Acquiring first "real" camera. Want good sports/action and low light shooting. -$1K

[Captainobvious99]

So I'm looking to purchase a nice camera for general enthusiast usage including sports shots and lower light (indoors) shooting as well as something with good overall performance in a wide range of scenarios. While a mirrorless, more compact design is intriguing, I haven't ruled out DSLR. I'm looking for something I can grow into a little bit as I learn more about photography and develop skills. My budget is capped at $1k max for body and lens(es) and I'm open to new or used. Obviosuly if I can get into something for less, that's a big plus too. In this range I've been looking into the following:

Sony
A77
A6000
NEX6
Fuji
XE1
Xpro1
Nikon
D7100
D5300
D3300
Canon
EOS 60D
Rebel T5i
Rebel SL1

Obviously with the higher end models in the line, it leaves little room for lens budget so I'd either do the kit lens or just a body with a prime lens to start. I'm not so much worried about massive MP as I don't need to print huge pictures, but fast AF and tracking, great IQ and good low light performance are important. I'm leaning toward the A6000 based on the specs, but as with anything I know specs don't tell the whole story. I've also seen the big discounts on the NEX6 now that the new models are out so if it's up to the task for action shots, that could be a great choice as well and be FAR less expensive allowing for some lenses.

Thank you kindly for your advice to a newcomer. I'm looking forward to picking something up shortly.

 

[robbins.photo]

Well for 1k max you can start scratching a few off your list here - for example on the D7100 that 1K would give you enough for the body but not enough for the body and lens. Other issue you will run into is that fast telephoto lenses are expensive - so if your shooting indoor sports a good portion of your budget is most likely going to be eaten up by the lens. My recommendation to start with would most likely be a Nikon D5200 and an 85mm 1.8 AFS-G lens.

 

[Derrel]

Well for 1k max you can start scratching a few off your list here - for example on the D7100 that 1K would give you enough for the body but not enough for the body and lens. Other issue you will run into is that fast telephoto lenses are expensive - so if your shooting indoor sports a good portion of your budget is most likely going to be eaten up by the lens. My recommendation to start with would most likely be a Nikon D5200 and an 85mm 1.8 AFS-G lens.

The 85/1.8 AF-S G is a SUPER-SHARP, very high-performance lens. It is amaaaaaaaaazingly sharp. You will not find a sharper, or faster aperture telephoto lens with autofocus for under about $4999. Not kidding. You can take a high-quality capture made with the 85/1.8 and crop-in on it heavily, to simulate a high-speed longer telephoto. Indoors, that's fairly long, 85mm x1.5x FOV or 127mm effective....even the regular old 50/1.8 AF-S G would be decent for a lot of sports needs indoors or at under 30 feet.

if you need a D5200 body to get a GOOD lens, like an 85/1.8, then do it.

 

[Captainobvious99]

Thank you for the quick, quality answers!

Regarding indoor shooting- Is a telephoto necessary? I should probably have clarified that I will be closer to the action (about 15-25 feet away in most circumstances) so that you'd have a better idea of conditions. I'll be doing some outdoor sports shooting as well as indoor. I'll also be using this camera for a wide range of shooting as it will be my one and only camera for a while.

Now onto the next question: Do DSLR's inherently perform better than mirrorless for action shots? Ive been recommended to go DSLR for this and I wasn't sure if that was just because most of the earlier mirrorless designs weren't up to snuff or if there is something specific about the DSLR that makes it much more suitable for this application...? For example, if the new Sony A6000 boasts very fast fps and excellent AF with tracking, is it still inferior to a DSLR in a similar price category for sports shooting, and if so, why is that?

I have no problem with doing a DSLR if it fits our needs better. Both myself and my wife will use it so I'd prefer a smaller format for lighter weight and easier portability, but the usability and ease of getting decent shots is certainly more important.


Great info thus far, thank you for taking the time to respond!

 

[JoeW]

I'm going to echo some of the previous comments.

1. For a body, you want something that can rachet up the ISO settings without a lot of grain.

2. For sports in low light (say...shooting basketball or football from the stands and it's either in an arena or at night), you're going to want (at minimum) a 200mm zoom with an f2.8 aperture. And frankly, if ImageMaker posts on this thread, I bet he'll tell you that in an ideal world you'd be shooting with a 300mm or 400mm zoom. That kind of glass with a wide open aperture (f2.8 for a 200mm+ lens) is easily going to cost you $1,000 or more if you buy a professional caliber lens. Now, if you're right there on the sidelines and it's not basketball/football/lacrosse/soccer/baseball but it's more likely to be gymnastics, swimming at the amateur level, you won't need 300mm-400mm. But you'll still find 200mm useful for portraits and expressions. To be able to capture action in low light without blur (especially if this is a sport with a lot of movement) then you need a fast shutter speed which means higher ISO and wide open aperture.

Yes, you can get a 200mm zoom for $300. But the widest aperture will be something like f4.5 or 5.6 and it will have slow autofocus. That would be a waste of your money for low light sports.

3. You don't need to shoot with a 200mm lens. But the problem is that unless you're right on the sidelines and it's a compact field (like say...gymnastics), you're going to have to crop like crazy (so you don't have a little athlete surrounded by a ton of people and paper and signs and lights and grass/court/stuff). So when you crop, the fact you were shooting at ISO 3200 will suddenly become evident and a photo that worked in the original size will suddenly be noisy and grainy. Probably the minimum focal length I'd want to shoot with if I was doing sports and I was 20-25 feet away would be 80mm and even then, I'd want a lens that was f1.8 or similar. That is going to allow you to capture action.

I would argue that your lens is probably more important than the body (for an amateur) who is shooting sports in low light.

 

[ronlane]

Those above have given you solid information. However, the words Sports, Low light and under $1K do not go together. I'm not saying that you can't shoot those with something less but the quality will show.

