Canon 5D2: useless for sport

Anorakus

Anorakus

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Well, not quite...... ;)

I got asked to do some rugby shots the other night. The shots below are pretty representative of what I managed with my trusty 5D mk II..

I was shooting on AF Servo mode with all focus points enabled. I found that the 5D2 locked in focus pretty well when it had a clear foreground figure to follow, but tended to become confused if there was too much action in the frame and the camera didn't know what to focus on. I suspect this was down to my poor technique more than anything.. although, how does a pro-spec body manage when multiple focus points are selected and there's a lot going on in the frame?

Lens was a 70-200 L mk I set at 200mm in most cases, wide open at f/2.8. ISO set at 6400 (bearing in mind this was lit by floodlights), pics cleaned up with Nik Dfine in Photoshop. Shutter speed typically 1/500 sec or whatever f/2.8 would allow in aperture priority mode.

rugby1.jpg


rugby2.jpg


rugby3.jpg


So if you're a proud 5D2 owner, get out there and shoot some sports.. you might be surprised with what's it capable of :D

A.
 
Anorakus said:
Well, not quite...... ;)

I got asked to do some rugby shots the other night. The shots below are pretty representative of what I managed with my trusty 5D mk II..

I was shooting on AF Servo mode with all focus points enabled. I found that the 5D2 locked in focus pretty well when it had a clear foreground figure to follow, but tended to become confused if there was too much action in the frame and the camera didn't know what to focus on. I suspect this was down to my poor technique more than anything.. although, how does a pro-spec body manage when multiple focus points are selected and there's a lot going on in the frame?

Lens was a 70-200 L mk I set at 200mm in most cases, wide open at f/2.8. ISO set at 6400 (bearing in mind this was lit by floodlights), pics cleaned up with Nik Dfine in Photoshop. Shutter speed typically 1/500 sec or whatever f/2.8 would allow in aperture priority mode.

So if you're a proud 5D2 owner, get out there and shoot some sports.. you might be surprised with what's it capable of :D

A.
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Well done mate. Well its not the greatest camera for sports but looks like u have no problem taming it. Lots of people complaining that re 5d2's AF ain't as good as the d700 or the 7d, but from my point of view, the middle point is superbly fast. And I own both the d700 and the 5d2.

And just a note, I got a mate in the usa n he shoots basketball games using just a 500d plus the 70-200 f2.8 mark 1. His shots are amazingly good!
 
personally i wouldnt shoot sports in multi-point af, i like to know what im aiming at is what will be in focus and not something off in the background.

they do look a little soft too but that may be down to noise reduction PP.
 
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Personally I'd have gone for just a single focus point so that the camera didn't have a choice what to focus on. Either way, you've got some good shots there from a camera that can't do sports. ;)
 
Good shots! Just shows that this camera is perfectly capable of decent sports photos if taken right!
 
single point focus with an assist point either side and a bit of panning maybe? But hell, those are better than alot I get on a 1dmkiii on machine gun mode ......... don't be too concerned .......... it's all practice, practice, bloody practice ...sadly
 
why do i think of guiness when i see no1 :) fantastic :)
 
5D2 center point is technically better than the 7D due to the 6 assist points lol

Tony Stark said:
Well done mate. Well its not the greatest camera for sports but looks like u have no problem taming it. Lots of people complaining that re 5d2's AF ain't as good as the d700 or the 7d, but from my point of view, the middle point is superbly fast. And I own both the d700 and the 5d2.

And just a note, I got a mate in the usa n he shoots basketball games using just a 500d plus the 70-200 f2.8 mark 1. His shots are amazingly good!
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