I have had the Panasonic LUMIX DMZ 1000 For a few years and it has worked good for most of my needs, except indoor basketball. which are good, but always grainy compared to my other photos.
It isn't grain, it's noise.
Indoor sports is one of the most technically challenging forms of still photography. Photography is about capturing light, and the low light levels in gyms combined with the high shutter speeds needed to freeze motion means that not a lot of light is captured.
The noisiness of a photo depends primarily on how much light you capture. The less light captured, the noisier the photo. The amount of light captured depends on three things:
- the exposure (which is the the amount of light falling on the sensor per unit area),
- the efficiency of the sensor at capturing light falling on it, and
- the size of the sensor.
These days, efficiency is pretty much a wash between cameras, so concern yourself with the other two factors.
The sensor in the 7DII has an surface area of 336 sq mm. The sensor on the FZ1000 has a surface area of 116 sq. mm, so at the same exposure, the Canon will capture about 1 and half stops more light and thus will make less noisy images, or will produce about the same noisiness at f/6.5 and a given shutter speed as the Pansonic will produce at f/4 and the same shutter speed in the same light.
The exposure (which is
not how light or dark the image looks) depends on three things
- the amount of light in the scene (this is low in typical gyms)
- the T-stop (approximated by f-stop)
- the length of time the shutter remains open (shutter speed)
You need a fast shutter speed to freeze motion. So with an FZ1000 shooting indoor basketball, you have a smallish sensor, low light levels, your widest f-number at the focal lengths you'll use is f/4 (not particularly wide) and you'll need a relatively fast shutter. So none of the factors is conducive to low-noise images.
With the Canon, you'll gain 1.5 stops of light from its larger sensor, and you can get f/2.8 zooms or f/1. 8 primes (another 1 - 2.3 stop advantage. So with the right lens, you'd be better off in two of the factors, which might be enough to get acceptable noise levels.
I have been researching camera for sports and am considering Canon EOS 7D Mark II. Although the Panasonic is actually faster in burst mode.
The Canon is designed for sports and action, the Panny is not. But the Canon is now a bit long in the tooth. Nikon has two newer and better models: the D500 and the D7500. I presume you chose the Canon because of its relatively low price.
Is it likely that I am doing something wrong and can set my Panasonic to take better indoor pictures
Probably not. You've probably run into the performance limits of the camera.
or do you believe the Canon (or other professional DSLR) will an improvement?
It can be with the right lens.
I am also considering renting a 7D for a day to answer my own question, if that would cost about 100 bucks which I would rather go towards a used 7D.
I am open to other suggestions for professional DSLR under $800 used range.
thanks.
Your budget is a problem here. Even used lenses that have the performance you'd likely need will tend to be expensive. A lot of inexpensive zooms for the Canon that have the right focal length will be f/5.6 at that focal length With those you'll be giving up 1 of the 1.5 stops you gained from the larger sensor, A 0.5 stop net gain isn't worth it. If you found an f/4 zoom, you'd only get a 1.5 stop increase, which will still result in noticeably noisy pictures. Zooms that are f/2.8 are expensive, but that's probably the slowest lens that would give what might be acceptable results. One way you might be able to stay in budget is to find an 85mm f/1.8 lens. You'd be restricted to a single FF equivalent focal length of 136mm (50mm native on your FZ1000). I'd suggest trying to shoot basketball at that single focal length on your Panasonic before proceeding with that solution.
