My first test of the 5D MK III with indoor soccer

[Warninglabel]

Ok

This was my little girl last soccer game and it was indoors. While I'm impressed with the 5D over the 7D so far, I have a lot to learn about indoors lighting environment and Lightroom adjustments. So please look through some of the photo's and give me any advice with lightroom or Camera settings you may have.

Camera: 5D mark III
Lens: New 70-200 2.8L II
ISO: 3200
F: 2.8
S: 1/320s
Shot in Raw, converted to DNG, then imported to lightroom


Smugmug: http://mitchellparson.smugmug.com/Sports/2012-Girls-winter-indoor-team/
Website Page: http://www.mitchellparson.com/?p=4443

[pdirestajr]

I'm not a sports shooter, but I think a lot of these shots would benefit if you were a bit closer to the action. I notice a lot of the shots are at 200mm so you might need something longer. I just don't feel pulled into the action. Shallower DOF would have helped- a lot of distracting elements and little isolation on subjects to background.

What I love about sports photography is seeing images that you don't get to see as a spectator on the sidelines: up-close facial expressions of determination, joy & defeat, along with high speed action.

And then mixing a variation of wide and close shots would break up the repetition of the images.

Just my .02

[samthefish]

I have a 7D / 70-200 is II and I am impressed with how noise free the 5D mk III is at 3200 - I'm sometimes forced to go to 3200/6400 shooting indoors basketball games on the 7d and the result is very grainy. 

If I ever get the money for a 5D mk III I think I'll need to get the 1.4x extender to compensate for the crop factor and get more reach.

Oh, and my favorite photo is the last one! 

[Crapking]

Nice effort - few constructive suggestions for LR:

Crop more to isolate the face / emotion and remove background clutter

Consider some post-highlight vignetting to soften/darken the corners to give appearance of 'spotlight' on the subject - not too much, keep it subtle

When cropping, use the alignment tool to make sure the background horizon is appropriately flat or vertically aligned.


NA1L0164 by PVC 2012, on Flickr


NA1L0126 by PVC 2012, on Flickr


NA1L0050 by PVC 2012, on Flickr


These were shot with my 1DIV but I also just started using the 5d3 - I'll post some of those shortly.

[risc32]

I've shot tens of thousands of indoor soccer photos and my first thought is that your indoor field is better lit than any i've been to before. It's hard to get closer when there is a wall you can't get over, and it's hard to get a smaller DOF when you are already using a FF sensor, at 200mm 2.8. Neither of those is really going to happen no matter what gear you use. But when they come up close to you, and start fighting it out along the wall, then things can get interesting. Sometimes you can get something cool from behind a goal, esp if the rear of the goal is glass, but sometimes that doesn't really work out either.  I think you did a good job.

[awinphoto]

Being closer is always nice, what are your impressions?   What would you like to see differently or are you generally pleased?  Overall the pics look great, especially shooting at ISO 3200.  How was the lighting?  They appeared fairly well lit, but could be deceiving because of the 3200 ISO.  Faster SS will eliminate motion blur, but some motion blur is nice, but as your daughter gets older, runs faster, game moves faster, faster speeds will be needed so keep that in mind.  What was your impression on how the camera handled?  AF?  Tracking?  What do you think your keeper rate was (in focus vs out of focus)?  Did you try higher ISO?  Thanks for your input and keep us updated! 

[Crapking]

I'm spoiled by the 1dIV so it seemed slow, but compared with 5d2 I've tried it was brisk at 4-5 frames sec writing L L JPEG to the SD and large RAW to the CF ( both very fast cards).  The tracking in AI servo was good, high keeper rate by me ( not so high by my apprentice), and here are the out of camera JPEGs, modified only by custom WB and camera landscape.


5D3L0653 by PVC 2012, on Flickr


5D3L0654 by PVC 2012, on Flickr


5D3L0655 by PVC 2012, on Flickr


5D3L0656 by PVC 2012, on Flickr


5D3L0657 by PVC 2012, on Flickr


5D3L0658 by PVC 2012, on Flickr

Camera   Canon EOS 5D Mark III
Exposure   0.001 sec (1/800)
Aperture   f/2.8
Focal Length   140 mm
ISO Speed   3200
Exposure Bias   +4/3 EV

[Warninglabel]

Thanks all,

I got a outside tournament this weekend,  I'm going to rent an 1.4x EF Extender III for my EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II, to so see if I can pull the subjects closer. I have read good reviews on B&H and others website that you don't lose much in image quality.