# What ISO do you shoot at for SPORTS?



## keith204 (Jan 13, 2008)

I'm tempted to shoot my next sporting event (cage fight) at 1600 ISO w/ my 40D and XT to get faster shutter speeds, but I surely don't want to come out of there with a bunch of unusably grainy pics.

Basically, all I'm wondering is what ISO do you shoot at for sports, when attaining a high shutter speed is critical?


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## table1349 (Jan 13, 2008)

I know that this is probably going to sound like a smart A$$ answer, but it is not intended that way.  I use the lowest ISO possible that allows me to maintain the necessary shutter speed to get the shot.  I can post process for noise, I can't post process for blur caused by too slow of a shutter speed. 

Indoor sports photography is one of the biggest challenges in photography IMO.  It is purely a compromise of  lens speed, shutter speed and ISO to get a proper exposure.  You have to decide where you are willing to compromise.  

One of the most important things in shooting sports it to know the sport you are shooting.  Not only the rules and how the game is played but who the participants are and what their strengths and weaknesses are.  If you do that you can anticipate the action that will come and have the best setup to get the shot.  

I've never shot a cage fight, but 1/250 of a shutter speed would seem to be the bare minimum to freeze the action.  For most of my glass I would prefer an f-stop of 2.2 as I tend to use primes for indoor sports over zooms.  This lets me keep my ISO down and still allow me to stop down my lens a touch for more DOF and sharpness. 

For the basketball shots at the collage I shoot for I am getting away with an f-stop of 2.2 with a shutter speed of 1/320 at a 1250 ISO on my 40D and 30D.  Other places I have to bump my ISO up to 1600 to get the same f-stop and shutter settings.  Those are my minimums for basketball, as I am pleased with the results I am able to achieve.


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## Garbz (Jan 14, 2008)

Isn't this a matter for you to decide? If I say ISO100 will you just go to the cagefight and bring back unsuably blurry pics instead of grainy ones?

I'd rather a sharpish grainy pic than no pic at all. That said slow shutter speeds can emphasize the action.


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## Iron Flatline (Jan 14, 2008)

High ISO is mainly noisy in dark areas - your primary subjects ought to be fine if you get the exposure right. That leaves you a number of options, which are not mutually exclusive.

The lighting is pretty consistent, so take as much work off the shoulders of the camera. Set your WB manually, as well as much of the exposure as possible. This will also make your camera faster, of course.

Set WB
Set Shutter Speed
Set ISO (1600 may be a little high - maybe 1200?)
Set EV to +1/3rd ... to make sure you get a little more exposure. 

And then - because it will be noisy (if at all) in the darker less important areas - use Noise Ninja or another application to reduce grain.


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## usayit (Jan 14, 2008)

keith204 said:


> I surely don't want to come out of there with a bunch of unusably grainy pics.



I can deal with grainy pics.   You can't work around blurry ones.  

I would recommend taking your 40D canon and try out a few photos at various high ISO settings.  I bet you would be surprise just high of an ISO you can acceptably push.

Just like Aperture and Shutter, there is no one solid answer to your question.  It all depends on lighting conditions and subjects.


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## usayit (Jan 14, 2008)

Also forgot to mention that some digital cameras can resolve and capture a good amount of information in the underexposed areas of the photo.  

In a really low-light condition, I'll sometimes purposely underexpose a stop by pushing the shutter setting faster by one stop.  Then bring back the details in the shadows in post-pro.  Of course this really depends on the camera itself....  take your 40D and experiment.


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## Big Mike (Jan 14, 2008)

> I use the lowest ISO possible that allows me to maintain the necessary shutter speed to get the shot. I can post process for noise, I can't post process for blur caused by too slow of a shutter speed.


:thumbup:


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## keith204 (Jan 14, 2008)

I realize this sounded like a dumb question!

Here are some thoughts that might help justify a stupid question 


I can use flash and bump down the iso a bit, but the flash is a hassle
In the cage fights, certain shots have different lighting than others..depending on where the light hits.
Mainly I'm wondering "Do you hand your clients grainy images?"  No doubt the 40D is grainy at 1600...probably usable, but grainy nonetheless.  From what it sounds like, 1600 is normal for shooting sports.  There is so much more to the picture than absense of noise.  Sure, if a customer orders a 20x30, yeah I'll post-process it.  a 4x6? probably not.  So, hearing people use 1600 if needed is just what I was looking for.


