Shooting sports with the 55-250...

Does anyone use this lens for sports? I'm a budget photographer (until I can afford an L) and I tried using the 55-250 to shoot some pickup lacrosse today. at 1/1000 on Tv mode the aperture wasn't large enough (could only get to f/5) even though there was not a cloud in the sky (though I was shooting in pesky mid day light). I tried shooting on auto ISO which helped a little but I lost a lot of color and detail. When I amped up the exposure of the 100 ISO shots in ACR afterwards I got a lot of noise at 100% (the shots below might look fine b/c they aren't at 100%). 1/800 and below didn't freeze the action so I felt like I was stuck in a corner here... Are there any work around's for using this lens with sports for 100% sharpness?

Here are some of the best ones I took:

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ISO 400 would have helped a lot.

Yes, I've used it. Not the best lens in the world but a good lens for the money. 100 ISO, why? As said above try 400 or 800 ISO which would let you shoot at f/8 1/1000 or faster I'm sure which should be fine. For outdoor sports in sunny weather you don't need a super fast lens, just an understanding of exposure and shutter speed.

Mike787 wrote in post #10522553
Does anyone use this lens for sports? I'm a budget photographer (until I can afford an L) and I tried using the 55-250 to shoot some pickup lacrosse today. at 1/1000 on Tv mode the aperture wasn't large enough (could only get to f/5) even though there was not a cloud in the sky (though I was shooting in pesky mid day light). I tried shooting on auto ISO which helped a little but I lost a lot of color and detail. When I amped up the exposure of the 100 ISO shots in ACR afterwards I got a lot of noise at 100% (the shots below might look fine b/c they aren't at 100%). 1/800 and below didn't freeze the action so I felt like I was stuck in a corner here... Are there any work around's for using this lens with sports for 100% sharpness?
Here are some of the best ones I took:

the "aperture wasn't large enough"?
at 250mm the aperture is f5.6 which is fine for most outdoor sports in sunny weather. The "work around" is to simply match the ISO to the shooting conditions with the best shutter speeds.


some examples ( in sunny midday)

Canon 55-250IS with XSi (450D) pic cropped

f/7.1 1/1000 ISO200

I was always told to shoot 100 ISO for the best color and IQ. I guess that was wrong... I'm shooting another game this weekend, I'll try your suggestions. Thanks a lot guys!

If you have enough light then 100 ISO is the best but get the shot man! For sports shutter speed is the most important but the 55-250 is not sharp wide open at the long end so stop it down a bit to f/7.1 or f/8, choose a shutter speed that is fast enough and see what ISO you need. Don't be afraid to use 800, even 1600 if you need it but outdoors you shouldn't unless it is cloudy.

Shoot at the lowest ISO when possible. Don't be afraid to bump up ISO if necessary. In reality, high ISO noise is hardly an issue so long as the shot is exposed correctly (which shouldn't be a problem at all for an outdoor daylight shot).

Yep, cheating by underexposing ISO 100 and then bumping up in ACR showed you noise because that means you aren't really shooting at 100 ISO. There is no magic to it, you can't shoot low and expect to be able to amplify the signal without amplifying the noise. No free lunch

from what i've been able to do with iso at 400 or 800 you can stop action fairly well at around 1/1000