Fast Lens for a Nikon DSLR (sports photography)

[Sirius]

I'm looking for a fast lens to use on a Nikon D40, D40x, or D60. The lens is mostly for sports photography (particularly Football). Price isn't a huge issue but I'd like to keep it under $1000.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[YEKCIM]

By "fast" do you mean fast-focusing or wide max aperture (like f/2.8) or both?

~Y

 

[Gdad]

I just got the Sigma APO 70-200mm F2.8 II EX DG MACRO HSM for about $800- which I am quite pleased with so far. With your budget you could afford to add the 1.4X TC as well which would give you a 98-280mm f4 or the 2X TC for a 140-400mm f5.6. No real sports shots with it yet but the HSM focus motor seems extremely quick and accurate- I expect it would be great for action like that.

 

[Sirius]

By "fast" do you mean fast-focusing or wide max aperture (like f/2.8) or both?

~Y

Mostly aperture but both is good.

 

[Sirius]

I just got the Sigma APO 70-200mm F2.8 II EX DG MACRO HSM for about $800- which I am quite pleased with so far. With your budget you could afford to add the 1.4X TC as well which would give you a 98-280mm f4 or the 2X TC for a 140-400mm f5.6. No real sports shots with it yet but the HSM focus motor seems extremely quick and accurate- I expect it would be great for action like that.

Thanks! I'll check it out.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I'm looking for a fast lens to use on a Nikon D40, D40x, or D60. The lens is mostly for sports photography (particularly Football). Price isn't a huge issue but I'd like to keep it under $1000.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

As scary as it sounds, when you're talking about sports (particularly Football) photography, "price isn't a huge issue" and "I'd like to keep it under $1,000" are contradictory. As GDad suggested, you can get a third party 70-200 f/2.8 for that, but that's about it.

I was at a lecture by a football shooter that works for the local paper. He carries a 70-200 f/2.8, 300 f/2.8, and 400 f/2.8. He also carries a 14mm and a 24-700mm f/2.8. Not a single one of his lenses was under $1,000. If you plan on doing this professionally, start budgeting for some seriously expensive gear.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

Here are a few tips that I can recall from the sports shooting talk I was at last week. The lecturer was Matthew White. He's a sports shooter for the Houston Chronicle. You can see his football stuff here. Despite his protestations to the contrary, he was a really engaging speaker.

1) Shoot with both eyes open. Things move fast and you've got to learn to see through your lens and around you at the same time.

2) Don't bother with a monopod for anything smaller than 300mm. For sports shooting, your shutter speeds need to be fast enough to stop the action, so camera shake isn't a concern. The monopod is just there to carry the weight so your arms don't get as tired.

3) He was really big on ThinkTank belt and pouch stuff for holding gear and keeping it ready to use. I use the Lowepro S&F system, which is similar, but I have to admit that the ThinkTank stuff looked better. You could tell that it's made by people that use it.

4) Take focus off of your shutter button and use the AF button instead. You need to be able to lock focus on a player and then turn off AF when another player is about to cross in front of you (which you'll see because you have both eyes open). You just can do that if you don't have your shutter and AF on different buttons.

5) Don't expect to get rich. He's been doing this for about 10 years and said that he figures that he makes less than 90% of the people in the room during the lecture (which was at our local photo club, not a particularly rich crowd).

6) Like most sports shooters I've listened to, he shoots in manual. That always seems odd to me, but that's what I've heard from everyone I know that is successful at making a living from it.

7) While some old timers use manual focus, he relies on AF. Of course, his camera has AF capabilities that substantially outperform a D40/40x/60 series camera.

8) He sets the camera on max shooting speed and then fires quick bursts. You want a burst so that you get several different shots of each "moment." You want a quick burst because the peak of the action is pretty quick and you don't want to waste a lot of your time going through junk shots before or after the peak.

9) He really hammered home the timelines that sports shooters labor under. Post processing is barely an option. It's cull, crop, and submit. You've got to learn to get it right at the time you're shooting.

10) The biggest challenge today is getting access. You've got to have credentials to be on the sidelines. You've got to have a portfolio and know people to get credentials. It's a hard business to break into. Once you're in, you've got to do a good job and not make anybody mad because it's an easy business to get tossed out from. Unless you're SI, sports shooters carry zero clout, so if you screw up, nobody will invite you back.

 

[MICKEY88]

Here are a few tips that I can recall from the sports shooting talk I was at last week. The lecturer was Matthew White. He's a sports shooter for the Houston Chronicle. You can see his football stuff here. Despite his protestations to the contrary, he was a really engaging speaker.


2) Don't bother with a monopod for anything smaller than 300mm. For sports shooting, your shutter speeds need to be fast enough to stop the action, so camera shake isn't a concern. The monopod is just there to carry the weight so your arms don't get as tired.



.

