Soccer with a 100-400mm

Seem a little soft, is my shutter speed too slow? (between 1/640 and 1/1000 and 200-1600 ISO)? Rebel XS with 100-400 4.5:5.6....

The pictures do look a little soft to me. I think your shutter speed is high enough. My guess is either the camera is focused on the wrong area, that you are moving a little, or perhaps your copy of the lens needs calibration. Looking at the grass, it looks like you're focused on the right area.

What focal length were you typically shooting at? And were you shooting hand held?

I agree with DavidTK that the camera might be focused in the wrong area. Are the pictures above the originals or cropped?

Very slight crops - I was shooting more towards the long end of the focal range most of the time...mostly between 250 and 400 I would guess. Hand held with IS on mode one - should I maybe have turned it off? I mean I was shooting wide open for all of these obviously because the lens is so slow, but I get much sharper results when I'm taking pictures of my brother's racecar. So maybe it's technique or having the IS-1 on?

I think I might have to bust out the tripod and try one of those focus tests one of these days.

Not sure about the 100-400 but I found that IS interferes with my bird in flight shots (300 f4). With those shutter speeds, I'd turn the IS off. I typically only use the IS with low shutter speeds. Do they allow monopods in the game? (probably not)

Just One Man's Opinion.

Thanks, I'll give it a try - IS only gives stability for a few seconds anyway right? I would have the shutter half depressed for like 10-20 seconds at a time some of the time while I followed the action through the view finder and with my other open eye.....

Action is so fast, I think you did very well. 1/1000 sometimes isn't fast enough, which is sad, but true. That is why I have to use the 70-200 2.8 IS when the light starts getting dimmer, but I use my 100-400 for soccer. It's just wonderful. Don't be discouraged. I think you did well. Keep working at it.

For me IS just slows things down a bit (i.e. spool up time etc.) but from my understanding the 300 f4 has the old IS system. So maybe yours is a better version but I don't know much about the 100-400.

Dennis Valet wrote in post #8687503
Thanks, I'll give it a try - IS only gives stability for a few seconds anyway right? I would have the shutter half depressed for like 10-20 seconds at a time some of the time while I followed the action through the view finder and with my other open eye.....

I agree with the rest. At 250-400mm range, shutter speeds of 640-1000 might be a little slow. The pics do look slightly soft. I could be wrong, but in some of the pics, I see a little bit of front focusing. If you provide more detail like, shooting/focus modes, etc, I am sure the experts can give you more useful tips.
BTW, nice action captures. I like them.

I have an XSI, so I'm not sure what the XS options are. But I use the 100-400L IS lens, for shooting sports. I have it set up on Spot Metering, with the IS on. Also I use AI Servo AF, and that makes a night and day difference. Your shutters speed could be a little faster, but what you are using should work.

Apparently making sure your Photoshop sharpening droplet works correctly is an important step. Absolutely no sharpening in those pictures haha (have lightroom default sharpening set to 0)

Poop:

So apparently doing post processing when you're not drunk after monday night football is the way to go

Slightly over sharpened maybe but that's another lesson for another day

Oh wow, what a difference!!! I really need to sharpen my sharpening skills. Maybe my 40D's pictures won't look so soft.

You WB is off.

silvex wrote in post #8693262
You WB is off.

I was having trouble with presets (daylight) both in camera and in lightroom....the in camera looked best. I couldn't find any neutral colors to use the wb selector on, and I obviously didn't set a custom wb at the time of shooting.

I basically either went with the in camera daylight setting, or attempted to set it myself with the sliders. Was hard