Indoor Sports: IS or not?

[BenJohnson]

For indoor sports do you find IS to be useful at all? Do you always use it? Never? Sometimes?

[liam5100]

Is is only useful if your subjects are virtually motionless or if you want the blur of their movement for artistic effect.

In general most sports your going to want to stop the action. To stop even the most moderate movement you'll need 1/250th and above, at which point IS is useless.

And typically for much faster movement even simple running, throwing or jumping you'll want to be shooting around 1/400th and above.

Quite honestly I shoot primarily sports and I'd gladly have my lenses without IS and take the discounted price.

[dmwierz]

I'm with Bill. If I could have saved the money and bought my EF 400 f/2.8L IS without IS I would have done so. In fact, I occasionally accidentally bump the IS switch to "on" with this lens and immediately can tell - the AF is noticeably slower.

And, as for the 70-200 f/2.8L, I bought the non-IS version.

Now, if I were shooting a lot of weddings, or press conferences, etc, then IS might come in handy.

[liam5100]

I'm with Bill. If I could have saved the money and bought my EF 400 f/2.8L IS without IS I would have done so. In fact, I occasionally accidentally bump the IS switch to "on" with this lens and immediately can tell - the AF is noticeably slower.

And, as for the 70-200 f/2.8L, I bought the non-IS version.

Now, if I were shooting a lot of weddings, or press conferences, etc, then IS might come in handy.

Totally, and I even debated this when I bought my last 70-200 and opted for the IS, just on the off chance that I'm going to be walking around New Orleans with it or something instead of sports.

But when I use it for sports the IS is off, and taped over so I dont accidently bump it on.

[BenJohnson]

I think I may end up in the 1/250 range even at f/2.8 and ISO1600, but I will try shooting without IS and see how it goes!

[dmwierz]

Ben,

Ask yourself this question: once you see the perfect moment to capture and you press the shutter button, do you want your AF system to grab it with tack sharpness, or do you want your camera to move around all the pieces of glass inside your lens with the little IS motors before engaging the AF system then taking the shot?

[BenJohnson]

I see your point. I hope I can get shutter speeds (much faster) than 1/200s...

I think I may just be too used to my inferior equipment :) I will definitely be doing a lot
of experimenting with my settings at this weekend's event.

[dmwierz]

We're beating a dead horse here, but if you're at 1/200s, you have no business taking action images. IS or no IS, you're not gonna get very good shots, even with a rock solid camera position and ZERO shake.

[BenJohnson]

I see what you're saying. I hope the lighting will allow fast enough shutter speeds. In
the past I have been shooting on aperture priority, but I will be trying out manual mode
this weekend.

I was also wondering what AF point(s) most sport photographers use? I have used the
center point exclusively.

[Thalagyrt]

I always shoot with IS off, center point AF. I tape the IS and AF/MF switches to the off and AF positions so that nothing gets bumped, and I also tape down the focus ring and my shutter speed dials so I don't accidentally mess up the settings I'm using.

[Gmerg]

Looks like this is where I need to be. I am new to this but if I understand this...by turning off the IS or using a non IS lens i can get a faster shutter speed? Does that hold true when using a flash as well?

[Thalagyrt]

The stabilizer works by floating an element around, and when you're shooting sports your lens is moving around a lot anyway, which will throw the stabilizer off as it's trying to counter all of your motion. Once you get yourself lined up for a shot, it'll take a second for the stabilizer to settle, and you'll end up with a blurry shot. Having the stabilizer off locks the element in place resulting in crisp shots, and even if you have a bit of hand shake at high shutter speeds it won't matter much especially with a flash.

[matonanjin]

Looks like this is where I need to be. I am new to this but if I understand this...by turning off the IS or using a non IS lens i can get a faster shutter speed? Does that hold true when using a flash as well?

Absolutely not. IS does not in anyway affect shutter speed. The point is that with a fast enough shutter speed IS is irrelevant.

Said another way, IS is used to counter the negative effect of a slow shutter speed. That negative effect is camara movement which causes blur. If you have fast enough shutter speed you don't need IS.

[Gmerg]

OK Im confused...Im shooting an XSI and i did try using a ISO of 400... so that should be problem 1. In Shutter priority mode i can adjust for higher speeds and I do well outside or bright light. But as soon as I add a flash it drops to 1/200. Pix were dark so I just went to Program mode, used the flash and it took pix using 1/80 4.5av ISO 400. So most movement is blurred.

