Night Football Noise Help

I am struggling with my photos of high school football night games. I have a Canon 50D with a 70-200 2.8L IS Lens and my photos look like a kit lens. The noise is horrible. Here a couple samples with varying settings, I just cant seen to get a well lit clear image that is not blurry. I have seen pictures of people that taking images next to me and they are perfect.
The settings for this picture were:
ISO 1000
148 MM
f/2.8
1/400 sec

why the noise?

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The photo is WAY under exposed. Raise your ISO or use a flash. If you under expose a picture and lighten it in Photoshop you will bring out more noise.

As you underexpose, noise goes WAY up. Your image is terribly underexposed. You should be shooting at ISO 3200.

If you're under artificial lights, shoot in M mode. Crank your ISO and shoot with the lens wide open. Adjust SS until the histogram of your shots is pushed to the right. Don't trust your light meter.

+1 with above advice.

The 50D is notorious for HORRIBLE noise.

I have a 50D myself and it's definitely not my Mark III when it comes to noise that's for sure.

Other than that, I highly agree with what the others have said above.

Yes, change to iso 3200 for these conditions as the underexposure is causing the bad noise.

So a higher iso such as 3200 would make less noise?!
i think 1000 is low, but i wouldn't go much more then 1600 on a 50D or 40D. Noise would be terrible... without using software to fix it...

then put your gear away and watch the game. You need to shoot the proper iso for the situation. Trying to underexpose instead of going to a higher iso isn't going to help.

Ranger,

From the looks of your photo, the others are correct. You photos are quite under exposed. I would suggest boosting your ISO. Yes the images will be "noisier" than the one you have posted now, but when you boost the exposure in post. that image will almost be ruined. You have some great gear, and I will look forward to seeing you meet your potential when getting used to it.

Dan-o wrote in post #8760290
then put your gear away and watch the game. You need to shoot the proper iso for the situation. Trying to underexpose instead of going to a higher iso isn't going to help.

Dan, your hardly talking about the same thing. Shooting with your MarkIII, and then myself shooting with a 40D at 1600 your hardly seeing the same type of image.

It isn't gear dependent. My MIIn is also bad at 3200 but I'm not going to underexpose at 1600 because it will be even worst.

Danny is correct, one of the best things you can do to help control noise is to expose the image properly. If that means using a higher ISO, then you use a higher ISO.

A properly exposed image at iso 3200 is not as bad as many think and I believe less noise than these show. I shoot almost all of my hockey at iso 3200 and find the noise to be acceptable. Some 40D iso 3200 shots in this thread.

Dan-o wrote in post #8760336
It isn't gear dependent. My MIIn is also bad at 3200 but I'm not going to underexpose at 1600 because it will be even worst.

Exactly Dan is right.. IF you underexpose an ISO 400 image drastically and then push it back up in post you'll have much more noise and less IQ than your 1600 on your 50D.

Welcome to POTN. The majority of us use flash, each with our own technique.
There are many threads that will help you with night football.
Here's a link to one of them:
https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=735799