Will changing my 70-200 to F2.8 from F4 fix this.

So today I was taking photos of horse riding inside a large stable with artificial lighting and some natural light shining through. I tried my 70-200 F4 and it failed badly. Here is an example:

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What ISO speed where you shooting with?

The IS will not stop a moving subject like the horse jumping, for that you will need a faster shutter speed. You will get a better picture as far as amount of light goes with the 2.8, but probably not enough to fix that first image.

What ISO did you shoot at? Hopefully you were at a low ISO setting and have room to bump it up. If you were already at high ISO then you may want to think about getting a fast prime such as the 85 1.8, it is a great lens, faster than the 70-200 2.8 IS and a whole lot cheaper and lighter.

Good luck.
Tim

Loni wrote in post #2054301
What ISO speed where you shooting with?

200

bump up your ISO, brother, you had it set at ISO 200 and that's not nearly enough for indoor action photography.

your first pic was at 1/100s, f4, ISO200, and the 2nd one was at 1/20s, f4, and still at ISO 200 - no way you can get a clear pic that freezes motion with those settings.

So there, problem solved. If you want less noisy pics but at the same shutterspeed, then yes the f2.8 version will help.

Crank that ISO up to 800 or 1600! I have a 20D and get very good results with ISO 1600 so I imagine your 30D will do even better.

That's low for indoor shooting with low light on f/4, you might want to turn the ISO speed up next time.

ISO 200 is a also a big factor with the pix.

Similar to going from F/4 to F/2.8 will double the amount of light hitting your sensor. (the trade off is a F/2.8 lens is much more expensive and heavier than a F/4 lens.

Increasing the ISO will make the sensor more sensitive to light enabling one to attain a proper exposure with less light. (Trade off is the higher the ISO the noisier (grainy) and contrasty the photo.)

ISO- So dialing up from ISO 200 to ISO 400 (1 full stop) will double the sensitivity of the sensor thereby requiring half as much light for an exposure. Another dial up and you are at ISO 800 (2 full stops) requiring half again as much light as 400 (1/4 the light at ISO 200). A final dial up to 1600 (3 full stops) and once again half the light is needed for a proper exposure (or 1/8 the light required at ISO 200).

If you have a 20D or better, you have a final adjustment of "H" (ISO 3200).

So before you run out and get a 2.8 ... play with the ISO (it's free ... included with the camera). With ISO you have at least 3 full stops to play with ... the 2.8 will be only one stop. Remember that with each ISO increase your Image Quality will be lowered (the just from 800 to 1600 is significant).

If you plan to shoot a lot of indoor action stuff .. the 2.8 or better is a must. As to IS ... IS will only stop camera shake not action. So if you used IS on a horse hurdling gracefully over a wall ... the wall and all the stationary elements of the image will be crystal clear ... while the horse will have motion blur.

Hope I din't confuse you.
Gary

Looking at the second shot - 1/20, f/4, ISO 200
The best you could have done to get the same exposure with what you have is 1/320, f/4, ISO 3200. You might get a touch of motion blur at that shutter speed but not nearly so bad (technically it would have been 1/16th the amount of blur compared to what you got).

An f/2.8 lens would let you get to 1/640 shutter speed, which should stop the action pretty well.

A faster shutter speed doesn't eliminate blur. It just reduces it proportionally with the amount of time the shutter is open, and at some point the amount of movement becomes negligible.

The lens did not fail you. You should have increased the ISO to allow for sufficient shutter speed.

The Fix:

Buy the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. Then you'll understand what your doing and learn that your lens is not the problem .

But yes, like the other people said.

Higher iso = more room for faster shutter speed, which results in a photo that freezes motion. Using f2.8 would also help, but you must realise that you may want a photo to have more detail then f2.8 offers (I'm saying less bokeh I guess.)

Remember, you can get software to reduce noise anyway, I use neat image and it does a pretty fine job.

like the others have said, bumping up the ISO will help. although yes, f/2.8 will also help.

Yes its all relative.
Better faster glass
But you could up the old film speed(iso) and its sports action so its a shutter priority up its setting..

Besides what others have suggested, if you really forsee yourself doing a lot of this indoor, low-light action photography, spring for a 85mm f/1.8 or 135mm f/2. These are seriously fast pieces of glass. Combined with a higher ISO you'll have greater chance of catching the action.

And if you can't fix it, work with it. Try panning shots, which are evocative in their own right and may portray motion better than a simple static shot.

Curtis N wrote in post #2054379
Looking at the second shot - 1/20, f/4, ISO 200
The best you could have done to get the same exposure with what you have is 1/320, f/4, ISO 3200. You might get a touch of motion blur at that shutter speed but not nearly so bad (technically it would have been 1/16th the amount of blur compared to what you got).

An f/2.8 lens would let you get to 1/640 shutter speed, which should stop the action pretty well.

A faster shutter speed doesn't eliminate blur. It just reduces it proportionally with the amount of time the shutter is open, and at some point the amount of movement becomes negligible.

What you leave out is that they would have to use ISO 3200 to get that 1/640 shutter. I would rather avoid ISO 3200 like the plague. If you need ISO 3200, you probably just need a flash or to put down the camera and watch the show.

For the price of the upgrade, you could probably just get yourself a nice 200mm f2.8 L prime for times like that.

Having a f2.8 (IS or not) would probably help quite a bit, but at 2-3 times the cost, that is a very personal decision. The f2.8 would let you get 1/320 second shutter, at ISO 1600.