So, with my budget - I can't have an SLR. I have supposedly the next best thing in the Powershot S5 IS. I am mainly just doing sports photography and end up with grainy pictures that lack the clarity I want. Right now I am just using the base lens it came with and all of the factory defaults equipment wise.

If I buy lets say a new 52-60 something mm lens for the camera - what kind of difference will I be seeing in the issues I stated?

I was thinking of maybe getting this (http://cgi.ebay.com/3-2x-HD-Telephoto-Lens-for-Canon-PowerShot-S5-S3-S2-IS_W0QQitemZ360060549796QQihZ023QQcategoryZ116186Q QssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem) or this (http://cgi.ebay.com/Tokina-3X-Tele-Lens-FITS-CANON-POWERSHOT-S5-S3-IS-S2-IS_W0QQitemZ290237425095QQihZ019QQcategoryZ116186Q QssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem) if it will actually make a legit difference.

I am no expert on such matters - so I could use some advice.

Are you not being able to get close enough to your subjects?
The 3x or 3.2x will magnify your lens so that you will have a 102mm x 1296 mm zoom which I would imagine would require the use of a tripod at anything over 3 or 4 hundred.

If your pics are not sharp and are grainy, adding a magnifier to the camera will not solve those problems and probably magnify them, too.

Post some samples of what you are getting and the settings used and maybe someone can help you.

Are you not being able to get close enough to your subjects?
The 3x or 3.2x will magnify your lens so that you will have a 102mm x 1296 mm zoom which I would imagine would require the use of a tripod at anything over 3 or 4 hundred.

If your pics are not sharp and are grainy, adding a magnifier to the camera will not solve those problems and probably magnify them, too.

Post some samples of what you are getting and the settings used and maybe someone can help you.

Yeah same story I guess. People have tried to help in the sports forum, but I believe the issues in my pictures are beyond my control.

" ... but I believe the issues in my pictures are beyond my control."

If I showed you what I use, well I wont because it is lower than entry level and I'm too embarrassed.

... but it gets me by.

It doesn't get me by all the time, so I make what I have work for me by putting the camera in the best positions that it can handle. I like to shoot sport. I used to make my living shooting sport. I always used the best gear money could buy. Nowadays I enjoy the photography more ... because I think more about what I'm doing.

It wasn't the gear that took the good shots back then, when I was very keen, it was me being more clever than the camera on every occasion. That is what photography is about Mate.

There was a wonderful collection of how to photo books called the Masters of Contempary Photography, when I was a student of photography. I read them all. One book I lived every day with, I totally wore it out. The book was about Neil Leifer the amazing Sports Illustrated Photographer. For me, Neil Leifer invented action photography. He taught me that there are more ways to find an image than any other photographer who's work I have studied, and that nothing comes easily to a concerned photographer. If you think people can be good sportsmen and women, how good does a sports photographer need to be to capture what only they are capable of doing?

See if you can find anything about Neil Leifer on the web. The man as a sports photographer is totally inspiring. Learn from the best.

We can discuss gear, techniques and setting all you like Mate, I'm very happy to do that... but that is not what it is really about. It is about you winning the battle over the difficult opportunities that you are faced with to get your shots ... but using correct techniques will help..

Now if you want to discuss settings and techniques ... let's do it.

One thing that I did do as a sports photographer was to play the sports that I photographed. As a teenager and young adult and even into my mid thitrties, I played 21 different sports at an adult level, at the highest level I was capable of. I did that because Neil Leifer said that he was absolutely hopeless at sport and wished he could have played anything. I remember him writing that he was always the last person picked, even in a knockup game of street ball. I still play A grade sport and compete in National Championships and and I'm training for coming World Championships in yachting, in one of the classes I sail in, Flying Fifteens. All thanks to sports photography. I'm 55 years of age, I see from your portrait photograph ... there is a lifetime of sports photography ahead of you.

