Got to make a decision

Techno-Geek

Techno-Geek

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Tony
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I've been doing some work for the past two weeks and i am finding that the 400D doesn't have quick enough focusing and and has alot of shutter lag.

I've been looking at getting a Nikon D300 but i am not sure if i want to go from canon or not yet.

Do you guys have any suggestions?

Tony
 
What kind of thing are you looking at shooting?, what kind of focal lengths will you be working at?. Higher ISO's regularly?. Have you been to a store and handled a D300/40D etc?. Sorry for all the questions lol, narrows things down :).
 
As stated above, lenses are more likely to improve your images than a new body...
 
Whether any of that is a problem to our friend or not is something I've discovered is a very personal view... which is why when I wrote what I did in that linked thread I stated that was very personal.

For every bit of kit discussed on these fine forums there will always be someone who says "but I have far lesser kit and it works fine for me". Which just means either that your expectations of the results are less or that you are happy with low hit rates.

Maybe thats the "fun".... the drive home wondering if the dice has fallen the right way up for you today....

Personally, I want to spend more time on the composition and less time banging my head against the desk!
 
benneh said:
What kind of thing are you looking at shooting?, what kind of focal lengths will you be working at?. Higher ISO's regularly?. Have you been to a store and handled a D300/40D etc?. Sorry for all the questions lol, narrows things down :).
Click to expand...

I am looking at shooting people moving around a field, sometimes over the other side of the pitch. And no i can't quickly run around to the other side :D

There quite fare away, i just don't think the 400D will be able to do that sort of distance coming back with the images sharp.

Yeah i do normally need to bump the iso up.

I've held Jo's 40D at the banham meet and that was a good size.

Think thats all the questions answered :)
 
Probably more of a lens issue than a body issue really. AF tracking should be able to cope reasonably well with people running. A faster focussing lens - eg one with USM or HSM focussing motors and a faster aperture will help here.
 
Hmmm can't imagine running people are too taxing really - especially at long distances.

The longer the distance the less the AF has to work...

Somehow I imagined you were talking serious high speed subjects.

In that case, try a quicker focusing lens - Canon 70-200 or the 300 F4
 
I have been using my 400D/350D to shoot Polo this year and have recently added a 100-400 to my kit. A polo field is 600 yards long and I can get sharp shots of fast moving horses at the far end - they are not big enough to do a lot with without a lot of cropping but I agree with the others, it might be the lenses as well as the camera. As soon as I have finished getting the second day's games up on my website I will post some shots with 100% crops so you can see how sharp you think they are.
 
it sounds like reach is your problem rather than focus speed. The lenses you have are not the sharpest to start with. can you post some examples of work so we can see the typical setting you use.
 
You need faster/longer glass, not a sparkly new body. If you put the 400D kit lens on a 40D I doubt you'll see any difference in focus speed. Sounds like it's time for you to consider spending an "L" of a lot on new glass ;)
 
I used to have a nikon D50, and that was quick enough to keep up with the speed of remote control cars on a track (which are consderably faster than people playing football) at a similiar distance.

that was with a cheap sigma 70 - 300 as well. so my advice would be, first check yoru settings (are you using constant AF or single AF modes) and if there is nothign there to help, then look at a faster lens maybe, or rather a faster focusing lens, I bought a 70-210 F2.8 thinking it woudl be faster focususing as well as better in low light, and was quite disapointed with its focus speed.
 
I have just been out with the 400D and it's really getting on my nerves now.

I just walked in and stuck the card in the computer, took one look at them and walked away.

What ever settings i use it on it's over-exspoed.

Like i've seen people with Canon 400D on flickr and there pictures look perfect.


What settings would you guys say i would need the camera on to take a picture of someone on the other side of a field while they are moving?

I may be taking a trip to Banham Zoo tomorrow. and just work on what i am doing wrong :)
 
Personally I'd try resetting all settings to factory standard as maybe you've changed something and not realised - exposure comp blah blah blah.

Is your monitor calibrated?

I'd look at some of the exif data from the people on here who do rugby, football and cross country running to get some ideas about shutter speed. I suppose you'll need to freeze background so a faster shutter speed - or use ap priority.
 
Have you tried using exposure compensation or bracketing to see how they turn out?
Others have suggested getting a better lens so it may also be worth perhaps borrowing a better one at a meet or something so that you can see what difference the glass makes :shrug:
 
Techno-Geek said:
I have just been out with the 400D and it's really getting on my nerves now.

I just walked in and stuck the card in the computer, took one look at them and walked away.

What ever settings i use it on it's over-exspoed.

Like i've seen people with Canon 400D on flickr and there pictures look perfect.


What settings would you guys say i would need the camera on to take a picture of someone on the other side of a field while they are moving?

I may be taking a trip to Banham Zoo tomorrow. and just work on what i am doing wrong :)
Click to expand...

Post one of your pics so we can have a wee look at the exif....
 
Flash In The Pan said:
Post one of your pics so we can have a wee look at the exif....
Click to expand...

we can tell alot from the image. as i said post one up and we can see if we can see whats causing any problems.
 