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## Big Mike (Jan 14, 2008)

I've talked to wedding shooters that don't hesitate to shoot at ISO 800 and will even go to 1600 every now and then.

They key is that you get a good exposure.  If your exposure is off and you have to adjust it, then the noise will really show.  If you nail the exposure, the noise will be kept to a minimum.



> Mainly I'm wondering "Do you hand your clients grainy images?"


Maybe.  But would you hand your client blurry photos?  Never.  (unless the blur was an effect you were going for).


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## Trenton Romulox (Jan 14, 2008)

For hockey in an arena in which flash is not allowed, I shoot at ISO 800 or 1000 and there is almost no noise (D300). When I used my D80 for the same conditions, I had to use ISO 800 just to get manageable noise but wasn't able to freeze the action. And Nikon's Active D-Lighting certainly helps on the D300. The D80's D-Lighting sucks. So, when I can't use a flash and it is indoors, I use ISO 800 most of the time. And that allows me to use 1/400 or 1/500 shutter speed depending on which end of the ice I'm shooting at (different lighting for some reason at the different ends, stupid University of Maine.)


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## nicfargo (Jan 14, 2008)

High ISO is ok, as is some noise.  With different PP techniques you can either take out the noise, or use the noise to your advantage by purposely making the image grainy.  It's all up to you though.  I'd rather have some noise then blur...can't do a darn thing about the blur.


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## JerryPH (Jan 14, 2008)

You can always noise ninja away some or most of the grain anyway... but my preference would be to have the hassle of using the flash, becuase for me, using a strobe is not really a hasssle.


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## cecilc (Jan 15, 2008)

Garbz said:


> I'd rather a sharpish grainy pic than no pic at all.



 ..... or a clean, noise-free image with blur.

Definitely, "a sharpish grainy pic" wins hands down any day of the week ....

If you're in a situation where you MUST use a high ISO in order to maintain a good shutter speed for the shot and you *get* a great shot but there's some noise it - *rejoice!* .... _you got the shot!_

It doesn't bother me in the least to shoot at ISO 3200 if the situation demands it .... is there some "grain" in it ? Sure (and unavoidable, probably) .... but, as has been mentioned, there is noise-reduction software to handle "some" of the noise (I don't think you can truly wipe all of it out). 

Don't be afraid of those high ISO's *if* you need to keep your shutter speed up ...


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## JIP (Jan 15, 2008)

I honestly don't think you can ask this question without stating your gear.  It helps to know what kind of lens you have if you have a faster lens you wil be able to use better ISO speeds.  Another thing is thatther really is no set ISO you need to figure out what is going to work with the conditions and your gear.


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## DHammer (Jan 15, 2008)

It's a pretty simple answer really. As LOW as possible. Cage fight use a flash they are seeing stars anyway. Honestly I set mine as low as possible according to the light conditions and I shoot alot of sports and go by 1/400 as low a ISO as possible


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## jstuedle (Jan 16, 2008)

To reduce noise on the D1X series cameras (fairly noisy at 800 ISO) I would set EV comp for +1/3 when inside. As long as there was nothing to create a highlight that would blow out, I would slightly overexpose the shot by 1/3 stop. That would yield an effective ISO of 640. But the shots would have less noise that if I had shot them at 640. In bright light where highlights were an issue, I would set EV to - 1/3. You might try a variation and see if it helps.


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## Sw1tchFX (Jan 16, 2008)

Whatever it takes to get above 1/250th of a second. 

If that means 3200, it means 3200! A noisy image that got the shot is better than a clean image where you don't know WHAT THE HECK you're looking at.


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## Garbz (Jan 17, 2008)

DHammer said:


> Cage fight use a flash they are seeing stars anyway.



Way to kill the mood of the photo. When have you ever seen a good picture of Ali taken with a flash? Up the ISO, down the shutterspeed to get a bit of movement, and take a much better picture. Same applies to any live stage stuff. Lighting and atmosphere is 1/2 of the act, use a flash and the result is just dead boring.


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## Sideburns (Jan 17, 2008)

maybe some fill flash would help though...

I say shoot it at ISO 800 or 1600.  On the 40D, it's barely anything...the XT is pretty bad at 1600, but the 40D I'm sure you'll be satisfied with.


