Canon 300mm F4.0 / 7Dmk2 for field sports ?

[kc4sox]

Just purchased a 7Dmk2 for wildlife and sports. I'm wondering if the 300mm f4.0 would be a good choice field sports on this body. It would give the appearance of a 400mm f6.4 when taking the crop factor into consideration.. From what I've read this would be fine for wildlife but would it be considered too "long" for field sports such as baseball , softball and football ? I have a 70-200 I use on my FF body and with the Crop factor it's going to give me the look of a 112 - 320 and f4.4

Opinions please and thanks............

 

[JacaRanda]

Not sure where the f6.4 comes into play. Its F4 prime. I guess it depends on how near or far you are from the action and field lighting.
The crop factor is 480mm.

 

[Alexr25]

It would give the appearance of a 400mm f6.4

How do come to that conclusion? By my math it's more like a 480mm f4 lens. Despite what some Youtube sites of dubious merit say the crop factor does not affect a lenses aperture, it is a physical property of the lens and set in stone the same way the focal length is. It does however affect the DOF and this is probably where the confusion come from.

 

[ronlane]

I just got the 7D mk II about a month ago and I'd love to have the 300mm f/4 to shoot football with.

 

[Derrel]

It would give the appearance of a 400mm f6.4

How do come to that conclusion? By my math it's more like a 480mm f4 lens. Despite what some Youtube sites of dubious merit say the crop factor does not affect a lenses aperture, it is a physical property of the lens and set in stone the same way the focal length is. It does however affect the DOF and this is probably where the confusion come from.

Yes, he's talking about "equivalence", and what a 300mm f/4 lens looks like on a Canon APS-C camera, compared against FF aka 135 format, which this site says is like a 480mm f/6.3 lens when shot on FF.Depth of Field Angle and Field of View and Equivalent Lens Calculator - Points in Focus Photography

The smaller capturer format yields deeper depth of field than a larger capture format does, so the 300mm lens, while always 300mm, is longer in relation to a smaller sensor than it is to a bigger sensor, and on that smaller sensor, it produces more depth of field than it does whewn used on a bigger sensor. The crop-sensor cameras don't quite blow out the backgrounds as much as FF cameras do, but still, they do work, and give good effective "reach". If you have credentials/access, 300mm on 1.6x or 1.5x is often simply TOO long, except to do rather cliche single athlete isolated stuff half of the time. The smaller format does give you a little bit more DOF for "fudge factor" on focusing errors though.

I dunno...I've used a 300mm lens, either and f/4 or an f/2.8 for field sports: track and field, baseball, softball, soccer...it's not nearly as handy as a fast zoom lens, because in many places, it's too LONG ofg a lens, with too narrow a field of view from the field! When the athletes are close, all you get is a tight shot, and often no feet...it's not always the best picture. No zoom leads to shooting what the LENS can do best, and can become an exercise in shooting safely, and shooting cliches, over and over. On field sports like say soccer, 300mm is fine if the action is more distant, but when it comes closer, you will want a second body with a much,much shorter lens.

In baseball, 300mm is fine for shooting from the 3rd base line in the stands, but it's too long for shooting from the dugout and trying to cover 1st base. It's not really long enough to shoot the outfielders close up and personal, but you can crop those files! The plus is the lens is light-ish,. and SHARP, and faster (f/4) than most other ways to get to 300mm actual length.

 

[TCampbell]

When you shoot on a crop-frame body, the 300mm lens is still a 300mm lens and if it's an f/4 lens it is still an f/4 lens. You get a narrower angle of view because the sensor is smaller (hence "crop sensor") and it will be "as if" you used a full-frame body with a 480mm focal length lens... but still at f/4.

f/4 means that the effective focal length of the lens is four times greater than the effective diameter of clear aperture. In other words you have 75mm of clear aperture and 300mm of focal length.

When you put that lens on an APS-C crop-frame body you STILL have 300mm of focal length and the lens STILL has a 75mm diameter aperture -- nothing changed. So your ratio of 1:4 is maintained (you have an f/4 lens).

If you were to use a focal length multiplier (tele-extender) such as a 1.4x adapter, then your 300mm lens' focal length is extended by 1.4x and effectively becomes a 420mm lens -- but it STILL has a 75mm clear aperture (the tele-extender made your lens longer, but did not increase it's diameter) and that means you've altered the ratio of length to diameter. Now 420mm ÷ 75mm = 5.6 (which happens to be precisely 1 stop). So you have a 420mm f/5.6 lens -- but only because you used a tele-extender.

Putting the lens on a crop-body isn't the same as using a tele-extender. Your just using a smaller sensor size. The amount of light that lands on that sensor (per square millimeter of space) is identical.