Looking for some critique and pointers

[leyva62]

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I purchased a Canon 1D MarkII used about a year ago and also purchased separately, a Canon EF 70-200 2.8 NonIS with a 2x extender. I don't use it often because of the loss of quality and when I do, only in brightly lit environments / outdoors.

I upgraded from a Canon Digital Rebel XTi. What is frustrating to me, is that I am not able to get that TACK sharp image that I see everyone else get. I feel that I may need to send in the camera and lens to canon so have them look at them and perhaps perform some calibration.

I have mostly shot High School Ice Hockey, Basketball, Volleyball and Cheerleading. Needless to say, these are low light environments. I shoot strictly RAW and do very little to the images before I create JPGs out of them. I am posting a couple of pictures that I took recently, untouched other than exporting them from PhotoMechanic.

Note that the Cheerleading one was shot with an OnCamera flash 580exII because after seeing some of the stobing shots of others, I figured having the flash would help out quite a bit. As you look at these, especially the cheerleading one, it looks very sharp, but when you go to 100%, you can see a slight blur or softness.

Any advice would be appreciated, even if you give me an ideal setup where I can take a shot and repost to see if it is in fact the equipment, or perhaps me.

I also posted the settings that I used in PhotoMechanic to export the images. All I did was reduce the pixels to 600 due to restrictions on posting images

Thank you in advance for any comments. Fire away, I have thick skin ;-)
==========
(ICE HOCKEY)
Date: 1/5/2011
Time: 5:09:59 PM
Latitude:
Longitude:
Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark II
Serial #: 213471
Firmware: Version 1.2.6
Frame #: 0958
Lens (mm): 200
ISO: 640
Aperture: 3.2
Shutter: 1/640
Exp. Comp.: +0.7
Flash Comp.:
Program: Shutter Priority
Focus Mode: AI Servo AF
White Bal.: Auto
ICC Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1
Contrast: 0
Sharpening: 0
Quality: Raw

==========
(CHEERLEADING)
Date: 1/8/2011
Time: 4:22:11 PM
Latitude:
Longitude:
Model: Canon EOS-1D Mark II
Serial #:
Firmware: Version 1.2.6
Frame #: 1465
Lens (mm): 200
ISO: 400
Aperture: 2.8
Shutter: 1/250
Exp. Comp.: 0.0
Flash Comp.:
Program: Manual
Focus Mode:
White Bal.:
ICC Profile: sRGB IEC61966-2.1 (embedded)
Contrast:
Sharpening:
Quality:

[Patti Edens]

They look sharp to me - at least the cheerleader's face is sharp. But it is hard to tell since they are so small.

You might reprocess and use 72 or 90 at the most for the resolution since that's all most monitors can resolve anyway. Then you can make them around 700 on longest side for portrait and around 900 on longest side on landscape orientation shots and still be within the KB limitations of the forum.

You could also post some of your 100% crops.

Shutter speeds look okay, but the one of the cheerleader is pushing it for some people. If you have steady hands, that's ok.

There are all sorts of targets you can print out and shoot to see if the lens is focusing where you think it is. I don't know which is best, but someone might chime in on a good one.

When I had this problem with my 100-400 lens, I just put a yardstick in my backyard tilted at about 30 degrees up and away from me. I put the cam on a tripod about 35 feet away and used one focusing point - right in the center since it focuses horiz and vert. I used autofocus on the lens and cam set on Av and the widest (smallest number) aperture and focused on 16 inches and took a shot. The lens was consistently focusing on almost 18 inches and went back to Canon to get recalibrated. Came back and was perfect - right on the 16 inch mark.

[ldelacruz]

Do you use the shutter button to focus or back button? How many focus points do you use, single or multiple? I noticed you saved it at 300 and with no sharpening applied. Try what Patting said. 72, and 700 vert or 900 hor. Also, looking at a 100% crop is always going to leave you disappointed.

