Martial arts event

[seanhoxx]

Took pictures at a martial arts event today, kind of neat, was very crowded and confined and combined with terrible high school gym lighting and no flash the quality isn't much but getting the images was fun.

[rshunk]

These are some nice action shots! Noisy, but nice - what was your ISO and which camera are you using?


Bob S.

[seanhoxx]

The Sony A700 at ISO 2500, should maybe have tried to tweak the settings, used the same 'custom' setting i had been shooting football with. no flash allowed, and inside a high school gym. I did NOT run these through noise ninja or anything like that. Again my main issue with Sony, the high ISO noise. Any tips? used the Tamron 70-200 2.8, I hope to add a Minolta HS APO 200mm 2.8 to my collection after the first of the year.

[rshunk]

I've shot as high as ISO6400 with my A700 and didn't seem to experience the noise you have here. I actually added noise/grain to some ISO6400 images to get the effect I wanted. I am really surprised these came out of an A700 - are you using V4 of the firmware? Also, be sure to turn DRO off - it adds a ton of noise.


Bob S.

[swampler]

They not only look noisy, but they look blurry too. What was your shutter speed?

I'm not familiar with Sony lenses, but perhaps a fast prime, i.e. 50 f/1.4, 85 f/1.8, etc would help?

[seanhoxx]

Shutter of 320 Which I know is to slow for speed of action in this setting, but was as fast as I could go with the light. yes V4 firmware, DR was not off, but on standard, will shut off next time. I continue to be puzzled, shot in jpeg, maybe RAW would have helped?

[rshunk]

There is a something called the Agorabasta settings (sp?) that is supposed to really improve high ISO noise on the A700. Gary Friedman even mentions it in his book.

Standard setting, saturation +1, sharpness +2, brightness -2, zone matching -1, DR+, high noise reduction set to HIGH.

Search on DP Review for loads of samples.


Bob S.

[Narsuitus]

Nice action shots!

Was this a Tae Kwon Do tournament?

[Narsuitus]

Originally Posted by seanhoxx

... used the Tamron 70-200 2.8, I hope to add a Minolta HS APO 200mm 2.8 to my collection after the first of the year.

Out of curiosity, what will the 200mm f/2.8 do for you that your Tamron 70-200mm f/2.8 will not do?

[seanhoxx]

The Tamron 70-200 is a very nice lens for the money, it does fine on most things for me, it hunts back and forth and is slow to AF in less then ideal light conditions, I knew it wouldn't be 'rocket' focus when I bought it. I am thinking that the 200mm 2.8 High Speed model will focus and lock quicker for me in lower light cond.
As far as Tae Kwon Do, I don't know! I just sort of showed up at this event to check it out, and see if I could maybe get some cool action shots.
Bob, I was set on vivid, sat +1, Sharpness +2 Brightness +3 Zone -1 D-R+ AWB. Exp. Comp +0.7 ISO 3200. ISO NR set to high, will try some adjustments

[fjbyrne]

I would suggest some 3rd party noise reduction. I have shot some high-ISO soccer shots in the past. I usually shoot cRAW and use Noise-ninja and have been fairly happy with the results. Someone cleaned up one of my photos with Nik define and it did a great job.

[swampler]

Originally Posted by fjbyrne

Someone cleaned up one of my photos with Nik define and it did a great job.

I like Nik Dfine, but it runs like crap on Win 7 64 bit. It ran fine on 32bit Vista, so I'm not sure what the issue is.

[seanhoxx]

I have the freeware version of Ninja now, I will try running some shots through it also.