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02/18/2004 09:01:23 PM · #1 |
| Would I rather have a Canon 200mm f2.8 or Canon 300mm f4.5 for shooting baseball and soccer? Assuming I normally would be about 150-200 feet away from the action. I would love to be able to freeze the action. Many sports pictures I have viewed were done with a f2.8 or better lens. Of course, this is a hobby for me so money does become an issue at a certain point. I currently have the 300mm f4.5. Is there anything I could do to replicate the quality shot of the f2.8? |
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02/18/2004 09:05:47 PM · #2 |
Originally posted by beichh4046:
Would I rather have a Canon 200mm f2.8 or Canon 300mm f4.5 for shooting baseball and soccer? Assuming I normally would be about 150-200 feet away from the action. I would love to be able to freeze the action. Many sports pictures I have viewed were done with a f2.8 or better lens. Of course, this is a hobby for me so money does become an issue at a certain point. I currently have the 300mm f4.5. Is there anything I could do to replicate the quality shot of the f2.8? |
On 200 mm F2.8 you can add 180$ 2X teleconverter and get 400 mm F5.6,at 300 mm one if you place 1.4X teleconverter you will get 420 mm f6.3 and AF will stop working,so I will go for 200 mm one!
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02/18/2004 09:12:03 PM · #3 |
| I'm no expert, but I think the longer focal length combined with a smaller aperture might make it tough to take action shots, especially at 300mm. I'd go with the 200mm lens and try to get closer, even if it's only possible for a few minutes at a time. If you don't want to spend the money, then I guess you have to shoot wide open, use a monopod, try to get as close as you can and hope for the best. You might also want to shoot as ISO 800 or 1600 and run Neatimage or something like that on your pictures. From what I've heard, the 10D's ISO 3200 isn't very useful for action shots. |
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02/18/2004 09:23:19 PM · #4 |
If these are your only two choices, I'd rather go with the 200mm. Even with a 1.4x teleconverter, it is still slightly faster (at f/4) than the 300mm f/4.5.
You can also consider front-mounted teleconverters for regular digicams (such as Olympus TCON-17 or Olympus TCON-14) so that you don't lose any light but image quality will suffer..... basically it boils down to speed vs reach.
:)atwl
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02/18/2004 11:58:00 PM · #5 |
Maybe I am off base, but I use my 300mm lots, I don't have a hard time getting moving shots at all, I am not a huge sports fan, but I can get a bird flying in stop motion, I prefer having the ability to get up close if I want, you will be able to get in and out field with the longer lens IMO...I would rent one first, I would also recommend the sigma version over the canon, having had both the canon one spares you having to buy a macro lens...also I have one of those and now I often just use the 300 sigma on macro mode... and it is much cheaper than the canon. I would rent one of each for a game someday and then decide just to be sure before you spend the big money : ). PS tripod is good but on sunny days you can still get decent shots hand held.
Message edited by author 2004-02-18 23:58:44. |
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02/19/2004 06:56:22 AM · #6 |
I'm not a big sports shooter but I was surprised the other night when I went to shoot one of our local college basketball games. The lighting was about as poor as I'd heard so I expected to use my 50mm f/1.8 from courtside (media dir. gave me a media pass; very nice). I ended up shooting 17-40 f/4 on ISO 1600 and a speed of 1/250th - 1/500th" and I got pretty good stop action. Outdoors on a reasonably clear day I can't imagine needing f/2.8 or faster. If you're going to be indoors then you need as many stops as you can muster out of a lens. Outdoors I think you'll want some reach and just get your shutter up around 1/500th" or so to really stop the action.
Depending on how often you plan on shooting you could rent one of the big L's for a special sports day. I plan on trying that out for sports this spring and fall when I go to Tennessee and Georgia spring practices and, hopefully, a fall game or two from the sidelines.
If you want to see some of my shots on f/4 at ISO 800/1600 you can find them at my sports galleries on PBase.
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02/19/2004 08:06:28 AM · #7 |
| Kevin, did you try any shots with the 50mm? One of the problems with using a wide-angle lens at f/4 is that it has quite a bit of DOF... to me, the spectators and other things in the background are a bit distracting because they aren't "blurred out" like they would be if you were using a bigger aperture and/or a longer lens... |
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02/19/2004 08:06:54 AM · #8 |
I was trying to find the lens you are referring to on B&H(the 300mm f/4.5). Is this a 75-300 or 100-300mm f/4.5 - 5.6? When you are shooting at the maximum focal length are you shooting at f/4.5 or f/5.6?
Rich. |
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