One other thing, if you are any good at sports photography, you'll get the best seats in the house, ... you wont be sitting out in the bleachers Mate. The cheap seats are for the spectators.

Warren.

Just a thought.

You might consider purchasing a used DSLR. The Canon XT, XTi are only a couple of examples. In a month or two the new Canon XS might even be less money. Check the Olympus thread here - even new some are very reasonable.

Try KEH.com for reasonable used cameras. They list new along with used - here are some Canons for a bit over $300. They are reputable dealers for years. They have a 14 day return policy on used - and 90 day warranty.

http://www.keh.com/OnLineStore/ProductList.aspx?Mode=Digital&item=30&ActivateTOC2=&ID=2&BC=DC&BCC=3&CC=2&CCC=1&BCL=&GBC=&GCC=

Liz

I'm not much of a sports shooter but here is what I take away from your original post. You say your images are too "grainy" and lack "clarity". What this tells me is that you have the ISO bumped up to get a faster shutter speed. That would explain the grainy part of the problem. The clarity is a little harder to nail down without a sample, but my take on this is that your images aren't as sharp as you want them to be. This could be a result of camera shake, or too slow of a shutter speed to freeze the action like you want.

If this is the case, then I don't think the lenses you linked to are going to help you at all. In fact, I think they will make the problems worse. By extending your focal length, you are going to loose a stop or two of light and that is going to result in having to use a higher ISO, a slower shutter speed or both. The end result is going to be images with more grain, or more camera shake or motion blur.

The best way to improve your images with your current gear is to practice, and refine good technique.

I'm not much of a sports shooter but here is what I take away from your original post. You say your images are too "grainy" and lack "clarity". What this tells me is that you have the ISO bumped up to get a faster shutter speed. That would explain the grainy part of the problem. The clarity is a little harder to nail down without a sample, but my take on this is that your images aren't as sharp as you want them to be. This could be a result of camera shake, or too slow of a shutter speed to freeze the action like you want.

If this is the case, then I don't think the lenses you linked to are going to help you at all. In fact, I think they will make the problems worse. By extending your focal length, you are going to loose a stop or two of light and that is going to result in having to use a higher ISO, a slower shutter speed or both. The end result is going to be images with more grain, or more camera shake or motion blur.

The best way to improve your images with your current gear is to practice, and refine good technique.

The lowest ISO that my Canon goes to is 80 and even then I notice nearly no difference.

First off, an accessory lens (which adds on to the lens built into the camera, not like an interchangeable SLR lens) won't help you here and I really think it'll just add to the problems. I'm not sure what your budget is, but you might really want to consider an older used DSLR from a reputable store like KEH which will give you enough of a warranty to make sure it's working properly. Something like a Nikon D1H, and a decent lens. This camera won't give you the image quality of the latest/greatest but should do a fine job. I normally say "newer = better" for digital cameras but this may be one case where an older pro-level camera might be at least worth considering. However, realize that it's a bit of a gamble because any repair is likely more costly than the value of the camera.

Wild Wassa makes some really great points. There have been amazing sports shots taken in the days before digital/autofocus/motor drives/etc. Especially with digital there seems to be so much of a "blame the equipment" idea and while in a lot of cases you just can't get the shot that you see on a magazine cover, you can still get a good shot. Another thing to consider would be a high end film SLR and a couple lenses. A Nikon F5 should only set you back about $300-350 these days but was over two grand new. Amazing camera, and just get the film scanned of your best shots.

As you have found, adjusting the ISO sensitivity affects the noise levels in images, giving increased "grain" with the higher the ISO ... but then, so do poorly exposed images exhibit increased grain.

Have you calibrated the light metre in your camera yet? ... so that you know your exposures are accurate, given your shooting conditions?

Not being able to bring up your camera's instruction manual off the web past page 5, I'll guess my way through the next bit of advice as I'm also a Canon user.

