Getting better with my R7 settings for sports

[Chris Summers]

So far I am really liking the new Canon R7 despite it feeling a bit small in my big hands. I've learned several things as far as settings when shooting sports that work for me, YMMV.

For most fast moving team sports I found "eye tracking" or even "tracking subject" to be not helpful. The camera will refocus when it perceives which subject to lock on to and that quite often is not the one with the ball or doing the main actions I want to capture. I tend to just use the "One point focus" focus mode placed in the center of the frame as that is where I am usually pointed at for the subject. I imagine it would be the same if you were photographing a moving flock of birds or other group of animals.

I'm using the fastest mechanical burst mode at 15 fps. I just follow the action, hold down the back button focus button and then the shutter release and sort it out later in Lightroom!

Noise is not too bad, most of the shots I am taking are meant for the kids to have through Flickr albums I share with them. They will mostly end up on social media so sizes are small. I reduce the noise in LR on the first of my picks and then just batch sync the rest to match. Speeds things up.

I shoot in T mode and chose the ISO that looks good as far as overall exposure. I find with Auto ISO it will go up or down too much depending on the area behind the player which is unimportant to me. I leave the F/stop on Auto.

Here are a few from last night's volleyball game. School gyms aren't always lit well, for these I was at 10,000 ISO and 1/1250 sec

 

[Normware]

Good stuff, on figuring out what works for you. I like the first shot with the ball "wrapping" around her arm

 

[Bdunn62588]

Nice work! I have an R3 and R6 and I've been very happy with them for sports but I haven't done many indoor sports yet. The first time I did, was also volleyball. I have been contemplating an R7 for a combination of the crop sensor in sports as well as a body my kids can learn/use.

 

[wiltonr]

Thanks for the info, that is very helpful! I had been using one point focus for baseball games and I guess I must have changed it to spot yesterday and more of my shots were out of focus than in focus.

I am really wanting to learn back button focus but am not confident with it. I started to use it during a game yesterday and then I got nervous and switched back. For back button focus while shooting sports, do I need to focus on the player and keep holding the back button down as the player moves and I am taking the shots? It's hard to practice it without the moving targets and I'm too afraid to do it in real games.

 

[Jan_K]

Thanks for the info, that is very helpful! I had been using one point focus for baseball games and I guess I must have changed it to spot yesterday and more of my shots were out of focus than in focus.

I am really wanting to learn back button focus but am not confident with it. I started to use it during a game yesterday and then I got nervous and switched back. For back button focus while shooting sports, do I need to focus on the player and keep holding the back button down as the player moves and I am taking the shots? It's hard to practice it without the moving targets and I'm too afraid to do it in real games.

With back button focus for sports, you keep pushing the photo as long as you want to keep focussing, which is most of the time during shooting.

It is important to have the camera set to "Servo AF" for the focus to keep adjusting when the subject moves. This is also the case when you use the shutter button to focus by the way. You use the button to engage AF with either of the buttons, depending on your settings.

The reason you usually will keep pressing the back button, is because in sports, the subjects move most of the time.

I started to use back button focus long ago and am so used to it now, I forget to others if the take the camera for a shot. They are used to pressing the shutter button.

The main reason I use back button focus is that AF and taking the photo are de-coupled. It sometimes just helps. For example if you prefocus on area and take photos while the subject passes the area I focussed at. For example when shooting cycling, I may focus on an area of the road and when a rider passes I just take photos in burst, so I will get a sharp one for sure.
When I would have AF on the shutter button, the camera would try to follow focus and if that becomes tricky I might end up without a sharp photo. For example due to other spectators getting into the frame and distracting the AF.

I must admit that with the newer cameras and AF systems, keeping focus on the subject is much easier, so the risk of the focus being distracted by other 'subjects' is much decreased.

Back button focus is something you need to get used to, because it is not forgiving like the AF on the shutter button which always press to take a photo. So practice is important, but you can practice on anything. A duck in a nearby pond, cars passing by on a local road...
Another thing to try might be to have AF on both the shutter and the back button. So if you 'forget' to push the back button, the AF will still engage when you push the shutter. But to really learn you have to disable AF from the shutter button.