Low Light Sports Photography

1 year 7 months ago #743751 by newbie75
I'm looking for guidance on which camera I should get. I'll be mostly using it for taking pictures in gymnasiums for jiu-jitsu/wrestling. I realize that my shutter speed should be as fast as possible but that makes the photos dark. I've played around with the shutter and ISO setting I'd like for the photos to come out better. I currently have a Sony Nex5 which I bought for taking family pictures here and there. It's not the greatest, but I've managed to take almost decent pictures with it using 200mm lens.  Here's one photo - I would like to be able to zoom in more.




My budget is about $1500. I think I'd buy a used mirrorless camera. I was looking at the Sony A7R Mark II or the A7III, but every time I read up on it I feel like there might be a better one for a similar price. I prefer to stay with Sony if possible since I have a couple of the e mount lenses already, but I just recently read about the Olympus OM-D E-M1 that sounds it would be a better camera. It really is super overwhelming. 

I had a Nikon D500 which took beautiful pictures (which was stolen). I didn't use it for sports photography, but any picture I took (without know anything about settings) it came out great. I'd prefer to go mirrorless just cuz it's much lighter, but I would consider dslr if it means the photos would come out just that much better.

Sorry for the ramble. Any information is greatly appreciated. 


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1 year 7 months ago #743756 by TCav
In contrast to your question, the camera is not the issue; the lens is.

You need a large aperture medium telephoto zoom lens. For what you want to do, a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens will probably do the trick.


The following user(s) said Thank You: newbie75
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1 year 7 months ago #743770 by newbie75
Thank you. I have a 28-200mm :) Still want to get a different camera. Any suggestions on what I should be focusing on?


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1 year 7 months ago #743793 by Monica Martinez

TCav wrote: In contrast to your question, the camera is not the issue; the lens is.

You need a large aperture medium telephoto zoom lens. For what you want to do, a 70-200mm f/2.8 lens will probably do the trick.


I think so too. 


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1 year 7 months ago #743812 by newbie75
Is 28-200mm 2.8f differ much from the 70-200?


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1 year 7 months ago - 1 year 7 months ago #743827 by Ozzie_Traveller
G'day mate

There are two sorts of lens design for you to consider
1)- the 'regular' design that as you zoom out to maximum, the aperture alters and gets smaller,
versus
2)- the 'continuous-aperture' design where the maximum aperture remains as-is while you are zooming. This type of lens is used on many professional lenses and often costs double the 'regular' lens type

If you look at the front of your existing lens it will probably show something line ... 28-200mm, and aperture details of "1:2,8 ~ F6,3" for the apertures, meaning that at 28mm you max aperture if F2,8, but at 200mm your best aperture is F6,3

Sports photographers will be using continuous aperture lenses meaning that they can keep shooting at F2,8 to F4,0 sort of thing and therefore keep the shutter speeds high at the same time

If you cannot afford a 70-200 F2,8 "professional" lens then a compromise (which I have and use all the time) is the Panasonic FZ-300 bridge camera, because its lens is a constant aperture design, and the whole camera only costs about $us400 ... about 1/3 the cost of the 'professional' lenses.  What this means is that the camera has an F2,8 lens for the entire 24x zoom range of 18 to 450mm in dSLR terms

Hope this helps
Phil

Phil from the great land Downunder
www.flickr.com/photos/ozzie_traveller/sets/

The following user(s) said Thank You: newbie75
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1 year 7 months ago #744846 by newbie75
I thought I had responded to this. Thank you for the explanation. Definitely gave me a better understanding of the lenses. I got the lens, had buyers remorse, but now over it. I'm excited to go and try it out. Now I'll try to learn more about what it can do. Thanks, everyone.


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1 year 6 months ago #745903 by Adam Wilson
:judge:  Well done. 


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1 year 3 months ago #748141 by Breanna Ellington
Nice action in this shot. 


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3 months 2 weeks ago #761124 by newbie75


Here's one of the most recent shots I took using the recommended lens. Much better. Thank you!


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