Does a FUNCTION button on your camera open a function menu? ... you might have to be in shooting mode to do this.

This will give you a menu. If you can change the ISO something similar is possible.

Exposure compensation ... is used to calibrate your camera's light meter, if there's a problem.
White balance.
ISO Speed.
Photo Effect ... I'm not sure if your camera includes this, this allows shooting in Black and White or Sepia tones..
Bracketing ... helpful at times.
Flash adjustments
Flash Strength.
Resolution ... most important to set correctly.
Compression ... most important to set correcly.

'Resolution' and 'Compression' these two functions need to be set correctly. The camera manufacturer may have preset these parameters to low settings, due to the size of the memory card that came with your camera. Canon are not generous with their original cards.

Adjusting either 'Resolution' or 'Compression' either one will/could automatically adjust the other. These settings are consistent with the image quality you want to realize. These two functions may not have been set correctly or have even overlooked when you set up your camera.

When selecting 'Resolution' are you able to set; Large, Medium 1, Medium 2, Medium 3 and Small sizes, which are your resulting image sizes in pixels? Large is something like 3072 x 2304 where as Small is 640 x480.

Within each of these settings are a second set of settings for 'QUALITY'; Being RAW, Superfine, Fine and Normal. These settings will give you the different file sizes and the number of images that you can put on a memory card. Superfine, Fine and Normal are JPEG settings. RAW images are a higher quality image than a JPEG image.

For example,
Maximum quality is from high settings like, Large Resolution, RAW quality (if your camera allows this, which is possibly only available in shooting modes, Tv, Av, M and C). The highest quality settings will only allow something like 3 or 4 images on a 32 meg card because of the large amount of detail captured. The quality is very high.

Lowest quality images come from settings like, Small resolution with Normal quality. That will give you something like 330 possible images on a 32 meg card ... giving quality like painting a picture with a thumbnail dipped in tar unfortunately ... and exactly the low grainy noisy quality that you are experiencing.

It will pay to check your original setup that is logged into your camera! This is what is possibly the problem. I'm not sure what memory card you are using, but purchase a mega card with a couple of gigs of memory. Set all of your 'FUNCTION' settings to as high as possible, Set your ISO to 200 (as a starting point), ... then see if you still have this grain problemo. Then change your ISO, if need be to suit your lighting conditions.

In noon daylight, the exposure will be for 200 ISO;
The shutter speed is the reciprocal of the ISO at f/16. Which is 1/200th of a second at f16. Say you are shooting football and it is sunny, and the air is clear, this will give you shutter speed aperture combinations of 1/200 @ f16, 1/400 @ f11, 1/800 @ f8 and 1/1600 @ f5.6. ... or even open up 1/2 or 1 stop, if the sunlight is not as bright as bright noon daylight. If it is heavy overcast open up 2-3 stops.

I've used ISO 200 as a starting point because grain/noise isn't too intrusive at 200 ISO (but borderline) and at that sensitivity, you will still get to use shutter speeds that can stop anything and render the image sharp. The more detail recorded the less is the apparent grain, because it is hidden within the detail. When you are at 50 ISO you might be pushing it to get the shutter speed aperture combinations that are useful if you are shooting fast high action sport. If you have been under exposing ... again more grain/noise will become apparent.

Then take shots using the inbuilt light meter and compare the results of what appear to be correctly exposed images to those of the under and overexposed images.

There could be another factor that could be degrading your images to look like excess grain. If you are enhancing your images with one of the programs like Canon's Arcsoft or Photoshop, and you are using the sharpen image function, it certainly is possible to over sharpen the image and induce grain/noise.

If you have compounded a few of these issues above ... well you'll have most interesting grain effects, to say the least.

"... clarity ..." you wrote? Clarity is synomous with a clean lens, free from lens flair, and exposurer that is well judged and executed, an image free from camera shake and a zone of focus that is precise. Having clarity is having good camera handling techniques.

Warren.