I'm seeking some help trying to shoot athletics photos for our indoor venues. Our camera is an EOS Rebel T5 and the best lens we have is an EF 75-300mm 1:4-5.6. Just trying to get recommendations are for the best settings because we are really struggling with noise and blurry photos. Then when we are able to get higher quality photographs they aren't very bright.
you'll ether need a faster zoom or prime for indoor stuff, if you are always around the same distance from the players a prime will be the best option as you can probably get a fast one if you need a zoom then its going to be an ƒ2.8 which is better than the 3.5 min at the moment if you cant add any extra light to the scene tr sitting with the best light to your back if possible
So Caladina is spot on for the primary issue.... Your lens is 4 at 70 as you zoom out to 300, wide open a 2.8 lens will be a whole stop (twice the light in as 4.0 and two stops from 5.6) the extra stop of a 70-200 2.8 is huge indoor, but definitely has a price tag to reflect the nicer lens. So if your shooting lets say hockey indoors in an arena for example, you need a shutter to freeze action my guess would be a safe estimate of 1/250th would be about right, depending on the action you may have to go a stop up or down on the shutter, but thats where you need to live about to freeze the action at the sporting event. ISO, your t5 is modern enough you should be able to bump iso.... i suggest finding what produces good results for you without adding to much noise and then manually lock that in when your there.... so if you can shoot around 2400 with great results just set it to that to start when you get there and dial back a little if you can. The primary thing i am addressing here is you are already locked in a range where you need a certain shutter speed range to work with based on subject, your capped by how high your iso goes before you get a bunch of noise, and how wide open you can shoot with your lens. Small adjustments is all you may be able to do to find what works best. Without being there It is impossible to know how much light your working with but I can imagine you are pushing the limits with what is available just based on other indoor experience. I wish i could advise the sweet spot for iso on your camera but i never had one in this tier at that age..... my 20d is almost 20 years old and i could shoot about 1200 iso if i needed and it was lit well. My 5d2 goes to 3200 easy and my 5d4 goes to 6400 easy. Megapixels and newer better sensors have helped, but at 100% you do see grain as you increase iso, so its a dance you play with what your output will be, smaller prints and web are easier to push than if your printing poster size. Getting exposer spot on is also important for not adding addition noise issues at higher ISO If your letting the camera pick these options its also making things worse since the camera may choose for example the slower shutter not knowing you need to freeze the action, or dial the iso a bit too high and give you more noise than you like.
try looking at some of the sigma EX series of ƒ2.8 zooms, i'm on the ef-m system which is a crop sensor, and i have found the sigma EX lenses can be quite good value these days esp the ƒ2.8 zoom ones do some research or tell us if you see any you like, the sharper ones tend to be the OS ones and if they are also APO they could be very good too is your camera a crop sensor?
