Shooting Indoor Sports With 85mm f1.2II

I recently starting shooting sports with this lens and would like to get some pointers from expert sport shooters for best results. See questions below.

1. What ISO and Shutter Speeds would you recommend for best results with no flash when shooting basketball?

2. Do you recommend AF or M focus when shooting sports? This lens is great, but tends to lag a bit on focusing on fast moving subjects.

3. How can I ovoid noise with ISO raised to 400-500. I tend to see noise in the result at these ISO settings. Could it be camera sensor related. I tend to shoot with ISO @ 400-500 and never above.

4. With 1.2 Apt opening, many images are blurred with shutter speed set to 500 and above. Blurred images tend to occur when shooting subject moving toward lens. Any suggestions how to correct this problem?

Overall, this is a fantastic lens I use for indoor sports and it's worth every penny I spent. I want to know other ways to improve my shots with this fantastic piece of glass.

1) use the highest ISO that will get you to or preferably above 1/500th.

2) Autofocus.. I doubt you can keep up with manually focusing for sports... but the AF on the 1.2mkII is not a good fast AF so I would suggest a different lens like the 85 1.8. This is well known that the 1.2mkII is not a fast focusing lens, I hope you did your research prior.

3) You are using a 1dsmkII and a 20d... the 1ds should be pretty decent on noise over 400-1600... I dont own a 20d so I cant comment on that. Learn to get over your fear of high Iso... you WILL eventually need it.

4) that is because your AF isnt fast enough to keep up... get the 85 1.8 and be done with it.

BTW.. this is the photo sharing section for sports.. next time post in the talk section.

Canonnoob,

Thanks for your advice. I will consider them for my next shoot. Also, I checked out your site and you take some amazingly stunning photographs. How long have you been a sports shooter?

Photoman65 wrote in post #9447385
Canonnoob,

Thanks for your advice. I will consider them for my next shoot. Also, I checked out your site and you take some amazingly stunning photographs. How long have you been a sports shooter?

no problem. I have been shooting for about 2-3 years.

Photo,
What type of photography are you comming from, or used to?

1. ^^^^^^^^ What Dave said^^^^^^^^^^^^^
2. I do recomend AF with a faster focusing lens, but if thats what you have then thats what you will have to / need to use for now. Back in the old days manual focus was all they had so it can be done lots of practice and timing will help you there as the game has gotten faster even at the HS level. Give it a shot for a quarter and let us know how thgat worked out.
3. I would leave the 20d in the bag as a back up, however like Dave I have no experince with that body. The 1DSII should give you all you need and ISO 400-500 in these dark conditions are usually unheard of. 1600-2500 are probebly closer to what your looking at and the norm.If your seeing noise at 4-500 wait till you shoot 1600.... its really not that bad and something you must get used to unless of course you want to step up to a 1DIV.
4. Could be a DOF thang as well move it to F/2- 2.8 and try that.And yeah the 85 1.8 is a better preforming lens for AF and indoor sports. Not sure what sport you are shooting but my workhorse is the 70-200 but I will use my 24-70 2.8 quite a bit for BB also.
The 85 1.2 is a fantasic lens I almost purchased one myself and still may someday, however I would look at something else for your action stuff if you can and save that for your sportraits if at all possibile. Show us a few shots with the this lens for more CC.
Hope this helps.

I moved this to TALK as there are no images to SHARE.

With this lens it should hold up well whatever the ISO you use, I shoot indoor showjumping with mine and in servo has no problems keeping up with Horses so Basketball players should be fine. I shoot two thirds over for nearly all my shooting and this keeps most noise away.

Borderfox wrote in post #9449737
With this lens it should hold up well whatever the ISO you use, I shoot indoor showjumping with mine and in servo has no problems keeping up with Horses so Basketball players should be fine. I shoot two thirds over for nearly all my shooting and this keeps most noise away.

do you happen to have a shot with your 85 indoors following horses?

Hi everyone,

I'm new to this forum and don't know how to post pics yet. I also want to share with everyone my gear list and website. Be patient and you will see my results. Canonoob, you're right about the 85mm f/1.8 lens. I had this in the past and decided to part ways for the 1.2II. The 1.8 is much faster and very sharp and clear. Generally, I try my best not to shoot above 400-500 ISO when I shoot indoors with 2.8 or lower. BTW, I shoot everything, but I've narrowed my shooting down to sports and motorsport racing.

canonnoob wrote in post #9450012
do you happen to have a shot with your 85 indoors following horses?

Click on it for the full size, ISO 3200

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That's a nice shot! What lens and shutter speeds were used to capture this photograph? I noticed very little noise within your image at ISO 3200. I see this amount of noise when shooting at ISO 400-500 with my 1Ds MKII body. How is this possible and do you have a newer camera body and sensor?

1dmk3 85mm f1.2
1/500th f1.8 AIservo center weighted average

That explains the clarity and low noise level I'm seeing in your photograph. Nice pix!

Don't be scared of high ISO people.. I shoot basketball at ISO 6400 because of the very bad lighting... shutter 320 or 400 on a 135mm F2

KIPAX wrote in post #9489538
Don't be scared of high ISO people.. I shoot basketball at ISO 6400 because of the very bad lighting... shutter 320 or 400 on a 135mm F2

I agree completely, thats what H is for crank it up and off you shoot.