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Hi all,

I've been very busy with work and family lately but managed to take the new 7D and my ANZ championship media pass out for a spin at the netball. Was the first time shooting action of any kind with the 7D and I think it did a pretty good job.

C&C Much appreciated

All shots at ISO1600 (Indoor Lighting sucks) Cropping, resize, sharpen only (No NR)

Like all of these. On my work monitor they appear to have a slight red cast? (uncalibrated cheap LCD though).
In #3 I would like to see either more or less... possibly shooting portrait to get the full bodies in?

Nice series!

Congrats on the 7D mate!!

I great series, I am sure we will see many more, and even better images out of this camera as you get to know it better!

I find that the crowd in the background of these are a little too close to being in focus and they distract me a bit. You may need a bit more shutter speed as well as some of these girls are not quite frozen.

Great stuff all around though! PS. red cast over here as well

Like # 1 & #3 as the best action shots and would crop to poitrait mode removing the left side (especially stairs) to focus on the girls contesting the ball (leave the goal net & post as it provides perspective and relevance to the action) - great concentration on the ball, good expression and you can see their faces. The crowd and sign in the background are a bit too sharp so either less DOF or burn a little .
But all shots are technically OK and both you and the 7D's have done well - just patience now to wait for the perfect action occur in the frame
DebT

Thanks for the feedback everyone

Good advice re the crowd - I was shooting with the 70-200 F/4 wide open so would have to do some blurring to get the crowd more OOF (or switch to the 17-50 2.8 - might try that next home game )

I've enjoyed trying the whole two camera shooting thing - although It can be hard shooting with the 7D and the 40D at the same time - the screen on the 40D is so bad that after looking at the 7D screen, shots on the 40D look completely OOF - something to practice.

New crop added of the third and darkened the crowd a bit - thoughts?

The last effort has made the image worse - exagerated the grain and shown that it is not sharp. Sports photography is really hard indoors as you are finding out. Keep working at it, try to time the action at the peak of the jump where they are a little more stationary or use the 2.8. Strobes are not an option for most indoor sports unless you organsie to get there very early and remote locate them and then fire them wireless. The local photographer here in Adelaide use the 7d and a 50mm 1.4 from the baseline for the 36ers, shooting mainly at f2 as a guide...

Thanks Big V

No chance of strobes unfortunately - these games are televised by One HD so they are pretty strict about flash during the game.

Thanks for the tip re the 50 - I'll definately give it a go next game.

I love the action and drama of the last image, especially with the crop of the ball in the top right corner. I also have a slight red cast but that's nothing a bit of tweaking wouldn't fix. Nice work.