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## DHammer (Jan 18, 2008)

I have seen flashes used in UFC bouts and boxing


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## keith204 (Jan 18, 2008)

The below image is from the last fight I photographed, you probably saw me post it on another thread.  You can see here that ambient light is 75% of the lighting here, and flash was used for fill.  I think this was shot at ISO 800.

I only had 1 camera on me at the time, so a flash bracket was no problem.  I have no clue what the lighting will be like at the January 26th fight in a whole other city.  It's a more expensive ($75/ticket) fight, so I assume the lighting will be just as good if not better.  For this fight, I'll have 2 cameras, and don't want to HAVE to have 2 flashes, so bumping the ISO to compensate for no flash should be ok.

The responses here have indeed helped bigtime.  I'm trying to weigh out High ISO vs High Flash, but wondering where to draw the line.  I know it'll all come down to "try and whatever works best" but it's nice to hear that often a higher ISO is expected for sports, and used by professionals (you guys)

Here's that image where I used a flash for the last fight.


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## Tommy (Jan 19, 2008)

It depends a lot on your taste. The sample picture you posted most likely would not have been as good without some fill flash. They lighting in the ring appears to be almost totally coming from above. There is a good chance there would have been little detail in his face without the fill you used on this shot. It would most likely been totally in the shadows.

I use 1600 for sports all of the time and sometimes use 3200. The key is to have good exposure. If you use 1600 and your image is underexposed you will have tons of noise. A properly exposed image though will very minimal noise with your 40D.

Most of the images in this gallery use ISo 1600. Some still use minimal fill flash to because I prefer it to fill in shadows.
http://martindigital.zenfolio.com/p153219033/?photo=h2EF225B0#787621296

In short, i wouldn't be scared to use 1600 when it's necessary. If you can stop the action with lower, by all means do so. When you can't however... they put 1600 in there for a reason 

I hope this helps.
Tommy
http://martindigital.zenfolio.com


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## AMB (Jan 20, 2008)

keith204 said:


> I'm tempted to shoot my next sporting event (cage fight) at 1600 ISO w/ my 40D and XT to get faster shutter speeds, but I surely don't want to come out of there with a bunch of unusably grainy pics.
> 
> Basically, all I'm wondering is what ISO do you shoot at for sports, when attaining a high shutter speed is critical?



Hi Keith,

I'm new here, but I thought I'd share my experience.  I'm an equine photographer and about a third to half of my shoots are done indoors -- or rather in dark riding arenas. Add a fast moving horse to the equation and it makes photography difficult to say the least.  I shoot with a 20D at an ISO of 1600 and a shutter speed of 1/250.  If the ambient lighting is decent, I don't necessarily need a flash.  If I had a 40D, I'd definitely bump up the ISO because I feel the new Digic III sensor (from what I've seen in other pictures) can handle it.

Amy


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## keith204 (Jan 20, 2008)

Tommy said:


> It depends a lot on your taste. The sample picture you posted most likely would not have been as good without some fill flash. They lighting in the ring appears to be almost totally coming from above. There is a good chance there would have been little detail in his face without the fill you used on this shot. It would most likely been totally in the shadows.
> 
> I use 1600 for sports all of the time and sometimes use 3200. The key is to have good exposure. If you use 1600 and your image is underexposed you will have tons of noise. A properly exposed image though will very minimal noise with your 40D.
> 
> ...


 

NICE pic Tommy.

Seeing this pic is good for this topic, because my eyes don't go to the grainy background, but to the subjects of the image...which are properly exposed, and noise is minimal...

It seems like that awesome image would not have come out near as well if a lower ISO had been used.


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## keith204 (Jan 28, 2008)

DHammer said:


> Cage fight use a flash they are seeing stars anyway.


 

This guy was about 12 inches from my lens.  He had other things to worry about than my flash being bright.  Uncropped picture.


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## keith204 (Jan 28, 2008)

and back to the ISO.   After a few threads and several questions, I understand why sometimes I got grainy images.  When I underexpose pictures, and then have to bump up the exposure with PS/LR, the graininess comes out.

For this fight I tried real hard to nail the exposure every shot, and shot at 1600 ISO, and the images had little or no grain.  I was very impressed.


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