Indoor sports, Canon 50mm focus issue

mercphoto · August 26, 2004

Tried to photograph indoor sports for the first time. Not easy. Was in a bowling alley, and was actually brighter than I thought it would be. Still, had to use my 50mm 1.4 lens, usually at f/2 and ISO 800. Even then was only getting 1/60 shutter speeds. Was not allowed to use flash.

This gives a very narrow depth of field. But I also noticed this lens had a hard time focusing. Is there an issue with this lens focusing in dim light? And I don't think it did a great job of tracking the bowler as he moved at me.

Is there any trick to this type of photography?

pathfinder · August 26, 2004

mercphoto wrote:

Tried to photograph indoor sports for the first time. Not easy. Was in a bowling alley, and was actually brighter than I thought it would be. Still, had to use my 50mm 1.4 lens, usually at f/2 and ISO 800. Even then was only getting 1/60 shutter speeds. Was not allowed to use flash.

That makes it hard, doesn't it?:cry

This gives a very narrow depth of field. But I also noticed this lens had a hard time focusing. Is there an issue with this lens focusing in dim light? And I don't think it did a great job of tracking the bowler as he moved at me.

Were you using a 10D or a 300D? The autofocus on these cameras works fair enough in bright light, but when the light gets dim, they begin to slow way down and search a lot. Were you shooting in the Creative Zone - Av,Tv,M,P or in the Green Basic zones - portrait, landscape, etc? If you were set to ISO 800 you were in the Creative Zone. The only other alternative I suspect is to prefocus manually and this is also very hard on a 300D. Could you go to ISO 1600 and slow the shutter down to 1/30 which would let you stop down to f4 or so - this might provide some of the needed depth of field.

The 1Series Canon bodies (1D, 1Ds) will focus much better in this circumstance, but at substantially greater expence. The EOS 3 shooting film might cope better also in this dimmer environment, and costs less than the 300D.

Is there any trick to this type of photography?

You could not use flash. - What about supplementary lights besides flash? Probably won't allow that either I bet. Use a silver reflector to increase the adequacy of the available light perhaps?

That about sums up your options I think. Change light, change body, change ISO.

One thought : The 50mm f1.4 lens is a fine lens - I think the problem is the AF of the body in the dim light. One other alternative is a brighter prime lens - Canon makes a f1.2 85mm L lens - But is costs more than the 300D. Canon also used to make a 50 f1.0, but I do not see it listed any more in the lens lineup here http://consumer.usa.canon.com/ir/controller?act=ProductCatIndexAct&fcategoryid=152 Theh can very rarely be found for sale used - but I do not think they are AF - I think they are manual focus only.

Good luck

mercphoto · August 27, 2004

Indoor sports

pathfinder wrote:

Were you using a 10D or a 300D? The autofocus on these cameras works fair enough in bright light, but when the light gets dim, they begin to slow way down and search a lot.

300D. Av mode to control depth of field and also to force the fastest shutter possible. I thought about Tv mode but was afraid I might inadvertently choose too slow a shutter and not have enough aperture to properly expose. And ISO 800 was about the highest I wanted to go. I should have tried 1600, but the noise seems high enough in 800. Guess if that is what it takes, that is what it takes.

Andy · August 27, 2004

the 50 f/1.0 by canon
gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

the dof on that puppy at f/1.0 is about minus 1 inch

i saw one on ebay go for over $2,000 so it's a bit rare and a bit pricey

you could drive a truck thru that thing though, open at f/1 hehehehe

DoctorIt · August 27, 2004

andy wrote:

you could drive a truck thru that thing though, open at f/1 hehehehe

photography humor...

pathfinder · August 27, 2004

mercphoto wrote:

300D. Av mode to control depth of field and also to force the fastest shutter possible. I thought about Tv mode but was afraid I might inadvertently choose too slow a shutter and not have enough aperture to properly expose. And ISO 800 was about the highest I wanted to go. I should have tried 1600, but the noise seems high enough in 800. Guess if that is what it takes, that is what it takes.

One other thing, Bill, with the 300 D or the 10D, are you using the center AF spot only or the full grid of 9 spots? My experience with the 10D, is that focusing is much faster and more precise if you use the center AF sensor only and then with the shutter depressed half way recompose your shot. You may already doing it this way, as many 10D and 300D shooters have come to this same conclusion.

I was joking about the f1.0 Andy. I do correspond with a fellow on line who said he purchased one recently - not sure why - maybe for bragging rights. But they are pricey you are correct.

mercphoto · August 27, 2004

Indoor sports

pathfinder wrote:

One other thing, Bill, with the 300 D or the 10D, are you using the center AF spot only or the full grid of 9 spots? My experience with the 10D, is that focusing is much faster and more precise if you use the center AF sensor only

Yup, was using center AF only. Didn't want to chance the camera accidentally focusing on the background.

mercphoto · August 27, 2004

An example

mercphoto wrote:

Yup, was using center AF only. Didn't want to chance the camera accidentally focusing on the background.

This gallery is passwd protected. We'll see if this works. If not I'll post directly. This was shot at 1/80 sec, f 1.6, at ISO 800. This is one of three shots that I think turned out real well.

mercphoto · August 27, 2004

AI Focus
Got to thinking, on a 300D in Av mode and continuous shot, it uses AI-Focus, which is supposed to switch to AI-Servo automatically and track a moving object. How reliable is this? Will it re-focus inbetween shots? This could be part of my problem.

Indoor sports, Canon 50mm focus issue

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