Sports Photography

[Chrissie]

Hi everyone!

I'm new to the forum and would really appreciate some help and advice.

I have been taking photos for the past couple of years, mostly of horsey events as they are my passion. I am looking to upgrade my camera to an SLR and was unsure which and lens would be best to photograph the sport. I have been using a Fuji s9600 for the past couple of years and would like to upgrade. What do people suggest? I know everyone has their own personal favourites but any advice would be appreciated.

If anyone is on Flickr then my ID is Chrissie2820 if anyone wants to have a look at the photos I have taken with my s9600

Many thanks!

[Malcolm_Stewart]

Hi, and welcome.

Can you give us any idea of your budget. DSLRs range over a huge price range; and whether you're after portraits or action shots.

[Chrissie]

Thank you for your reply Malcolm

I suppose I'll be able to afford £500 or so for the actual camera and then possibly the same for the lens? I might be able to stretch to more if the right camera/lens was just outside my budget.

I like to take photos of horses jumping and competing, so it would have to be something capable of capturing good action shots

[OneTen]

Hi Chrissie, welcome to the forum. I'm biased towards using Canon simply because I prefer the handling and layout of that brand. I'd suggest you pop along to a camera shop and try a few different brands of camera to see what feels best in your hand. There really isn't much to choose between the brands so mostly it comes down to the feel.

I've photographed a lot of sport over the years although the only shoots involving horses were national hunt racing. I did photograph the show jumping at Clovelly Show last year and found two lenses to be of most use - Canon 17-40mm f/4L and Canon 70-200mm f/4L. Both of these lenses are extremely sharp and offer great value at around £500 each. The choice for me would come down to whether my shooting position was close to the action or not. For a camera I'd be looking at the Canon 500D, again at around £500 or Canon 550D at over £600 if you could stretch to it.

[Malcolm_Stewart]

The standard advice here is to go to your local shop and get the feel of cameras around your price range, as feel in the hand can be quite important. (And, if you're buying new, to buy from the shop so that we will still have some bricks and mortar shops around in 10 years time!)

I use Canon, so that's the range where I'm slightly qualified to advise. On the second-hand market, you should get more camera for your money unless you are after the latest high MP sensor, and there's the Eos 40D (from 2007) and one of its features is enhanced sensitivity of the central focus point, which may help in your use shooting horses in action. Better AF performance does seem to go with lenses with an f2.8 aperture, and unfortunately not many affordable zooms are as wide as F2.8. The EF 70-200 f2.8L IS however, could be ideal for your use - except that even s/h they're around the £1000. The cheaper F4 version simply isn't F2.8 and might demonstrate problems on the duller days, or at indoor events.

( From the brochure for the 40D:
Number of AF points Nine — all cross-type AF points
Centre AF point Unique hybrid cross-type AF point
• World’s first high-precision AF point with both horizontal and vertical high-precision
• Additional standard precision, cross-type sensors for lenses from ƒ2.8~ƒ5.6 )

I'd also recommend an EF200 f2.8L - on the 40D with its 1.6 factor sensor, that's equiv. to 320mm on full frame; and an EFS 18-55 F3.5/5.6 IS* for general shots. This is around £100 over your budget using Mifsud's used prices.

*The cheaper non-IS version is generally not recommended, but it is cheaper, say £50.

The EF200 may be too long for what you're trying to do, and a 135mm might be better, but Canon's EF135 F2L offering is expensive (& heavy) and outside your budget - because it's probably the best at this focal length.

I'm sure others will be around suggesting Nikon, Sony, Pentax etc... but do bear in mind the point about wide aperture for good AF performance - wide-range zooms going from f4.5 to f5.6 (or smaller) aren't likely to be that good in an active sports scenario.

(If you do decide to buy s/h, make sure you get the software CD, battery and charger - replacing these can cost a lot of money.)

HTH

[jeallen01]

The EF 70-200 f2.8L IS however, could be ideal for your use - except that even s/h they're around the £1000. The cheaper F4 version simply isn't F2.8 and might demonstrate problems on the duller days, or at indoor events..)
HTH

The IS F2.8 70-200mm Sigma is about £600ish if you shop carefully - and they are pretty good!

[Barney]

Chrissie

These were taken with a Nikon D70s and an old push/pull 80-200mm f:2.8 lens.









You don;t have to spend a fortune, I just sold my D70s on another forum for £190 and you can pick up 80-200mm f:2.8 lenses for £350-£500.

If I were you though, I'd get an 80-200 f:2.8 lens and then see what have left for the body. The D70s is old, but depending on how much you pay for the lens you might be lucky and be able to get a used D300 and 80-200mm f:2.8 for £1000. You might have to stretch your budget a little.

The auto-focus on the D300 is second to none, 51 AF points with great coverage over the sensor make it ideal for sport. The above combination would be my £1000 choice for sport.

Obviously Richard has spoken about Canon, I don't know anything about they range to be able to comment on bodies and lenses, but I'd caution against getting a lens slower than f:2.8. You will need the extra speed to get your shutter speeds as fast as possible. Also, you'll not get auto focus as good as the D300 for your budget.

Sony is also an option, but I think the lack of lenses on the 2nd hand market would rule them out.