It takes time to master low light sports. You need the right equipment for the sport and use the right techniques. It takes a lot of time and practice.

Check your PM box.

[leyva62]

Patti,

Thank you so much for your feedback. I tried dropping down to 72DPI, but the filesize didn't change much. The only way to change it further is to Drop the quality which I didn't want to do.

Let me see if I can post somewhere else for download. I have a set of 6 shots that I recently submitted for posting at a highschool sports site and they were all rejected for one reason or another. Some of the critique was good, but I didn't think that the shots were that bad until they shared a shot worthy of post with me. Wow, what a difference. This is why I am scrambling to figure out hot I can improve my shots.

Angel

[leyva62]

I use one focal point and typically the center one. I use the shutter to focus.

[leyva62]

You can download the shots here to see them in full size and resolution.

http://www.leyvanet.com/leyva62/HZ8D0958.JPG
http://www.leyvanet.com/leyva62/HZ8D1465.JPG

There you will see that they just aren't as sharp as I believe I should expect.

Angel

[ldelacruz]

Here is a quick edit with PSE6.

[humminboid]

Your pictures look acceptably sharp, to me. Even bigger. What do your exposures look like without the + compensation dialed in?

I have a friend who was complaining that his photos of racing cars weren't sharp all over. He was shooting at like f/5.6. First, not enough DOF to cover the car stem to stern.
Despite all we can do, there are factors we have no control over...like what is the subject doing? Dancing all around and vibrating, from suspension, track, engine and driver input at 150 mph, or just doing the human jiggle thing. People are hardly ever still, especially during sporting events.

How's your technique? It is possible to blur a picture, even at 1/250 sec. and beyond, if the camera moves.

Don't punch the shutter release like you were killing a praticularly ugly bug! GENTLY! You can do that and be fast, with practice.

A fellow on Pbase did some amazing avaiable light work at gymnastics meets, but his ISO was jacked up to (for me) amazing levels...6400. His technique had to be flawless...photos at 1/500 sec. were sharp, well exposed, and stopped the action. Dunno if he was using some sort of support, tho. Possibly.

That's one of the advantages of digital, being able to adjust sensitivity to match conditions.

Adjusting the focus may be necessary, but technique and camera settings are the first places to check, I think.

[leyva62]

Very nice job ldelacruz. It is always good to see that the shots can be improved, but knowing would be helpful.

I am downloading PSE now to see how it works. I am assuming it reads RAW and makes working with numerous files easy.

Angel

[Patti Edens]

Angel,

I went to your higher res cheerleader photo and blew it up. I see what you mean. The subject (cheerleader in center) is not sharp, but the one on the left side is. I would have suggested it might be due to multiple focus points and cam picking the wrong one, but you said you only used one, the center point, so that isn't it. Maybe you or the cheerleader moved after the cam locked focus or maybe your lens is front focusing. Hard to tell from just one shot. I'll look at the other one.

All I did was crop this and save at 72 res and JPEG 10 quality.

Oh, and that red eye can be fixed by not using the pop up flash, getting a better flash and an off-camera flash cord and moving the flash away from the camera (but you probably already knew that.)

EDIT: I just looked at the hockey player shot. The focus seems to be on the glove in front of #19. Try that yardstick thing. It should only take a few minutes. Your lens might be front focusing.

[BigEasy]

this is just color balance, sat, contrast & sharping.. (on small jpeg). Your data is there..

[canon_shooter]

Angel,

You might want to consider switching AF to the back button if you're still using the shutter release for focusing.

By separating focus from shutter release, it’s possible in some cases to be more effective with AF, and not have the focus thrown off if something momentarily enters the picture area while you’re shooting.

[leyva62]

Back button focus is something that I want to try and I know will require some getting used to. I looked in my documentation and was not able to find out how to set it.

Any clue for my 1D MarkII?

[venchka]

If I had my Mk III handy I would find it for you. It's in one of the menus. Maybe the first one.

[leyva62]

Venchka, Mk II, not III.