Is my D3100 good enough?

Buchanan0204

Buchanan0204

Buchanan0204

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I'm looking to buy a fast lens for indoor sports photography. I'm looking at lenses around the £250-£300 mark.

I have a Nikon D3100 and I'm looking at the Sigma 30mm f1.4 EX DC HSM Lens - Nikon Fit

I'd like to be able to produce fast action shots like this

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathanchua/305646610/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/david_soanes/7735683308/

Will it be possible with my camera or even the lens?

Suggestions most welcome.

P.S. Just noticed the settings on last photo and see he used f/4. I need a quick shutter speed indoors where the lighting isn't amazing and I can't use a flash, so I'm guessing I need a high aperture (fast lens) for these conditions? I'm guessing he got away with the last photo because the lighting must have been amazing, is this correct?
 
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He also shot at ISO 3200 which is a big boost.

Indoor sports/action really pushes the limits of camera equipment. A fast lens helps but has issues of its now, in general you will want sufficient DoF to keep the subject appropriately sharp and allow some margin of error for focus issues and subject movement. That is why he shot at f/4.0

Sports photograph will test the limits of the camera Auto focus speed and accuracy, as well as the focus capabilities of the lens.

I am uncertain of the sigma 30mm but be careful that you select a lens with fast focusing, many of the large aperture prime lenses have slower focusing to facilitate more precise and accurate focusing.

The photos you linked to were shot with a Nikon 70-200mm, which is incredibly fast to focus.




you also need to think about the focus length. 30mm on a crop body is unlikely to be long enough unless you get very close. One of the presented photos was shot as 38mm on crop (D70) so you may just be OK, the other was shot at 135mm so about 90mm on crop. You might find a 50mm lens more effective, I believe the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 has reasonably fast focusing.
 
D.P. said:
He also shot at ISO 3200 which is a big boost.

Indoor sports/action really pushes the limits of camera equipment. A fast lens helps but has issues of its now, in general you will want sufficient DoF to keep the subject appropriately sharp and allow some margin of error for focus issues and subject movement. That is why he shot at f/4.0

Sports photograph will test the limits of the camera Auto focus speed and accuracy, as well as the focus capabilities of the lens.

I am uncertain of the sigma 30mm but be careful that you select a lens with fast focusing, many of the large aperture prime lenses have slower focusing to facilitate more precise and accurate focusing.

The photos you linked to were shot with a Nikon 70-200mm, which is incredibly fast to focus.




you also need to think about the focus length. 30mm on a crop body is unlikely to be long enough unless you get very close. One of the presented photos was shot as 38mm on crop (D70) so you may just be OK, the other was shot at 135mm so about 90mm on crop. You might find a 50mm lens more effective, I believe the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 has reasonably fast focusing.
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Thanks for your reply.

I'm a beginner if you couldn't tell, I understood 80% of what you said.

My kit lense can shoot at f4... So how has he managed to make it look decent shooting at f4 and still use a fast shutter speed. Would this not result in a very dark under exposed image for me?

I'd be able to get court side for some shots, but I'd also like the option of taking photos from the seating area/crowd. I'm guessing this is out of the question at my budget? Court side is the priority however.

I seen the price of that lens, £1800 haha... Crazy.
 
To get an accurate exposure you have to have to have a balanced aperture, shutter speed and ISO. This is sometimes known as the exposure triangle.

In this instance you probably want the shutter speed fixed, some thing like 1/500th second in order to freeze the motion. You want an aperture that lets in plenty of light but as I said previously of you go really wide open the depth of focus is quite small so maybe try at f2.8 or f/4. You will then have to increase ISO high enough to get a properly exposed photo. However, you don't want the ISO far too high or the noise is overwhelming. You can trade a faster aperture for a lower ISO which will improve image quality.

You need to try to find the balance of settings that work for you. You also don't have to annually adjust all settings but let the camera figure out some f the equation.
 
D.P. said:
To get an accurate exposure you have to have to have a balanced aperture, shutter speed and ISO. This is sometimes known as the exposure triangle.