[Chrissie]

Thank you ever so much for all your advice and thank you Barney for posting some of your pictures.

These are examples of the types of photos and the quality of the pictures I have been taking recently on my s9600

Click to view

Click to view

Click to view

Click to view

Click to view

Click to view

Click to view

I know my s9600 isn't a bad little camera, but I sometimes feel like the pictures aren't as sharp as they could be due to the fast movement, which is one of the main reasons why I would like to upgrade

Chrissie, your images have been changed to links because they exceed the forum size limits of 600 pixels and 100k - thanks Mod.

[AndyTake2]

The 9600 looks like a good camera. I've got an earlier model, and found that it does help if you experiment with the settings a bit.
A more modern camera may help, but playing around with the settings will pay dividends if you are prepared to put in the time.

There are a couple of points - first of all, shoot in the highest quality you can, with as little compression as possible.
Then make sure you take a few test shots before things get moving - check that you are happy with light levels, sharpness etc and then make any adjustments as necessary.

THe other thing you'll benefit from is to shoot in RAW if possible. THe Fuji is capable of this, and it means that you can get more from the image than otherwise possible.
It does mean an extra step, but if you can have RAW plus Jpeg shooting you'll get the best of both worlds - an instant picture and one you can work a bit more magic with.

IF the RAW seems a bit daunting, there are plenty of pointers on this site to guide you, and it really does make a great difference.

Apart from that, the choice of newer cameras is endless - the best advice there is to try them and see how you feel. Some makes suit certain people but not others, and if you feel comfortable with the camera it will help.

[OneTen]

I'd agree with Barney that if you are prepared to go down the secondhand route, then you will get a lot more for your money.

The timing on your photos is good, but as you've noticed the horse and riders aren't sharp. If you look at the the third image, then the fence and the writing on the banner in the background are sharp, so this suggests motion blur of the horse and rider.

Here's a couple of questions that aren't intended to be patronising but will hopefully help improve your pictures:
1. Do you know the effect of changing aperture, shutter speed and ISO?
2. Do you understand the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and ISO?

[AlexMonro]

I've looked at the EXIF data of the photos you posted, Chrissie, and it looks to me as though the best lens for you for those kind of shots would be a 70-200mm f/2.8. That would allow about 3 times as much light in at the long end as your Fuji, alowing (together with the less noise at high ISO of a DSLR) faster shutter speeds to freeze the motion blur, as well as more blurring of the background.

Others have commented on Canon and Nikon's offerings of this type of lens, but third party manufacturer Sigma also make one, quite favourably reviewed by Geoffrey Crawley in AP a couple of years ago as I remember, and this is available for all makes of DSLRs. So you can chose the camera body based on what feels most comfortable to you, and how intuitive you find the menus, etc. - get down to a camera shop and try out as many as you can.

By the way, my first "serious" camera was the S9500, the predecessor to your Fuji, but very similar in layout, and I now have 2 DSLRs - the Fuji S3Pro, based on a Nikon body, and the Pentax K20D. I actually find the Pentax slightly more intuitive, after I used the customisation options to make the control wheel to go the same way as the S9500.

[Chrissie]

Here's a couple of questions that aren't intended to be patronising but will hopefully help improve your pictures:
1. Do you know the effect of changing aperture, shutter speed and ISO?
2. Do you understand the relationship between aperture, shutter speed and ISO?

I know the basics but that's about it I'm afraid. I understand the concepts but I'm still learning when it comes to putting it all into practice. I can do it all perfectly well when it comes to "still" photos, but anything with a bit of action or movement and it all goes to pot!!! Any advice?

[OneTen]

There are many ways to achieve this but my advice would be:

Find a position, 45 degrees on to the jump looks good (half way between head on and side on) and zoom to frame the jump allowing room for the horse and rider over the jump. Set the camera to Shutter Priority mode and set a shutter speed of 1/500 or faster, take a meter reading to find the correct exposure, which is the balance bewteen shutter speed, aperture and ISO speed. Each of these three values also has an impact on the final photograph:

Shutter speed: A fast shutter speed will freeze the action and prevent motion blur or camera shake. Something around 1/500 sec or faster (1/1000, 1/2000, 1/4000) would probably be ideal for show jumping.

Aperture: The aperture controls the depth of field, this is how much is in focus in front of and behind the subject. Ideally you would want to have both horse and rider in sharp focus and the background blurred. An aperture of f/4 or f/5.6 would achieve this if you focus on the right part of the subject. Try focussing at the base of the horse neck and both the horses head and rider should be in focus. If you focus on the horses nose, then the horses head will be in focus but not the rider.

ISO: This controls how sensitive the sensor is to light, the higher the number the less light is needed to make an image but image quality decreases. The brightness of the day will determine what ISO to select, try ISO 400 as a starting point.

What I've suggested isn't gospel and others may do something different, but it should make a good starting point. There are many other things to consider such as camera mode, metering mode, af mode, drive mode and the effect the background has on exposure, but I'd concentrate on the basics first.

[Nanette]

I would suggest similar to above but start with a higher shutter speed and work your way down and try and improve your panning technique, the higher the shutter speed the more static your photo becomes, the lower you get some background motion blur.