ISO 400

F8.0

1/100

Was used on most of my shots, i can't post up any pictures today as i want to ask what the people want to do with them first..
 
Techno-Geek said:
ISO 400

F8.0

1/100

Was used on most of my shots, i can't post up any pictures today as i want to ask what the people want to do with them first..
Click to expand...

Tbh - that means absolutely b****r all without seeing the image. Without knowing the conditions the image was taken in and looking at the photo to see if it is actually over exposed the figures are completely meaningless
 
Foggy said:
Tbh - that means absolutely b****r all without seeing the image. Without knowing the conditions the image was taken in and looking at the photo to see if it is actually over exposed the figures are completely meaningless
Click to expand...

Oh yeah i know, just can't get hold of the people to see what they want me to do for now..
 
If its iver exposed on those settings then your ISO is probably too high, you may have exposure compensation set to over expose, could be anything. 1/100 should get you sharpish shots of people running if your panning technique is any good, if not then you need a quicker shutter speed.

As everyone has said, it does sound like a combination of things...firstly your settings might be less than perfect, but also, glass is the most important thing, sharpo images start with good quality glass, doesnt matter what body they are stuck on the front of.

Finally, calm down and stop being so depressed about it, everyone here is willing to help you sort it out but we need something to work with - an image would be good but if there is some reason you cant post one, then at least a full exif read out would be a start.

Come on cheer up, you can get this sorted!!
 
Without seeing the pictures (and knowng whether you were shooting in auto, manual or whatever, whether auto iso etc) it's impossible to say if those were the wrong settings , but my hunch is that the 400 iso might have quite a bit to do with it......
 
Yv said:
If its iver exposed on those settings then your ISO is probably too high, you may have exposure compensation set to over expose, could be anything. 1/100 should get you sharpish shots of people running if your panning technique is any good, if not then you need a quicker shutter speed.

As everyone has said, it does sound like a combination of things...firstly your settings might be less than perfect, but also, glass is the most important thing, sharpo images start with good quality glass, doesnt matter what body they are stuck on the front of.

Finally, calm down and stop being so depressed about it, everyone here is willing to help you sort it out but we need something to work with - an image would be good but if there is some reason you cant post one, then at least a full exif read out would be a start.

Come on cheer up, you can get this sorted!!
Click to expand...

Thanks Yv, I am not being depressed about it's just doing my head in why i can't work the thing :bonk:. It just bugs me when i can't get photos that i would like, but i know i need to work at it. As i said i cannot upload any images until i have cleared it with the people i am working for.

Come on guys, you should have guess what i am doing by now surely? :D I've been hitting about it for ages.. well not for ages
 
If it's footy or something similar then 1/100 isn't fast enough.
 
I went out last Saturday to my local Football and took some shots using my entry level Olympus with 40-150 kit lens.

I was shooting along side of a friend of mine who was using a 40D with I think his 100-400mm lens.

The focusing on his camera is quicker than mine and obviously he has a much bigger lens however I still managed to get what I thought were a few good, reasonably sharp shots (although I did miss getting the ball in frame on a few due to slower burst mode and my timing)

Here's a couple of examples from my camera so you can see how your 400D pics compare.

1,
_9200889web.jpg


2, This one was taken at a different match but using the same kit.
_8230728web.jpg
 
Thanks for that bully74uk :thumbs:

I think i am going to try more with the AF70-300mm now and see what i get, before i was just using the 18-55mm when things got hard with the 70-300mm.

The only thing with this is i have to travel quite alot of miles to get there as they play at different grounds. So i dunno have long i can keep this up for. Going to give it my all though
 
The other alternative is to hire (or borrow if you know anyone) a lens and see how you get on with that. Is your lens USM/HSM (Sigma) while a 100-400 will be longer and have a USM motor I doubt the focussing would be as good as an f2.8 or even constant f4 lens...
 
I'd also look at your metering mode, are you using spot, partial or matrix? This may explain over exposure, particularly as your on an aperture of F8.

Also F8 is to small an aperture for folks playing footie IMO, try your widest perhaps.

All the best

T
 
There is absolutely no point in discussing what might be wrong with his shots until he can show us one he considers to be wrong.

No "settings" advice is good until you can actually see what he was trying to shoot, light conditions etc.
 
desantnik said:
There is absolutely no point in discussing what might be wrong with his shots until he can show us one he considers to be wrong.

No "settings" advice is good until you can actually see what he was trying to shoot, light conditions etc.
Click to expand...

:agree:, we need to see samples, so upload em! :bat:

However - I've shot alot of little league football, F8 is not the aperture of choice really, regardless of light, reagardless of weather, even if the sun is white hot and blinding you, it's the shutter speed that should be increased in this case and not aperture.

Matrix metering would explain an over exposure at F8 as matrix metering is assessing the whole frame and not smaller/selective areas of the shot.

Also, which choice of drive mode will effect exposure but we'll look at that if and when we see some samples.
 
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