A little night soccer (Mark IV)

[Nill Toulme]

These are the first 1D Mark IV soccer images I've posted. I'm still shaking it down and getting the hang of it, but I'm pretty happy with it. They're certainly not the best soccer shots I've ever made, but they demonstrate one of the main reasons I'm so happy with the camera so far, which happens to be this particular stadium and one or two others like it where I am cursed to shoot. The lights there are so bad that with the Mark II and IIn, I would simply pack up and watch the game once it got full dark. My Mark II's wouldn't focus, and wouldn't produce anything remotely usable even if they could. Believe me, I tried.

These are all ISO 8000, 1/400 or 1/500 at f/2.8. RAW converted in Capture One v5.1 with fairly stock settings, html & jpg's generated by BreezeBrowser Pro.

I expect I can sell some of these, and that they'll clean up and print fairly well. That's a lot better than sitting and watching the game. ;-)

Nill

 

[Asher Kelman]

Nill,

You are back in form! Thanks for sharing. I'm again impressed by the real possibility that women show their feelings but men are built to hide them!

Asher

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

These are the first 1D Mark IV soccer images I've posted. I'm still shaking it down and getting the hang of it, but I'm pretty happy with it. They're certainly not the best soccer shots I've ever made, but they demonstrate one of the main reasons I'm so happy with the camera so far, which happens to be this particular stadium and one or two others like it where I am cursed to shoot. The lights there are so bad that with the Mark II and IIn, I would simply pack up and watch the game once it got full dark. My Mark II's wouldn't focus, and wouldn't produce anything remotely usable even if they could. Believe me, I tried.

These are all ISO 8000, 1/400 or 1/500 at f/2.8. RAW converted in Capture One v5.1 with fairly stock settings, html & jpg's generated by BreezeBrowser Pro.


I expect I can sell some of these, and that they'll clean up and print fairly well. That's a lot better than sitting and watching the game. ;-)

Nill

Hi Nill,

These are excellent results considering the fact that they are made using ISO 8000! We would not dream of being able to capture pictures like this just a few years back, would we? Just as an idea, but I have been shooting night pictures using the following procedure recently and I am getting very good results with it. Perhaps it is something you might want to try for yourself. Possibly you already know what I am talking about but I am writing this for those who may not. Mind you, the procedure would not work well if you are shooting jpg only, which you might be doing in sports photography. Nevertheless, here it goes:

Above a certain ISO value (which is variable per camera) it is better to underexpose the picture in the field using a lower ISO and a negative exposure bias value (negative EV = underexpose) and then push the exposure back to normal in the raw development. This will create less noise compared to pushing the ISO value in camera. For example with my 5DII, this limit is somewhere between ISO 1600 and 3200 (found out by initially looking at the DxO Labs test results and then by shooting some test images to verify this). In practice, I can use ISO 1600 normally but if I need ISO 3200, I then set the ISO value to 1600 in the camera and use the exposure compensation to underexpose 1 stop (-1EV). Then in the raw conversion, I apply a +1 stop exposure compensation to bring the picture back to the normal exposure. If I need ISO 6400, I can either set the camera to ISO 1600 and give -2 stops exposure compensation or set the camera to ISO 3200 and use -1 stops. This way I have been getting very clean images. One added bonus is that the highlights (such as lamps) which would have been blown when using a normal exposure are now recoverable in raw since I underexpose 1-2 stops. i am not saying that this is a must have procedure but it has worked for me well and I would recommend looking into it .

PS: we have discussed this procedure in a couple of threads previously, I'll see if I can find and refer to them later. For me, the main credits go out to Bart for making me aware of this but many others have contributed as well.


Cheers,

 

[Nill Toulme]

That's an interesting thought Cem. I had actually experimented with that on my Mark II bodies a few years ago, and concluded that I did at least as well at 3200 as I did underexposing at 1600 and pushing in the conversion. I should experiment with the Mark IV to see if it is any different in that respect.

