Hello. I am looking for some setting advice when using a Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM Lens on my eos t6. I am renting the lens to use at an indoor cheer competition taking photos of my daughters. No extra lighting will be added only the lights used to light the venue. So normal building lighting like an indoor highschool gym....it is a large venue.. called suburban collection showplace. Anyhow as a newbie and this being my first time using the lens should I opt for manual setting or just put it on auto focus sports setting. Thanks for the help.
AI Server may help with tracking them doing flips and such, but if you shoot a fast shutter speed to stop action it probably is not needed and could possibly be counter productive on many shot, you may want to shoot both with and without. If you were trying to track a hockey player zooming across the frame AI servo would help more. You will probably be shooting rather wide with that lighting, but you will still need to bump ISO and shoot fast enough shutter to catch the action shots.
Thank for the reply are you thinking I would be ok just shooting in auto focus using the sports mode on the camera?
might be wise to take a fast prime too like an ƒ1.4 have you got the opportunity to test the light situation before the event itself?
Do you have time to test this with a baseball game at a local park ahead of the cheer competion, it will be a good gauge of testing out the AI servo and getting a feel for when to need it. Standard Autofocus - should work for most shots, as the cheerleaders i expect will not be moving crazy fast across the frame. Are you shoot from the sideline or the stands? AI Servo - If there were birds flying across, gymnasts flipping across, or a car moving across frame that's where servo shines, helping you track with and predict movement while trying to hold focus. If your shooting straight on and just looking to freeze action it would not help. Sports Mode - Well you should be in general good here, it will prioritize shutter and look to freeze action. I do not use these "creative modes" they give up all control. I can explain why I feel that way and never have used a creative mode....I'll use your event as an example: So for sports it will set a fast shutter and then auto set ISO and aperture. maybe you need more depth of field to show more of the group in focus. Maybe you want to blur everything except your daughter with that 2.8 aperture, you don't get to pick in sport mode. This is a great example of a place to get used to working thru either a shutter /aperture priority mode or manual. Get to the location, pick faster shutter like 1/500 and a stopped down aperture like f8, this will be the most light roughly you will need out of ISO, is it 1200 or 3200? Likely you can dial in a bit lower than you need here since we defined an extreme, but you have a good idea where ISO can be set and forget. So if its 3200 in the case above.... 1000-1600 should do for most shots. To freeze those flips you will be working between 1/250 and 1/500, slower if you want some action blur in certain shots. You probably will stay in the 2.8 to 5.6 range for depth of field depending on how much background blur you want. F8 if you want group shots, but then you can do 1/100th with IS so that is why i said you probably don't need the full ISO we defined as an extreme earlier. Now you can flip between priority modes if you want to get a certain depth of field or if you need to slow or speed up the shutter to control blur or lack there of. The idea is to be able to stay fluid as the event needs change. Hope that gives you an idea how to attack shooting something with a defined lighting and bouncing between the different types of shots you may want to take. You could apply a similar approach to any event but the needs and numbers will be very different.
