1D3 -- Advice on Shooting Football

Shot a football game with my 1D3 today, and noticed that most of the images were very soft.

I ran some tests on my setup, with several lens. Figured out I had some front focusing issues, which I compensated for via microadjustment:

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mattograph wrote in post #8678898
Shot a football game with my 1D3 today, and noticed that most of the images were very soft.

I ran some tests on my setup, with several lens. Figured out I had some front focusing issues, which I compensated for via microadjustment:

That a 400% crop with same lens combo from the game -- 70-200 2.8L + 1.4 teleconverter. Feel like its pretty sharp now.

My question -- does anyone have any recommendations for setting up tracking speed, expansion points, etc, for shooting football?

BTW -- I haven't posted any of the football shots here, as I wanted to avoid any discussion about them specifically. They were soft, all shot at shutter speeds 1/400 and above, at f stops of 7.1 or 8. Trust me when I say that the basics weren't the problem here.

I know you arent asking for it but,
F8? I would try to get a higher SS.

I don't shoot much football but I use center point AI servo for Rugby. Tracking speed is usually on the High end

I'm sorry. I'll need at least a 1000% crop to evaluate sharpness.

mikeassk wrote in post #8679040
I know you arent asking for it but,
F8? I would try to get a higher SS.

I don't shoot much football but I use center point AI servo for Rugby. Tracking speed is usually on the High end

Well, color me corrected.

Suprised to learn that I have about 3 feet of focus depth at my combo. That is too tight. A push up the scale might be called for there. Thank you.


Tracking is on the slow side for me -- I'm one off the slowest speed.

?... By SS I meant Shutter Speed.

I cannot get sharp shots at 1/400 of a second shooting most sports. Not with a tele at least and not on a consistent basis.

nicksan wrote in post #8679071
I'm sorry. I'll need at least a 1000% crop to evaluate sharpness.

For that, I'm going to need a bigger monitor!

mikeassk wrote in post #8679247
?... By SS I meant Shutter Speed.

I cannot get sharp shots at 1/400 of a second shooting most sports. Not with a tele at least and not on a consistent basis.

I understand. Part of my problem was the light -- it was raining. I had my share of shots that I lost due to motion blur, but the ones that concerned me were the ones that seem to have focused incorrectly -- where one player is tack sharp, but the focus of the shot is soft.

I dont want to tread on any ones toes but Im extremely curious as to why you would analyse a 400% crop to evaluate sharpness. It may be me, but looking at pixles on a computer at a ratio of higher than 1:1 seems pretty pointless, well to me It seems pointlessly hard to tell critical focus on a 4x enlargement of an image.

100% I can understand, for sure, but after then, and definetly by 400% the decrease in definition would make it more of a challenge one would think...

That being said, I'm happy for you to now have your focused issues sorted. As for tracking speed, the only advice i can offer is I've read a lot of people straying from the fastest reaction time so stray birds and things dont ruin the shot and ones consequently after that.

Fast sports starts at 1/500 sec shutter speed. Below this; unless you are catch a pause in action, will have blur. Set up everything else to get to this speed; at least.

ShauningtoN wrote in post #8681349
I dont want to tread on any ones toes but Im extremely curious as to why you would analyse a 400% crop to evaluate sharpness. It may be me, but looking at pixles on a computer at a ratio of higher than 1:1 seems pretty pointless, well to me It seems pointlessly hard to tell critical focus on a 4x enlargement of an image.

100% I can understand, for sure, but after then, and definetly by 400% the decrease in definition would make it more of a challenge one would think...

That being said, I'm happy for you to now have your focused issues sorted. As for tracking speed, the only advice i can offer is I've read a lot of people straying from the fastest reaction time so stray birds and things dont ruin the shot and ones consequently after that.

The 400% is an overkill, to be sure. In my test, I had 15 total photos that I compared. The difference between this one here (at a +5 adjustment) was significantly different at 200%. At 200%, there wasn't much difference between the one displayed here, and say the one at +3. I went 400% just to sort out between the best 3.

Having had my 1D3 in for service, as well as my 70-200, this was as much a mental exercise as anything else. Variable elimination, as it were.

My camera is actually still set up for "birding". That had worked well for soccer too, so I left it as it was. I began to wonder if there was a "better way", though.

There seems to be a small consensus that raising the focus speed time will help. I will make that adjustment.

Thanks.

rjenson wrote in post #8681559
Fast sports starts at 1/500 sec shutter speed. Below this; unless you are catch a pause in action, will have blur. Set up everything else to get to this speed; at least.

Understand. I plan on making 1/640 my floor in the next outing, once again to eliminate variables. But they are 1st graders -- they don't move THAT fast yet !

Loose the TC, period. You will get much better pictures. Shoot action when it comes closer. Look in sports forum for more info. There is a long thread about shooting football.

mattograph wrote in post #8681638
There seems to be a small consensus that raising the focus speed time will help. I will make that adjustment.

What is the focus speed adjustment? You mean adjusting the AI servo sensitivity?

There are a bunch of custom functions to adjust the AI autofocus behavior, and it might help to know how you have these set. Maybe sports shooters could chime in with their settings for these custom functions.

Pick an AF point manually and set:
C.Fn III - 2 "AI Servo tracking sensitivity" to the centre notch or slightly slower if you get people in front of your subject stealing focus.

C.Fn III - 3 to "0" AF Tracking Priority

C.Fn III - 4 to "1" Continuous track priority

C.Fn III - 8 to "1" Enable left and right assist points.

Has your camera been back for the latest recall? If not you may get soft images using anything but the centre AF point while in AI Servo mode.

shoot with a 1dm2....
*INCOMING!*

Are you using the Back button focusing method?
It is quite handy.