SL + 90-280 -- Volleyball

[kkcsm]

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Last week I acquired a long awaited 90-280, just in time for my daughter's volleyball tournament.  Special thanks to Josh at Leica Miami for shipping the lens directly to the hotel so that I would have it for the tournament.

You can see some of the images here:

https://goo.gl/photos/cb9giAbf4bxd1vq58

For comparison, you can view other volleyball photos take with my Canon 1D Mk IV (And some other stuff that you don't care about) here:

https://plus.google.com/+KellyBurkhart

My thoughts on the SL + the 90-280 as a sports camera, with a caveat:  Volleyball is not like other sports, so don't take this as an endorsement or condemnation of the SL as a sport camera in general.  In particular, there are no players running quickly at me or away from me so I can't evaluate continuous autofocus in that case.

The first day I was not happy.  I set the camera up as much as possible like the Canon: Focus Mode manual (using the rear joystick for autofocus).  AF Field Size 1 point, AF Mode Dynamic (tracking).  This didn't work as well as I hoped.  Over the next few days as I became more acquainted with the camera/lens, I got better, finally settling on shutter button for focus, Focus Mode AFc, AF Mode Dynamic, AF Field Size single point.  By the end of the tournament I was able to get a reasonable number of keepers.

A few observations:

 

- The 90-280 seems to be a bit longer than my Canon 70-200 (with a 1.3 crop camera), making it more difficult to shoot near players.  If my math is right, they should be roughly equivalent, at the short end at least.  (I'm going on memory here, I didn't shoot the Canon this tournament, so I may be mistaken)

- My mobility was limited as the courts were crammed pretty tightly together.  Most shots were taken right at the sideline, near the net.  A few are from the back line, opposite my team.  The longer reach was welcome here.
- AF Field Size -- had better luck with single point than field.  Too many times I'm trying to hit a player behind another player.  Field wanted to lock onto the closest player.  I always use single point on the Canon, so this is no different.
- AF Mode - Tracking seemed cool and seemed to work pretty well, but messed up the focus point on the next exposure.  I would raise the camera and find that the focus point is not where I intended it.  What I would like is to be able to set the focus point and have tracking work while I hold the back button or shutter button down, then revert back to my set point when I release.
- The Canon allows me to set a separate horizontal and vertical focus point.  I really like that feature and hope Leica adds it.

- If I continue to use this camera for sports, the vertical grip will be essential.
- Focus with back button is problematic as I kept accidentally moving my focus point around.  Difficult to not move the joystick laterally when pressing it.
- You may notice in a few of the pictures the player I'm focused on has been partially obscured by a player running in front.  The SL did a nice job not immediately jumping to the player in front.
- Early on I got a lot of shots of hitters in their follow through, missing the moment.  I believe the camera won't shoot until focus is established; I'm not able to aim, focus and shoot as quickly as with the Canon.  I need to rest on a player a fraction of a second longer to allow focus to lock before shooting.  Consequently I more often have to focus on a player and hope the ball comes that direction rather than just watching to see where the ball is going and quickly focusing on that player.

- Again non-scientific observation, I seem to be able to crop more aggressively with the SL.  18 megapixels vs. 24 seems significant.  (Most of the pictures linked were cropped somewhat to quite a lot).

- Most shots are manual exposure, ISO 6400, 1/640, f/4.0.  Some were on courts with better light so I was able to switch to ISO 3200.  I should have increased shutter speed rather than decreasing ISO.  ISO 6400 is fine for me.

- I was worried about the Canon f/2.8 vs. the Leica F/4.0.  I'm still a bit worried as 1/640 is slower than I'm use to shooting and some of the high school gyms I shoot in have pretty poor lighting.

- Some of the pictures are more noisy than others.  The lights flickered at a high frequency so some shots were properly exposed, some underexposed.  So I had to push the exposure in post for some.

 

I believe I can conclude that for a professional sport shooter, the SL is not a replacement for a Canon 1D (or Nikon equivalent).  For me (a parent, enthusiast) I have not yet determined if I can sell my Canon and 70-200; more practice required.
 

I hope this is useful to some of you,

 

-Kelly

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[haydenc]

Great info Kelly!

 

As you were trying lots of different settings, you might have mixed up the auto focus modes. Or hit the limit with AFs and thought it also applied to AFc.

 

With AFc - (continuous) - the SL should take the shot whether it has focus or not. And continue to try and lock focus for as long as the shutter button is held.

 

If however you use AFs (single) - it puts priority on achieving focus before letting the camera take the shot. 

This is made worse if you use AFs in continuous Low and Medium speed settings.

In these modes (AFs + Continuous Low or Medium), I believe the camera will try and focus at each frame and might delay the shutter release.

If however you use AFs and Continuous High (maximum frame rate), the camera determines focus, exposure and white balance settings for the first shot, then uses those for every frame the button is held for.

So if a player was moving horizontally across in front of the camera, this setting could work quite well. 

 

Having said the above, I don't have extensive sports shooting experience with the SL. The only autofocus lens I have is a T lens and certainly not as good as the 90-280. I have briefly tried that lens but unfortunately not for sport shooting. And 95% of my use with the SL is with manual lenses. 

[tom0511]

Hi Kelly,

thank you for the review,

I havent shot sports with my SL but my Kids running around and I kind of second your comment that I dont think AFC of the SL in combination with a EVF works as fast and reliable as a good Canon/Nikon AF, but it is ok.

I agree also about the lens speed/range. In the end I think a 70-200/2.8 eventually combined with a TC 1.4 is more flexible than a 90-280/2.8-4.0.