In this instance you probably want the shutter speed fixed, some thing like 1/500th second in order to freeze the motion. You want an aperture that lets in plenty of light but as I said previously of you go really wide open the depth of focus is quite small so maybe try at f2.8 or f/4. You will then have to increase ISO high enough to get a properly exposed photo. However, you don't want the ISO far too high or the noise is overwhelming. You can trade a faster aperture for a lower ISO which will improve image quality.

You need to try to find the balance of settings that work for you. You also don't have to annually adjust all settings but let the camera figure out some f the equation.
Click to expand...

Very interesting. Thanks for that.

Do you think it would be possible to take these style of photos with my kit lens then? I think it goes down to F/3.5?

I've never took a picture with a higher ISO, as you say it introduces noise and I've never really noticed a difference. I'll need to read up on what it actually does.

So, 1/500s on the highest aperture my camera can do with ISO800? That sound ok for a reasonably well lit sports hall?
 
You could also use Auto ISO which is superb on Nikon bodies.

Set the maximum ISO to 3200 as an example and the minimum shutter to 1/500th, then simply put the camera in 'A' select the required aperture and the camera will do the rest.

You'll be safe in the knowledge that your ISO wont go above 3200 and your shutter won't go below 1/500th.
 
You need to understand focal length more. Because at the moment you're asking whether you can use the f/3.5 aperture on your kit lens. When a lens has a variable minimum aperture, e.g. f/3.5-f/5.6, it will only be the largest aperture (f/3.5) at the widest focal length and will incrementally stop down to f/5.6 as you zoom in. In this case, the kits lens has to be at 18mm to be able to shoot at f/3.5, and 18mm is FAR too wide to be shooting sports, even court side (unless taking a picture of the whole court).

In basic terms, the focal length will tell you how ''zoomed'' in it will be. For sports, because you won't be far away, and on crop, something around the focal length of 50-150mm would probably work well.
 
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Razor-BladE said:
You need to understand focal length more. Because at the moment you're asking whether you can use the f/3.5 aperture on your kit lens. When a lens has a variable minimum aperture, e.g. f/3.5-f/5.6, it will only be the largest aperture (f/3.5) at the widest focal length and will incrementally stop down to f/5.6 as you zoom in. In this case, the kits lens has to be at 18mm to be able to shoot at f/3.5, and 18mm is FAR too wide to be shooting sports, even court side (unless taking a picture of the whole court).

In basic terms, the focal length will tell you how ''zoomed'' in it will be. For sports, because you won't be far away, and on crop, something around the focal length of 50-150mm would probably work well.
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Thanks very much, I actually realised this when I picked up the camera to investigate an hour ago. It wouldn't go below f/5.6 and I googled why. Basically I worked out what you just told me.

What do you mean when you say "on crop?"

Would the sigma 50mm be able to stop down at 50mm I presume?

How about a telephoto lens with a high aperture for shooting from far away? Would these be silly money? I'm thinking for large competitions where I'm a spectator or can't get court side.
 
ManCuBuS said:
You could also use Auto ISO which is superb on Nikon bodies.

Set the maximum ISO to 3200 as an example and the minimum shutter to 1/500th, then simply put the camera in 'A' select the required aperture and the camera will do the rest.

You'll be safe in the knowledge that your ISO wont go above 3200 and your shutter won't go below 1/500th.
Click to expand...

Sounds interesting. I'll give it a go, I'm concerned my cameras crap at ISO3200.
 
Buchanan0204 said:
Sounds interesting. I'll give it a go, I'm concerned my cameras crap at ISO3200.
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3200 is was just an example, you can choose the maximum ISO.

When you say crap though, at what size do you intend to view or print the shots at?

If you aren't going any bigger than the largest computer screen then ISO3200 will be fine from a D3100.
 
As a suggestion for a lens, have a look at the Tamron 70-300mm DI VC f4-5.6, it looks to be a cracking lens for the price, below your budget of £300 and will give you an aperture of f4 at 70mm, remember the kit lens is at f5.6 at just 55mm, and it takes some cracking shots looking at flickr.