I agree with this to a point, it depends on what you want the end result to be,
sometimes you want a little motion blur to show the action, then a monopod is good to eliminate camera shake or movement, while using slightly slower shutter speed to show the action via blur

 

[Gdad]

As scary as it sounds, when you're talking about sports (particularly Football) photography, "price isn't a huge issue" and "I'd like to keep it under $1,000" are contradictory. As GDad suggested, you can get a third party 70-200 f/2.8 for that, but that's about it.

I was at a lecture by a football shooter that works for the local paper. He carries a 70-200 f/2.8, 300 f/2.8, and 400 f/2.8. He also carries a 14mm and a 24-700mm f/2.8. Not a single one of his lenses was under $1,000. If you plan on doing this professionally, start budgeting for some seriously expensive gear.

I did not get the impression the OP was going pro with a D40, D40x, or D60.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I agree with this to a point, it depends on what you want the end result to be,
sometimes you want a little motion blur to show the action, then a monopod is good to eliminate camera shake or movement, while using slightly slower shutter speed to show the action via blur

I'm with you. He said unequivicably that you didn't need a tripod for lenses smaller than 300mm. That was 15 minutes after he showed some great panning car race shots. For panning, it seems like the monopod would be useful. I know that my tripod has been useful when I pan.

He also said not to bring a tripod to a game. It's just not safe for the players to have one along the sideline. He also said that you should use a monopod straight up. Don't put a ball head on it and get all fancy.

 

[MarkBarbieri]

I did not get the impression the OP was going pro with a D40, D40x, or D60.

Gotta start somewhere.

I just realized that the OP might not have meant real football. He might have meant that silly game where everyone runs around kicking a volleyball and not touching it with their hands. I guess that doesn't change anything anyone said, but it shifts my mental image.

 

[Master Mason]

He also carries a 14mm and a 24-700mm f/2.8. Not a single one of his lenses was under $1,000. If you plan on doing this professionally, start budgeting for some seriously expensive gear.

Man, how much was the 24-700 f/2.8 and how much does that sucker weight?

 

[Sirius]

Not professional...it's for my yearbook staff.

Thanks for all the tips!

 

[Geoff_M]

6) Like most sports shooters I've listened to, he shoots in manual. That always seems odd to me, but that's what I've heard from everyone I know that is successful at making a living from it.

It's actually quite logical for several reasons. Unless the lighting is inconsistent, like a partly cloudy day were the sun constantly goes in-and-out, I normally use manual at sporting events and use a hand-held meter to take a direct reading of the light source. For starters, it's more accurate than in-camera reflective metering. On top of that sports often use lots of colors that may not average out to 18% gray, plus in some cases there may be shadows in the backgrounds (think open roof stadiums) that may throw in camera metering off.

Likewise, in consistent lighting situations I don't use auto WB for many of the same reasons.

10) The biggest challenge today is getting access. You've got to have credentials to be on the sidelines. You've got to have a portfolio and know people to get credentials. It's a hard business to break into. Once you're in, you've got to do a good job and not make anybody mad because it's an easy business to get tossed out from. Unless you're SI, sports shooters carry zero clout, so if you screw up, nobody will invite you back.

This is SO true. Not only are freelancers almost universally denied credentials at college/pro sporting events, it even getting harder to freelance at places like local high school games. Ten or 15 years ago if you wanted to go get some practice shooting something like football or hockey you could show up at a local high school game with decent equipment and no one would say "boo" to you as long as you acted professional (i.e. don't cheer from the sidelines) and stayed out of trouble. Nowaday, due to things like exclusive contracts between schools and photographers looking to sell prints to parents as well was an overabundance of parents with cameras trying to shoot the games, many school have barred access to events to only those with media credentials.

 

[mabas9395]

2) Don't bother with a monopod for anything smaller than 300mm. For sports shooting, your shutter speeds need to be fast enough to stop the action, so camera shake isn't a concern. The monopod is just there to carry the weight so your arms don't get as tired.

Even if your shutter speed is fast enough, carrying the weight is an important function too. After two soccer games and one baseball game on a given Saturday, that monopod is nice to have under my 70-200 f/2.8 IS.

4) Take focus off of your shutter button and use the AF button instead. You need to be able to lock focus on a player and then turn off AF when another player is about to cross in front of you (which you'll see because you have both eyes open). You just can't do that if you don't have your shutter and AF on different buttons.

Anyone else have any problems with this? I wear glasses and shoot through my left eye which means my right eye is directly over the AF button, which makes it very difficult to use.

5) Don't expect to get rich.

Don't tell my wife this part, I've told her the money I've spent on camera equipment is an investment because all those lenses will soon turn into a money machine.

6) Like most sports shooters I've listened to, he shoots in manual. That always seems odd to me, but that's what I've heard from everyone I know that is successful at making a living from it.

I fully agree with this one. The year my son's soccer uniform was white jersey and black shorts I realized how easily the meter could get fooled. Just trust your histogram and go for it.