Help with upgrade decision

I currently have a 60D. My primary usage right now is kids sports, mostly lacrosse with some basketball mixed in. My oldest plays most of her lacrosse games at night. I have been using a 70-200 f/2.8 IS MKii. I'm using shutter priority with ISO set to auto and find that most of the night pictures are taken at ISO 6,400, which seems to push the boundaries of the 60D's capabilities.

As a novice who never expects to make a living at this, I can't justify the 1DX or 5D3. From what I have read here and other places, it seems as though the 70D is the logical choice. With that in mind, two questions for the experts:

1) Would the 70D provide meaningful improvement over the 60D in low-light sports environments?

2) If my budget is $1,000 - $2,000 is the 70D the best option for my needs vs. a 7D, or used 1Dxx or 5Dxx?

What focal length could you get away with if you just had to? The 135L would get you an extra stop (f2 vs 2.8) is fast focusing well within your upgrade range. 6400 isnt going to be all that great on anything short of a 5DIII or 1DX.

IlliniFan99 wrote in post #16741569
I currently have a 60D. My primary usage right now is kids sports, mostly lacrosse with some basketball mixed in. My oldest plays most of her lacrosse games at night. I have been using a 70-200 f/2.8 IS MKii. I'm using shutter priority with ISO set to auto and find that most of the night pictures are taken at ISO 6,400, which seems to push the boundaries of the 60D's capabilities.

As a novice who never expects to make a living at this, I can't justify the 1DX or 5D3. From what I have read here and other places, it seems as though the 70D is the logical choice. With that in mind, two questions for the experts:

1) Would the 70D provide meaningful improvement over the 60D in low-light sports environments?

2) If my budget is $1,000 - $2,000 is the 70D the best option for my needs vs. a 7D, or used 1Dxx or 5Dxx?

I would think a 1d3 is probably the best compromise- the bigger sensor is going to give you a big of an upgrade in the low-light area. 1d4 is better, but probably out of your price range.

In terms of other cameras, 70d may give you a noise advantage if you're talking about in-camera JPG, but the actual sensor doesn't really have less readout noise. So that depends on your post-processing more than anything... Personally, I'd rather have the 7d's buffer, frame rate, and AF, and if you can sell your 60D for $550 you can probably pick up a 7d for only $200-250 more. You won't see any noise improvements, but I guess you have to choose frame rate and AF, or low-light / high-ISO performance. Hard to get both without paying for 5d3 or 1d4.

Heya,

The 70D will give you a little better ISO performance. But it's not going to be earth shattering. Maybe 1 stop better, a touch more at best. But not more than that.

The 6D will actually give you the most ISO performance in that price range. You lose on some reach, by switching to a full frame sensor.

If you're already using Tv mode, with a high shutter to freeze the action, I'm assuming everything locks in at F2.8, and then ISO boosts to it's maximum, at 6400. Bottom line, if you continue doing this, is that you'll need ISO 12k+ and like 25k. Then simply do noise reduction post processing. If you view it at print size, it will look clean enough. If you view at 100% on a screen, it will look awful of course.

Very best,

gonzogolf wrote in post #16741582
What focal length could you get away with if you just had to? The 135L would get you an extra stop (f2 vs 2.8) is fast focusing well within your upgrade range. 6400 isnt going to be all that great on anything short of a 5DIII or 1DX.

I'm already pushing the lower limit of focal range at 200m based on how close I can get to the action and have to do a fair amount of cropping to get decent shots. I could probably get away with the 135L if I had a couple of rigs, one with a longer FL.

Yes, at ISO6400 a different crop camera is not going to offer much improvement.

If you can live with center-point only AF, a 6D might be an option, otherwise I'm not sure.

When I had just the 5DII and 7D it was always a toss-up between being able to frame the shot better vs. noise and usually having to crop with the 5DII. The 5DII (and the 6D should be better) center points are certainly good enough for most sports with the right lens.

Of course cropping a crop vs really cropping a FF might end up as a bit of a wash because you will be magnifying the noise on the FF more than the crop. I haven't done 'scientific' tests, but with the 7D vs. 5DII I don't think there is much in it at all. 6D might be better though, but enough to be worth losing the multi-AF points, not sure.

