7D2 High School Football

jmphotocraft · September 5, 2015

First time shooting this sport, so sorry if this is long. Fortunately my town recently rebuilt their football stadium and the lighting is decent. Game start time was 7pm. Really pleased with how my 7D2 and 70-200/2.8II performed. I feel like the pics got better as the night went on and I dialed in my settings. I was hired to be there, so I was right on the sideline. C&C welcome, thanks for looking.

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3 - starting kick-off

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13 - blood!

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23 - touchdown run

24 - point to the tv camera!

25 - star of the team

26 - game (rout) over

ziggy53 · September 5, 2015

Wonderful colors and saturation without being unnatural. It looks like the anti-flicker is working? If anti-flicker was on, was there a perceptible lag?

Any serious focus problems with that combination of Canon 7D Mark II and 70-20mm, f2.8L II (even intermittent problems)?

How does that camera feel shooting compared to the 5D Mark III? Do you like the AF point locations better on the 7D Mark II?

I see that many folks are recommending turning off all in-camera noise reduction for the 7D Mark II and sports. Any thoughts?

Did one of the York Wildcats get spiked in shot #13?

jmphotocraft · September 8, 2015

ziggy53 wrote: »

Wonderful colors and saturation without being unnatural. It looks like the anti-flicker is working? If anti-flicker was on, was there a perceptible lag?

Any serious focus problems with that combination of Canon 7D Mark II and 70-20mm, f2.8L II (even intermittent problems)?

How does that camera feel shooting compared to the 5D Mark III? Do you like the AF point locations better on the 7D Mark II?

I see that many folks are recommending turning off all in-camera noise reduction for the 7D Mark II and sports. Any thoughts?

Did one of the York Wildcats get spiked in shot #13?

Thanks Ziggy. I had anti-flicker off. Anti-flicker causes the fps rate to drop precipitously, of course because the camera has to time its shots with the flicker of the lights. I'd rather have 10fps and deal with flicker in post. Although I didn't seem to have to do that...

These stadium lights must be pretty good.

No focus problems that I was aware of. AF does better with more contrast, so during dusk the AF seemed to miss a little more. After the sunlight was totally gone it got better.

On my 5D3 I make the line-type AF points un-selectable, which reduces the number of selectable points to 41. Of course this isn't the case on the 7D2, so you can select all 65, and they cover more of the frame. However I don't find either difference to be all that significant in practice when shooting sports. In the hand, the 7D2 feels a lot like the 5D3. I like the toggle lever around the joystick for quickly changing AF point selection modes. The shutter/mirror mechanism is more damped and seems more robust. The 5D3 sounds like a mousetrap compared to the 7D2.

I hadn't heard that about in-camera NR, so I believe I left it on the default setting. Seems fine to me, but I try not to pixel peep high ISO night sports images.

Not sure where the blood came from!

sj4231 · September 13, 2015

jmphotocraft wrote: »

Thanks Ziggy. I had anti-flicker off. Anti-flicker causes the fps rate to drop precipitously, of course because the camera has to time its shots with the flicker of the lights. I'd rather have 10fps and deal with flicker in post. Although I didn't seem to have to do that... These stadium lights must be pretty good.

No focus problems that I was aware of. AF does better with more contrast, so during dusk the AF seemed to miss a little more. After the sunlight was totally gone it got better.

On my 5D3 I make the line-type AF points un-selectable, which reduces the number of selectable points to 41. Of course this isn't the case on the 7D2, so you can select all 65, and they cover more of the frame. However I don't find either difference to be all that significant in practice when shooting sports. In the hand, the 7D2 feels a lot like the 5D3. I like the toggle lever around the joystick for quickly changing AF point selection modes. The shutter/mirror mechanism is more damped and seems more robust. The 5D3 sounds like a mousetrap compared to the 7D2.

I hadn't heard that about in-camera NR, so I believe I left it on the default setting. Seems fine to me, but I try not to pixel peep high ISO night sports images.

Not sure where the blood came from!

Good shots and really like the colors. As the moderator noted, well saturated without seeming unnatural. What settings did you use on the 7D MK II for the above shots?

Thanks.

jmphotocraft · September 16, 2015

Thanks sj. I was shooting in raw, manual, f/2.8, either 1/640 or mostly 1/800. The evening started at ISO 800 and ended at 3200. AF case 4, single point with 8-point expansion. Auto white balance, adjusted in post. Processed in Lightroom.

JonaBeth Russell · September 21, 2015

Pretty impressive quality for ISO 3200, compared to my 7D MKI. Any NR in LR?

jmphotocraft · September 23, 2015

Some NR in LR. I forget all the settings, but 25 on the Luminance and Color sliders.

Here are some at higher ISO at a stadium with dimmer lights:

ISO 5000:

ISO 6400:

JBHotShots · September 24, 2015

These are great! I used my 7DII last night for flag football and didn't get anywhere near these.

I do, however, attribute it to user error more than poor camera performance. Back to the drawing board for me.

jmphotocraft · September 24, 2015

Thanks Jamie. I'm finding I get better AF performance after the sun goes down as there is more contrast then under the lights. Around dusk there is a lot less contrast and AF hits less. I don't blame the camera.

7D2 High School Football

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