First couple of kids volleyball tourney - advice, ideas?

Took some pics at my sons vball tournament.
Using 70-200 2.8 and 7DII - set to servo, and think custom function 3 or 4, and iso at auto (maxed it at 16000).
Gym was relatively dark - shooting around 1000, iso was usually at 16000. I only played with a couple of images in photoshop (I will be getting LR shortly).
Do some of you tend to max lower on ISO and correct poor light and noise in post?
I'd really like to see a couple of before / after shots if possible.

Anyway, here's a few. I can get up close to the court - and the gyms are small and can actually be a bit crowded at times.
He's 12, so the caliber is, shall we say devloping and the ball movement can be very erratic!!

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/QSAK​Ux

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Maybe shutter speed of 1/640 and lower iso slightly to help with noise?

Here's my best advice/suggestions/ide​as.

http://zivnuska.zenfol​io.com …-to-photograph-volleyball


Phil

Thanks Phil - exactly what I was looking for!!

As for shutter speed, I only recently started needing reading glasses, so when I looked at some test shots at 640 on the screen - they looked out OOF. OOPS!!!

Only see the face in the last shot. I think the 'personality' of sports are conveyed so well in the faces of execution, would be good to see more during actual plays of the faces...

Thanks for the feedback. Been reading lots and looking at lots of photos - and after spending the weekend at provincials, man I have a new found respect for photographing this sport. IT IS HARD!! Kudos to all the amazing photographers on this forum. Anyway, here a few shots from the weekend - I found warmups a great time to get more unique shots (like the kids hitting right at me from the other side of the net)...
Still improving and still playing with the camera settings - noise is getting better - the better lighting helped a lot!
Working on the getting the faces in there!!

IMAGE LINK: https://flic.kr/p/TamS​PU

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DrMitch wrote in post #18238079
Do some of you tend to max lower on ISO and correct poor light and noise in post?
I'd really like to see a couple of before / after shots if possible.

No, that is never a good idea on Canon sensors. You are always going to get better results by shooting at a higher ISO and the applying Noise Reduction in post.

This was shot at ISO 25600 (but on FF) and cropped down to 3500 pixels before being resized for posting.

Zivnuska wrote in post #18238479
Here's my best advice/suggestions/ide​as.

http://zivnuska.zenfol​io.com …-to-photograph-volleyball


Phil

That is a brilliant resource!
Thank you for taking the time to put together such a comprehensive tutorial ... not only on the what but also the how and why.
I really enjoyed reading through it ...

Dan Marchant wrote in post #18324784
No, that is never a good idea on Canon sensors. You are always going to get better results by shooting at a higher ISO and the applying Noise Reduction in post.

This was shot at ISO 25600 (but on FF) and cropped down to 3500 pixels before being resized for posting.

Hosted photo: posted by Dan Marchant in
./showthread.php?p=183​24784&i=i120178875
forum: Sports

and this has Luminance noise reduction set at 38 and Colour NR at 25 in Lightroom.

Hosted photo: posted by Dan Marchant in
./showthread.php?p=183​24784&i=i153428773
forum: Sports

You would be better served using the luminance slider but with the spot brush and selectively reducing the background noise... then you can increase this to 75+ and have a better image. Don't touch the in focus proper exposed areas.... get selective with that and only shadow areas and leave the face/hair spots alone.