In my opinion, do not upgrade. At least for now.
The 70D is not a big enough improvement to the 60D in low light to justify the upgrade.
The 7D or 1D3 will focus faster, but still their low light is more noisy compared to the 60D.
The 5D3 will cost you more than a little compared to the other options. And its a different focal length because of the crop unless you get a good deal on second hand 5D3.

If the 7D2 will be announced and come in a few months, I suggest to wait a bit and see what happens. It should be better at sport and low light than your current options.

Have you tried shooting RAW, Manual, ISO 6400, f/2.8, 1/640 sec. and post processed in something like Lightroom? These settings are pretty standard for those of us that shoot high school sports.

I would love to have a camera with better high ISO performance than my 50D but can't afford upgrading to a 1D X or even a 5D Mark III. I don't see enough improvement in the 7D to justify the extra cost.

Craign wrote in post #16741636
Have you tried shooting RAW, Manual, ISO 6400, f/2.8, 1/640 sec. and post processed in something like Lightroom? These settings are pretty standard for those of us that shoot high school sports.

I would love to have a camera with better high ISO performance than my 50D but can't afford upgrading to a 1D X or even a 5D Mark III. I don't see enough improvement in the 7D to justify the extra cost.

I haven't tried Manual, but here is an example of the game I shot earlier this week.

RAW, TV, ISO 6400, f/2.8, 1/500, then processed in Lightroom.

IMAGE LINK: http://www.flickr.com …18018477@N03/12​981840455/

Manual helps, your meter is too easily fooled by the amount of dark tones versus white tones in a given shot. In the sample above if the two players swapped uniforms the exposure in AV might have changed greatly. The lighting will be pretty consistent across the field (sometimes you get dark corners) so you can dial it in and be pretty sure it will get you there. Keep in mind that sometimes shadows will kill you. And lock down your ISO when you are going to be at max or near max anyway.

Heya,

Looks fine to me.

Stop using Tv maybe. Go to manual and set it to what you want. Meter before the game for the lighting to ensure your shutter/aperture/ISO is appropriate. Use spot metering. Slightly expose to the right, perhaps, if you can. Then you can pull it back, noise reduce in light room. Print.

Very best,

You have a field lighting issue - shadows. The girl in blue (No. 34) looks okay. Noise control looks good on my screen.

I don't think any gear other than using flash is going to help much in these conditions.

MalVeauX wrote in post #16741663
Heya,

Looks fine to me.

Stop using Tv maybe. Go to manual and set it to what you want. Meter before the game for the lighting to ensure your shutter/aperture/ISO is appropriate. Use spot metering. Slightly expose to the right, perhaps, if you can. Then you can pull it back, noise reduce in light room. Print.

Very best,

I'm truly a noob at this and only started taking pictures of the kids games a month ago so I apologize for dumb questions. What's a good light meter for a start? And while I think I understand what ETTR means, is there a decent tutorial for how to accomplish it?

IlliniFan99 wrote in post #16741673
I'm truly a noob at this and only started taking pictures of the kids games a month ago so I apologize for dumb questions. What's a good light meter for a start? And while I think I understand what ETTR means, is there a decent tutorial for how to accomplish it?

Your camera has a pretty good light meter if you understand how to use it. It measures the amount of light that is reflected off of subjects and it wants to try to make the world a nice medium gray. It can be fooled by pointing it at something, black, or something white which reflect more or less light than average. Luckily for sports shooters grass is a good medium tone. If you ignore the color it would reflect light the same as a nice medium gray. So using your cameras meter just meter it so that your grass comes out right then try that on the players in the same light. Keep in mind that in that sort of light you cant expect to get good exposures in the shadows.

gonzogolf wrote in post #16741686
Your camera has a pretty good light meter if you understand how to use it. It measures the amount of light that is reflected off of subjects and it wants to try to make the world a nice medium gray. It can be fooled by pointing it at something, black, or something white which reflect more or less light than average. Luckily for sports shooters grass is a good medium tone. If you ignore the color it would reflect light the same as a nice medium gray. So using your cameras meter just meter it so that your grass comes out right then try that on the players in the same light. Keep in mind that in that sort of light you cant expect to get good exposures in the shadows.

So the good news is I'm doing an OK job given the constraints of the crappy lighting on the fields and that nothing in the $1,000 - $2,000 range will make a significant difference?

If that's the case, I'll use that money on some more glass.