Advice on sports photography?

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Caporegime
Joined
12 Mar 2004
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29,954
Location
England
Are there any good resources on sports photography? Specifically equine sports?

I've shot a few events of showjumping and dressage now but I want to improve my skills.

Currently got a D7000, 18-105mm 3.5/5.6, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 and 35mm f/1.8.

I notice that the prime lens produces much better pictures than the others, the larger aperture greatly reduces the noise as well as allowing me a faster shutter speed.


See what I mean?
 
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well yes, if you want to reduce noise you need to let in more light.

Your restriction is the requirement of high shutter speed so the only thing you can do is wack up the ISO or open the aperture. Those are your only choices. IS won't help you here.

So either get a full frame camera which can handle noise better.
Get a 70-200/2.8 lens and/or primes at a focal length that you shoot at.

Or....invest in giant portable football stadium floodlights to take with you. The options above are cheaper tbh :D
 
Yeah I know what equipment would be better, but the Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 is £577 and the D600 is £1080, which is unaffordable for me at the moment. :p I've been considering longer primes, but I don't know if they will be flexible enough.

Off topic, but are the avatars not showing up properly?
 
Get an 85 1.8 would be my advice. That and be aware of what ISO etc. you're using. 1/800 isn't really necessary particularly when you're at ISO 2800 with relatively slow movements (I'd even try to get some panning in), and ISO 2800 shouldn't be needed when you have over a stop to go on the lens. I'd start using manual ISO and shutter priority as a start.
 
Usually I shoot in manual with auto ISO, set shutter speed to at least 1/500sec (more if light allows) and try to balance ISO vs sharpness by varying the aperture, the 35mm for example is almost at it's sharpest at 2.8 and good at 2.2, but much worse at 1.8.

I wonder how sharp the Nikon 50mm f/1.2 is at 1.8?
 
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MF one sorry. :p I prefocus on jumps so no AF isn't such an issue, especially considering that the viewfinder tells me when I have focused correctly manually.
 
The 50mm f1.2 is much lower contrast than modern Nikkors, works great for portraits.

As mentioned above there are not many things you can do. You will want at least 1/500th of a second to keep motion at bay. Panning can work for some shots and allows you to get down to say 1/80th but you only want a few pans here and there.



You say you don't find the 35mm sharp enough at f1.8 but I am betting that that is more to do with DoF and focus issues than sharpness. Yes the lens is softer wider open but is perfectly usable.

35mm is relatively short , your longer lenses are far slower. You might find an 85mm f1.8 will help give you more reach that your 35 and faster shutter speed than your longer lenses by 2-3 stops which is huge. Otherwise there is not much you can do.
 
The nikon F1.2 also looks like vaseline at 1.2 so not worth it.

Get a sigma 70-200 F2.8 lens second hand for around £400 and rejoice at how good the shots are. I'd not get a prime for doing equine shooting as you'll have issues with framing when horses get close and further away etc.
 
D.P. said:
The 50mm f1.2 is much lower contrast than modern Nikkors, works great for portraits.

As mentioned above there are not many things you can do. You will want at least 1/500th of a second to keep motion at bay. Panning can work for some shots and allows you to get down to say 1/80th but you only want a few pans here and there.



You say you don't find the 35mm sharp enough at f1.8 but I am betting that that is more to do with DoF and focus issues than sharpness. Yes the lens is softer wider open but is perfectly usable.

35mm is relatively short , your longer lenses are far slower. You might find an 85mm f1.8 will help give you more reach that your 35 and faster shutter speed than your longer lenses by 2-3 stops which is huge. Otherwise there is not much you can do.
Click to expand...

Panning could work, but only on a few very select shots. You can't pan a jump with any degree of success but the horse trotting by would be doable I suppose. I still wouldn't get the 85mm F1.8 for this sort of sport though as its a very long prime on a crop camera and its use would be very limited.
 
you could look at m42 primes off egay, maybe snag a cheap one to try out, will be manual focus but if you pre focus on the jump/gate thing thatll be ok, i quite like using primes, even a old 450mm on a crop sensor :o, but its f8, and you really need a tripod when its dull light like its been recently

you should be able to get a m42 to whatever adapter cheap

http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2009/03/shooting-outdoor-sports has some good info
 
Showjumping horses are deceptively slow - you don't need 1/500th by any stretch. Also though you're keen to avoid shooting at 1.8, the thing is the noise will ruin your images far more than you aperture will, and at the moment because of a combination of the noise and the depth of field, your photos just look like snapshots - hence my recommendation of a longer fast lens.
 
Less noise and less DoF will work better, yes. 35mm isn't a great lens for this sort of thing as I said, so the 85 1.8 is still my recommendation
 
Yeah I will definitely be getting an 85mm sometime. I nearly got run over in the area taking some of those photographs at 18mm. :p
 
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