Advice on sports photography?

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Energize

Energize

Caporegime
Joined
12 Mar 2004
Posts
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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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?
 
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.
 
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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Yeah the magazine thing does seem like a good idea, jumping outdoors at this time of year isn't really possible though. :p
 
I suppose that f/1.8 is sharp enough after some post processing anyway.

The 50mm f/1.4D is going for around £150 and 85mm f/1.8D £250, don't know what to get.
 
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