Youth Football and 20D, focus issue?

[mercphoto]

I got done photographing my neighbor, Elijah, at football. First time with the 20D. Before it was my Rebel, 70-200mm/2.8, in aperture-priority mode wide-open. Now, same lens, Av wide open, burst mode, and AI-Servo focusing. Sometimes the focus looks a little soft. Wondering if I should change the focus mode, have the camera looked at, change what I am doing, etc.

http://mercphoto.smugmug.com/gallery/242797

Am I paranoid or do they look soft? Password is the boy's name: "elijah". He's blue jersey number 1.

TIA.

[mercphoto]

Looking over the photos, I think the real problem was bad light causing shutter speeds just a bit too slow to really capture fast action. Bummer.

[wxwax]

I suspect you're right. A combination of camera and subject movement. But don't underestimate the abiity of the autofocus to pick the wrong thing. I need to play with my settings before I shoot football again. Did you use the burst mode at all?

[mercphoto]

Originally Posted by wxwax

I suspect you're right. A combination of camera and subject movement. But don't underestimate the abiity of the autofocus to pick the wrong thing. I need to play with my settings before I shoot football again. Did you use the burst mode at all?

Yes, I did sometimes use burst mode. Rather impressive on the 20D actually.

[Andy]

1. on a day like that, go to iso 1600 - as these will be mostly used for 4x6 prints, you'll be fine at iso 1600

2. f/2.8 is still a shallow dof - so you are bound to get hit/miss in terms of sharpness

3. try for f/4 or 5.6 if you can. weather's a big factor here i know.

[mercphoto]

Originally Posted by andy

1. on a day like that, go to iso 1600 - as these will be mostly used for 4x6 prints, you'll be fine at iso 1600

2. f/2.8 is still a shallow dof - so you are bound to get hit/miss in terms of sharpness

3. try for f/4 or 5.6 if you can. weather's a big factor here i know.

ISO 1600 is rather impressive, even as an 8x10. I will have to use it more often. As per aperture, yes weather plays part of it. When you are ISO 1600 at f/2.8 and still only get 1/250 shutter speeds, not much can be done. On brighter days I will try a smaller aperture though. Good point, and thanks.

Good things to say about the 20D last night was the auto-white-balance worked great. Varying clouds, fast setting sun, and stadium lighting of unknown temperature. My Rebel would not AWB in those cases, but the 20D did all night long under varying conditions. It helps reduce my workload.

[ian408]

Maybe waxy knows better about the color temp of the lights. But stadium
lights take a while to "warm up" and as they do, the temperature changes a
bit.

I'm going to shoot some baseball pix next week and the hints offered here are
all great ones. Thanks!


Ian

[wxwax]

I cheat on color temps, Ian. I shoot in RAW, and rely entirely on Auto White Balance. I've only once tried a custom white balance, and that was back on my G3 - didn't work out very well, I was trying to get city lights to look good, but I couldn't place the grey card in the same light as the buildings.