RAW processing help

I was wondering if there is any hope for this photo. Due to low light I had to crank up the ISO. Using the software that comes with camera just doesn't seem to help. Any suggestions? Or am I out of luck.

This was the first dunk from my newphew, so I was hoping to give him a quality photo.

It might not be possible.....

https://drive.google.c​om …vSVNGUk0/edit?u​sp=sharing

Thanks,
JJ

Wow, that's rough. Why f.8? I pulled it into Lr and played a bit with it. Nothing I would consider usable. Maybe PM TeamSpeed, I know he does a lot of indoor, high iso sports stuff.

Ouch, that exif is brutal, f/8? ISO12,800 on a crop? hmm. I'll try something anyway, lest I get rusty.

Edit: Here's my attempt at fixing the image: https://dl.dropboxuser​content.com/u/41183616​/IMG_8068.jpg

Gave it a try with Lightroom, but couldn't get to something useful I guess. I've put the result of my effort here:
http://s1048.photobuck​et.com …ia/IMG_8068-Edit.jpg.html

Interesting project. I did some cropping, worked with the lighting a bit, did some noise reduction, and added in a background blur. It's still noisy and there isn't much separation from the background, though. Just can't get the white balance right, either.

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Rimmer wrote in post #16676489
added in a background blur.

Excellent. This image was crying out for something to seperate the player from the crowd.

Thanks all for helping me out on this.

I was trying to keep the shutter speed up - so that I could get some stop action. I took some at 6400 ISO and 12800. Neither were very good. Perhaps I should have just put it on Sports mode and took what I could. I normally shoot in TV or AV mode.

I also thought that with the Noise reduction options and shooting in RAW that I could subdue the noise some. Looking at the sequence the F-stop was changing as I was shooting so I that is why it ended up being a F8.

I'm more of a nature photobuff, than sports guy.

First off, I killed the massive amounts of USM you had dialed into the RAW recipe. (Why?)
That is not gonna help!

Then a simple run through Neatimage. No real attempt at more PP.
http://dl.dropboxuserc​ontent.com …isc/IMG_8068_fi​ltered.jpg

Sorry but your technique is all wrong.

For basketball you need a shutter speed of 1/640 or higher to freeze action (this assumes you aren't shooting with strobes). The best approach would be to shoot with your camera in Manual mode, open your lens to its widest aperture, then adjust the ISO to give you 1/640 to 1/800 shutter speed. In most high school gyms you'd need f/1.8 or f/2.0 to get the required shutter speed without pushing ISO too high but if lighting is sufficient you can get away with an f/2.8 lens.

Shooting in sports mode wouldn't help (try not to use the auto settings on the camera) and neither will shooting at f/8 since this will require you to use an extremely high ISO. Also sports photos are usually shot in portrait orientation unless you have a compelling reason to shoot in landscape orientation. Check sports magazines and online forums; you will soon notice that the majority of sports photos are in portrait orientation.

jjenkins11 wrote in post #16679570
Thanks all for helping me out on this.

I was trying to keep the shutter speed up - so that I could get some stop action. I took some at 6400 ISO and 12800. Neither were very good. Perhaps I should have just put it on Sports mode and took what I could. I normally shoot in TV or AV mode.

I also thought that with the Noise reduction options and shooting in RAW that I could subdue the noise some. Looking at the sequence the F-stop was changing as I was shooting so I that is why it ended up being a F8.

I'm more of a nature photobuff, than sports guy.

PixelMagic wrote in post #16680268
Sorry but your technique is all wrong.

For basketball you need a shutter speed of 1/640 or higher to freeze action (this assumes you aren't shooting with strobes). The best approach would be to shoot with your camera in Manual mode, open your lens to its widest aperture, then adjust the ISO to give you 1/640 to 1/800 shutter speed. In most high school gyms you'd need f/1.8 or f/2.0 to get the required shutter speed without pushing ISO too high but if lighting is sufficient you can get away with an f/2.8 lens.

Shooting in sports mode wouldn't help (try not to use the auto settings on the camera) and neither will shooting at f/8 since this will require you to use an extremely high ISO. Also sports photos are usually shot in portrait orientation unless you have a compelling reason to shoot in landscape orientation. Check sports magazines and online forums; you will soon notice that the majority of sports photos are in portrait orientation.

This! Wide aperture, high shutter speed and the lowest ISO that will let you accomplish the first two.

Also, I like to shoot in portrait orientation and tighter from the sides and the corners of the base line. Sometimes, I will get down low to the floor on the baseline next to the basket with a wider angle lens and shoot up towards the basket.

Also, the wider aperture will blur the background helping you separate the players from the crowd (or whatever) in the background.