I am looking at getting one, if funds allow:)
 
hyperst said:
As a suggestion for a lens, have a look at the Tamron 70-300mm DI VC f4-5.6, it looks to be a cracking lens for the price, below your budget of £300 and will give you an aperture of f4 at 70mm, remember the kit lens is at f5.6 at just 55mm, and it takes some cracking shots looking at flickr.

I am looking at getting one, if funds allow:)
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I've owned on and while the image quality is very good the VC is nigh on useless due to it not kicking in instantly which never seems to get mentioned when people talk about this lens. When it kicks in, eventually, its good but god it feels like it takes an age to work adn by that time the bird had normally flown off. :mad:

I moved to the Nikon 70-300mm AF-S VR and the correction is much faster.

Its probably worth noting though that for the OP's intended use I would guess that any stabilisation system would be useless anyway due to the subjects moving and from that perspective there would be very little difference between them.
 
But if the Op was to use a tripod? VC can be turned off, I would have thought that would have been better for birds?

Or the use of a prime lens such as the Nikon AF-S Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G which would be 75mm on a crop body or even the Nikon AF-S Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 G if budget allows giving a 127mm or there abouts on a crop.

Crop means the sensor size in the camera, in the d3100 it is a DX format which is a cropped down version of a full size sensor thats in the FX body cameras, basically 1.5x smaller sensor than FX, if you use a 85mm fixed lens on a crop it essentially crops the image the lens projects on the sensor by 1.5x making the 85 act like it is at 127mm(something like that).
 
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hyperst said:
But if the Op was to use a tripod? VC can be turned off, I would have thought that would have been better for birds?
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Nope, stabilisation is really useful for birding as generally you are trying to get a shot of the subject in a static position. Unless you are in a bird hyde or holding one spot then I find tripods useless as they simply get in the way.

At 300mm the minimum shutter speed is around 1/300th if you have a steady hand or 1/400th if you don't and as a lot of the time I was in light sucking woodland, at f5.6 you are already fighting against the light and stopping down to f8 for maximum sharpness only reduces the light further which means either a slower shutter or bump in ISO depending on the ambient light.

Any anti vibration system that helps with keeping the shutter speed and ISO down is very helpful, but it's got to work at the point you need it which I found Tamron's VC to simply not.

Oh and I'm well aware of crop means but thanks anyway ;)
 
Once I have the cash I'll re visit this thread when I'm ready to purchase the lens... hopefully in no more than a month or so.

Tell me something else guys. I learned all about aperture today, I did a bit of studying as I have done before but never really understood the relationship between it and depth of field. I found a great video on youtube and it helped massively.

However I had to use liveview in order to move the little focus square onto my point of focus. Is there no way to do this when looking through the view finder or does this type of photography need to be done with the liveview and manually moving the focus square with the dials?

This was my first attempt at trying out my new found skill of using the "A" on the camera. Quite pleased with the result. As I said though, was done via liveview rather than looking through the viewfinder.

Cheers for all your help so far. A lot of very clever people on these forums.

RTUIEqC.jpg
 
my Canon shows a set of LEDs over the viewfinder image for some manual focus positioning, not sure how the Nikon's handle this but it might be only possible through the LCD view.

In any case you can cheat if you fix your autofocus in the middle, then move the viewfinder middle point over the area you want in focus, lock the focus on that by pressing the shutter button half way then move your camera to the position where you want to frame the picture.

I'm also a beginner and I found these tutorials and interactive "simulators" really useful to understand the relationship between ISO, Aperture and Shutter speed:

http://camerasim.com/camera-simulator/
http://www.exposureguide.com/focusing-basics.htm
http://www.canonoutsideofauto.ca/play/
http://www.canonoutsideofauto.ca/learn/
 
Haha... I thought I was cheating using that trick. Didn't think it was the "done" thing. Figured it out by luck and a bit of playing a while back.

I'll watch those videos... cheers.
 
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