A possible downside of the push approach might be additional noise and loss of detail in the shadows, but presumably you're paying attention to that. Of the many things I like about the Mark IV, near the top of the list is the results it's giving me shooting dark-skinned subjects in poor light. I shoot a lot of dark-skinned players, and the Mark IV, in combination with C1's shadow recovery tool, is giving me results far beyond anything I've been able to achieve with the Mark IIn or 1Ds Mark II. To be able to get something like this at ISO 8000, 1/500 f/2.8 seems almost miraculous to me:

This fellow has been my toughest subject in this regard. Before the Mark IV, I don't think I ever got a usable shot of him under the lights. This is ISO 4000, 1/640 at f/3.2:

There's also the issue of whether and which "intermediate" ISO's give better or worse results than the "real" ISO's (i.e., 200/400/800/1600 vs. intermediate steps like 640 and 1000). On the Mark II, it's better to shoot at "real" ISO's rather than intermediates up to 800, but above that it pays to use the intermediates of 1000 and 1250 before going all the way to 1600.

Nill

 

[Asher Kelman]

Nill,

I've used Bart's idea of under-exposing at a lower ISO for my poorly lit stage assignments with great improvement in results. Yes the nosie in the shadows might increase but is dealt with readily with noise correction programs. For most of my work, some noise in the dark suits is noticeable really.

I the case of a dark-skinned player, correcting noise and reducing the size for delivery will hide the noise but the detail will be there!

There's also the issue of whether and which "intermediate" ISO's give better or worse results than the "real" ISO's (i.e., 200/400/800/1600 vs. intermediate steps like 640 and 1000). On the Mark II, it's better to shoot at "real" ISO's rather than intermediates up to 800, but above that it pays to use the intermediates of 1000 and 1250 before going all the way to 1600.

Nill

I'm wondering whether the first "Native" ISO isn't 160? Who has the definitive statement?

Asher

 

[Nill Toulme]

I'm wondering whether the first "Native" ISO isn't 160? Who has the definitive statement?

It probably varies somewhat from camera to camera, but on Canons at least I would imagine you can tell by switching between 1/3-stop and 1/2-stop settings, and see which ones change and which remain constant.

Nill

 

[John Angulat]

Hi Nill,
I'm going to steer clear of any involvemrnt in a debate over the merits of "underexposing at lower ISO", etc.
It's over my head and I'm convinced voodoo plays a role somehow
I would like to say these are most excellent captures!
Hard to comprehend they're ISO 8000!
...and whatever lighting curses have been thrown your way...they're clearly overcome!
Nicely done!

 

[Nill Toulme]

Thanks for the kind words John. And now, for better or worse, I can't decide which I enjoy more — shooting soccer, or officiating it. ;-)

Nill

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

---Quote (Originally by Asher Kelman)---
I'm wondering whether the first "Native" ISO isn't 160? Who has the definitive statement?
---End Quote---
I haven't measured the recorded (Raw) signal of the 1D4, which is the only way to make sure. However, from the _DxO Mark website_ (http://www.dxomark.com/index.php/eng/Image-Quality-Database/Canon/EOS-1D-Mark-IV) one can estimate that it's nominally ISO 100 (actually ISO 73 according to the ISO definition used by DxO).

When one wonders at what ISO it becomes better to 'under-expose' by 1 or 2 stops (related to unity gain), that too needs to be measured to be sure, but DxO suggests that at or beyond nominal ISO 1600 (actual ISO 1333) there is almost a stop of DR lost for each doubling of the ISO. Therefore one may benefit from boosting exposure in postprocessing (which will not add noise) rather than boosting ISO (which does add noise through amplification/gain), and gain highlight protection at the same time.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Nill Toulme]

OK. I will have a chance to test that tonight as I'm shooting again in that bat cave of a stadium. If I don't get distracted and forget, I will try to shoot at least some of the match at 1600 and 3200 and see how the pushed underexposures compare to what I get at ISO 8000.

Hmmm, I wonder if C1's exposure control will let me push more than two stops...

Nill

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Oh good grief Bart, I accidentally edited your very valuable post instead of replying to it! I'm sorry!!!

Hi Nill,

No problem, it's only too easy as a moderator to hit the wrong button (Edit vs Quote).

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

OK guys, I have restored Bart's and Nill's post already, calm down ;-)

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

...Hmmm, I wonder if C1's exposure control will let me push more than two stops...

C1 can only correct -/+ 2.5 stops of exposure I'm afraid. LR goes from -4 to +4. HTH

Cheers,