HS Girls Soccer

Icebear

I hadn't shot soccer in years. It was fun to have another go at it. The sun was behind the trees, so I started the game at ISO 1600 and f/4. By the time the sun was completely gone, I was at ISO 6400 and f/2.8. These teams were not bad, and the flow was faster than I expected.

1. I include this shot because of the other photographer in the image. She was in a lot of my shots. I NEVER got her with her camera up. :scratch Wonder what she was doing??? She couldn't have shot much. She was using a Nikkor 18-200 f/3.5-5.6, so once the sun went down she just quit.


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6. If anybody's got any super secet processing tips for ISO 6400 I'm all ears!


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donek

nicely done.

Icebear

Thanks, Sean!

Mitchell

These are pretty good. High school soccer under the lights can be very tough. As you've done, it's better to get a sharp but noisy photo than a blurry shot with less noise.

I let the ISO drift up to 6400 under the lights as well. There's no trick to the processing for the noise. Just suffer with it.

Icebear

Thanks Mitch. You know, the kids and their parents are just thrilled to death that they have images in which they can recognize themselves or their daughters. I look at these and think "not too bad." They go nuts. It's fun.

jhefti

I shoot night soccer as well, and there is no magic to de-noising. For that one really good shot, I will edit it in sections, so that I can eliminate the noise but keep the contrasts and crisp lines. For example, if the background is noisy, I can do a combination of strong de-noising followed by blurring it out. I also divide up the faces and do similar things. It's a lot of work, but I have gotten some great images starting with a RAW file shot at ISO 6400.

And agree with what others said here: better a noisy image than a blurry and/or under-exposed one. (I learned that the hard way...)

BTW, really nice shots! I love the composition in many of them. What lens(es) did you use? Looks like a 200/2.8 to my eye.

Icebear

Thanks. These were all shot with the old 300 f/2.8. Screw-drive, no VR.

jhefti

Icebear wrote: »

Thanks. These were all shot with the old 300 f/2.8. Screw-drive, no VR.

Well, you're getting your money's worth out of this lens. Just goes to show the value skill over expense. I recently saw an exhibition of photography done with home-made cameras--all variations on the pinhole principle--that was spectacular!