On the other side I find the 90-280 exceptional in regards of IQ, my feeling is its better than the Nikon 70-200/2.8VCII and the Canon 70-200/4.0 I once had.

Also S-AF seems very fast and accurate.

[kkcsm]

Great info Kelly!

 

As you were trying lots of different settings, you might have mixed up the auto focus modes. Or hit the limit with AFs and thought it also applied to AFc.

 

With AFc - (continuous) - the SL should take the shot whether it has focus or not. And continue to try and lock focus for as long as the shutter button is held.

 

Thank you Haydenc, I was shooting AFc with the high speed drive mode.  At first I set the camera to manual focus and set the back button to be in AFc mode.  Later I just set to AFc auto focus and used the shutter button.  My delay must have either been due to a slightly higher delay in the camera or my own poor timing due to unfamiliarity with this camera/lens combo.  I won't completely discount the possibility that I botched the settings and did have AFs set, but I think that's unlikely.

 

Thanks,

 

-K

[LocalHero1953]

Thanks, a very useful report.

I don't shoot sport, but I do shoot dancers and children's groups, always indoors. I usually use AFs with and without tracking, and I use single shot, not speed drive modes.

 

Can you say what your typical FL was? From close to the court I'd have thought 90-280 was a bit long, and the 24-90 might be preferable.

 

The one area where my experience differs from yours is speed of response, and I'm puzzled why this should be - I expected to have to change to AFc, but found the response to pressing the shutter was as quick as I would have hoped for. See this example in the SL image thread in not very good light:

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/253192-leica-sl-image-thread-post-your-examples-here/?p=3066220

[kkcsm]

Can you say what your typical FL was? From close to the court I'd have thought 90-280 was a bit long, and the 24-90 might be preferable.

 

Probably most between 90 and 120.  In other venues I'm not so close to the court that it's a problem.  And it really wasn't a problem here; the player closest to me is usually facing away from me so I'm almost never shooting them.

 

 

The one area where my experience differs from yours is speed of response, and I'm puzzled why this should be - I expected to have to change to AFc, but found the response to pressing the shutter was as quick as I would have hoped for. See this example in the SL image thread in not very good light:

http://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/253192-leica-sl-image-thread-post-your-examples-here/?p=3066220

 

 

The cases where I had problems are difficult to get even with an infinitely fast camera ;-)  For instance, a hitter on the opposite side of the court from me with other players blocking my view of her or moving in front of her.  I can't focus until she jumps and is enough exposed for me to see her.  This all happens very quickly and they're moving and I'm rushed.  My comment above was regarding players who are in (or close to) focus, so I know I hit the player with the focus point, but the ball has already been hit.  So either there was a delay or I didn't press the shutter soon enough.

 

I have gotten pretty good at this with the Canon and had a lower success rate with the SL.  I did get better over the course of the weekend, but left with the feeling that the SL was ever so slightly slower than the Canon, at least on the first shot of a burst.

 

-K

[sillbeers15]

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Thanks for your writeout on your user experience in the AF system of the SL. I realize a big portion of folks in this forum is happy to just rely on their manual focus M & R lenses on the SL. Not that I have anything against using manual focus lenses on the SL, as a matter of fact it is the strength of the SL system to be designed to take M & R manual focus lenses as many of these lenses are superb in optical quality. On the other hand, I deliberately want to use both my SL native lenses more on the SL for me to be familiarize with the system set up especially the AF. I am not a fanatic bird shooter but figured that it were a good subject for me to test out the SL's AF system.

 

In my experiences of trying to get focus on birds peached on tree branches against the sky is challenging enough for the camera to obtain focus due to the pockets of back light from the sky. The SL sometimes struggle to focus right in those tricky lighted situations but eventually getting the subject focused after several tries. Often my aim is to lock focus on the birds before they start to fly and get shots of birds in flight momentarily as it happens. Focus tracking was useless to me in these situations as the bushes were a ton of focus distractions for the camera and my subject would not have changed focus as drastically between my initial lock until I eventually nail the shutter in 'High' Continuous Drive mode with single point focus. The success rate I had was moderate as other complications of having enough shutter speed to freeze the motion w/o over freezing the 'wings' to show rapid movement set at T mode @ 1/1000 sec and auto ISO limited to 12500 and pending the flight motion successfully (quick) enough to keep the subject within the frame.

Although I am still on my journey to learn how best to utilize the SL's AF system, I have by far been happy that the AF was not a let down even it does not perform as well to Canon 1D. The strength of the SL and Leica lenses are obviously in producing image quality with better artistic appeal than outright clinical. 

[sillbeers15]

I've tried using zone AF instead of single point AF focusing flying birds against the sky, the shutter fires but the images were useless as the camera and lens just misses focus. I've even tried Back Focusing Technique by customizing the AF-L + AE-L function to the joystick and set the shutter button as MF. Whenever I aim at a flying bird in the sky against clear blue sky, the focusing hunts and the focusing box just remains red. Interestingly, when I aim and focus a stationary bird on a tree, I can successful lock focus and track it in focus when it flies and I can successfully fire the shutter and get a good focused shot.

Having said above, I had no problems in tracking moving vehicles coming towards me from a distance repeatedly using Focus Tracking & AFC.

Anyone with similar experiences?

[Suteetat]

I tried SL 90-280 a few times shooting birds and other animals and I have to agree that it is not really competitive with my D500 (I also would say D810 as well) when it comes to ability to acquire focus quickly in moving objects or poorly lit situation. For a more static object, well lit object, I really like 90-280 a lot  but I get more consistent result with Nikon 70-200/2.8, 300/4 PF, 200-500/5.6 and 500/4. I guess it is just a matter of right tool for the right situation.