[Thalagyrt]

OK Im confused...Im shooting an XSI and i did try using a ISO of 400... so that should be problem 1. In Shutter priority mode i can adjust for higher speeds and I do well outside or bright light. But as soon as I add a flash it drops to 1/200. Pix were dark so I just went to Program mode, used the flash and it took pix using 1/80 4.5av ISO 400. So most movement is blurred.

You may have to bump up the ISO in order to get the shutter speed you want. At 1/200th or so you'll still get some motion blur, but if your flash is powerful enough to overpower ambient light it won't be too noticeable.

That really only works well if you have ceiling strobes though. In most pro/college sports venues the strobes are able to overpower ambient by about 3 to 4 EV, so you can shoot at 1/250th or 1/320th ISO 400 and still get frozen action.

With a strobe set at the AAA in Miami it's possible to shoot 1/250, ƒ/8, ISO 400 and still get perfect exposures and frozen action. Without one, 1/250, ƒ/5.6 and ISO 3200 will be somewhat underexposed and not be frozen. That should give you an idea of the type of flash intensity I'm talking about here.

http://www.thalagyrt.com:81/photography/basketball/flash-forum.jpg

I was exposed for ambient light and caught Victor's flash during my exposure.

Naturally a hotshoe flash won't be able to do that kind of lighting. What flash are you using?

[BenJohnson]

I think the issue here is that your camera is unable to sync with the flash any
faster than 1/200 sec and also you have not set your exposure compensation
for the flash so the metering is incorrect. If you were trying to shoot at 1/200
sec with no exposure compensation in Tv, and when you switched to P mode
the camera chose 1/80 sec, that means you're images were under exposed
(most likely due to lack of exposure compensation).

If you want to stop motion I would bump the ISO up (a lot, probably to 1600
depending on lighting). I'd first try Av at the lowest aperture setting
available. Your lenses have variable max aperture, so this will change as you
zoom. Hopefully at this point your shutter speeds are acceptable. It will be
nearly impossible for you to shoot (indoor sports) in manual mode with a lens
that has a variable max aperture.

Back to the original intent of this post (nothing to do with flash :) )...

I took the suggestions in this thread and shot some NCAA basketball practice
the other night. Manual mode, IS off the entire time. I posted the shots in the
sports section and I would appreciate any comment or suggestions!

http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?p=7558903

[Gmerg]

Im just using a Promaster 7400EDF...I am very new to this. I am really just getting into TV,AV and Manual mode. But i do know even with an ISO of 1600 as soon as the flash comes on the speed drops to 1/200 and I can only go to a slower shutter speed from there.

[Gmerg]

Back to the original intent of this post (nothing to do with flash )...

I took the suggestions in this thread and shot some NCAA basketball practice
the other night. Manual mode, IS off the entire time. I posted the shots in the
sports section and I would appreciate any comment or suggestions!


Sorry about that...I think they are awesome and I can only dream of having that nice of shots!!!

[Thalagyrt]

That's because that's the fastest shutter speed in which the entire sensor is open at once, and the flash has to fire off at that point.

This will explain it fairly well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shutter_(photography)#Focal-plane_shutters

At higher speeds than your camera's sync speed, you only have a portion of the sensor exposed at any time, and as such the flash would only be covering part of the frame, not the whole frame.

See what you can do at 1600 and 1/200, you might have to bring it up in post if you can't get the exposure you want.

[BenJohnson]

Im just using a Promaster 7400EDF...I am very new to this. I am really just getting into TV,AV and Manual mode. But i do know even with an ISO of 1600 as soon as the flash comes on the speed drops to 1/200 and I can only go to a slower shutter speed from there.
That's exactly my point.

With the ISO at 400 your camera/flash metered for a 1/80 sec shutter speed
Bump it to ISO800 and you should be able to shoot at 1/160 sec
Go to ISO1600 and you're limited to 1/200 sec by the camera, so you willl have to adjust the aperture to compensate

But all of these scenerio's will still leave you with motion blur.

Next step: faster lens! (and no flash, hopefully :))

[matonanjin]

Im just using a Promaster 7400EDF...I am very new to this. I am really just getting into TV,AV and Manual mode. But i do know even with an ISO of 1600 as soon as the flash comes on the speed drops to 1/200 and I can only go to a slower shutter speed from there.

I think you are getting confused. I suggest you get your manual out. This thread started out about IS and now we are talking about flash. No matter what ISO your camera is set when the flash is on you can not set your camera at a shutter faster than what is called the sync speed. With yours apparently that is 1/200th of a second.

[clarence]

when the flash is on you can not set your camera at a shutter faster than what is called the sync speed. With yours apparently that is 1/200th of a second.

Correct. He has a 450D/XSi, which has a x-sync of 1/200":
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos450d/page2.asp