything in RAW and adjust those as desired in post processing.  Trying to get that right with those fluorescent lights is too much work for me. 

2) For the first few years,I *obsessed* over noise.  Then I realized I seemed to be the only one who actually cared.  I'd show the pics to my daughters and their teammates, parents, etc., and everyone was just super happy to have quality shots.  

3) A little de-noise in Lightroom goes a long way, and while it softens the image a bit (depending on how much you apply) it turns into what most would consider a pleasing effect on the overall look.  

4) Unless they allow you to be the "official" photographer, you're going to constantly be fighting innumerable factors that are going to make that perfect action shot really challenging.  It's just hard to get to the right spot among the chaos of an event. College is soooo much better in that regard!  Even in the shot below, the framing is rubbish because I've got the heads of the people on the beam, the scoreboard in a terribly distracting spot, etc.  Yet another reason to focus on my final point... 

5) Get a few good action shots, and then focus on the emotional parts.  The gymnasts talking to their coaches for corrections, or that special hug after they peeled off bars, or the high-five with the teammates racing to meet them coming off the mat.  That, and the "pretty" shots where they are posing during the routines seems to be what they love once they get the few "that's badass" shots of them in mid air, like below.  But, for many of the action shots (especially when they are flipping) their faces look like they're an alien because of the force on their skin and eyes!  

Took me a lot of years to accept point 4 because I love action shots as a photographic challenge.  Also, as a former football player in college, then high school coach, I know the action shots football players love.  I didn't know from gymnastics, so they had to "teach" me over the years about the ones they loved.  

[ebiggs1]

" Even in the shot below, the framing is rubbish because I've got the heads of the people on the beam, the scoreboard in a terribly distracting spot, etc."

Photoshop