If you are looking at Canon for this, of the ones on your list I would select the 60D and try to get the EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS to go with it.

Good luck with your selection.

 

[robbins.photo]

Given the fact that your working with a budget I really wouldn't recommend the A6000. Granted the camera body itself isn't too cost prohibitive, but if your shooting action in low light, you really need to consider the choices of available lenses:

Mirrorless System Lenses | B&H Photo Video

You'll notice that you don't have a lot of options for fast glass here particularly in telephoto, and even the shorter range stuff you have limited options and a lot of them are very, very expensive. The high frame rate is tempting and the AF system sounds great, on paper - but unfortunately there is often a bit of a gap between the marketing brochure and real world performance:

Photototo: Sony Alpha A6000 - World's fastest AF?

With the budget you have I think your best bet is to start with a body that is going to give you good lowlight performance, a high MP sensor so that you can crop photos heavily and still have them be of good image quality, and most importantly one that will leave you enough left in your budget to get a top notch lens because really the lens here will make the most difference. You need something fast to get decent shutter speeds in bad lighting without sending your ISO into the nosebleed section.

So I really do think the D5200 is going to be your best bet. I would recommend you look at getting a fast memory card - all camera manufactures will give you the frames per second rating of their cameras but what they often don't tell you is that this is the maximum firing rate and it only shoots that fast if there is room left in the buffer for the images. Once the buffer gets overrun the camera slows down waiting for the images in the buffer to be written to the memory card.

My D5200's will shoot 5 frames per second - but only for a short burst if I'm shooting in RAW - then it will slow to 2-3 FPS until I let off the shutter and let the stuff in the buffer write to the card. By using a card with a very fast write speed I can get a longer burst before the buffer is overwhelmed and the camera slows, or I can switch to JPG mode rather than shooting RAW and if I do that I can hammer away at 5 FPS all day pretty much, but only if I'm using a fast memory card.

I recommend the Sandisk Extreme Pro 95 mbs write cards myself - They are more expensive than your standard Class 10 but well worth it IMHO.

 

[Captainobvious99]

Given the fact that your working with a budget I really wouldn't recommend the A6000. Granted the camera body itself isn't too cost prohibitive, but if your shooting action in low light, you really need to consider the choices of available lenses:

Mirrorless System Lenses | B&H Photo Video

You'll notice that you don't have a lot of options for fast glass here particularly in telephoto, and even the shorter range stuff you have limited options and a lot of them are very, very expensive. The high frame rate is tempting and the AF system sounds great, on paper - but unfortunately there is often a bit of a gap between the marketing brochure and real world performance:

Photototo: Sony Alpha A6000 - World's fastest AF?

With the budget you have I think your best bet is to start with a body that is going to give you good lowlight performance, a high MP sensor so that you can crop photos heavily and still have them be of good image quality, and most importantly one that will leave you enough left in your budget to get a top notch lens because really the lens here will make the most difference. You need something fast to get decent shutter speeds in bad lighting without sending your ISO into the nosebleed section.

So I really do think the D5200 is going to be your best bet. I would recommend you look at getting a fast memory card - all camera manufactures will give you the frames per second rating of their cameras but what they often don't tell you is that this is the maximum firing rate and it only shoots that fast if there is room left in the buffer for the images. Once the buffer gets overrun the camera slows down waiting for the images in the buffer to be written to the memory card.

My D5200's will shoot 5 frames per second - but only for a short burst if I'm shooting in RAW - then it will slow to 2-3 FPS until I let off the shutter and let the stuff in the buffer write to the card. By using a card with a very fast write speed I can get a longer burst before the buffer is overwhelmed and the camera slows, or I can switch to JPG mode rather than shooting RAW and if I do that I can hammer away at 5 FPS all day pretty much, but only if I'm using a fast memory card.

I recommend the Sandisk Extreme Pro 95 mbs write cards myself - They are more expensive than your standard Class 10 but well worth it IMHO.

Great info and thanks for the links. Looking at the Sony E mount lenses, would I be correct that these are the only really suitable offerings for indoor action shooting? It appears they are the only ones with a decent F across the focal range, but the other issue is that they don't offer that much zoom. If I'm correct they might be suitable for shots from courtside but beyond that not so much...?

SEL1670Z Vario Tessar 16-70mm F4 (at $1K)
SELP18105G E PZ 18-105 F4 (at $600)

And the best prime offered looks like the 50mm F1.8 (SEL50F18) which would push me closer to the action.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding as this stuff is new to me.


If I went with the D5200 which does look like an excellent option, What would be the recommended lens to go with? I'm assuming the recommendation would be to go with the body (forego the kit lens) and put the extra money into a single quality lens to start?

Nikon AF-S DX VR 55-200mm F/4-5.6 ($250)
Nikon AF-S ED VR 55-300mm F/4.5-5.6G ($400)
Nikon AF-S DX VR 18-140mm F/3.5-5.6G ($500)
Sigma II DC OS HSM 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 ($299)
Nikon AF-S ED DX 55-200mm F/4-5.6G ($180)
Sigma DC Macro OS HSM 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 ($400)


Thanks !!

 

[Captainobvious99]

Sorry should have re-read above about the Nikon lens....

Well for 1k max you can start scratching a few off your list here - for example on the D7100 that 1K would give you enough for the body but not enough for the body and lens. Other issue you will run into is that fast telephoto lenses are expensive - so if your shooting indoor sports a good portion of your budget is most likely going to be eaten up by the lens. My recommendation to start with would most likely be a Nikon D5200 and an 85mm 1.8 AFS-G lens.

The 85/1.8 AF-S G is a SUPER-SHARP, very high-performance lens. It is amaaaaaaaaazingly sharp. You will not find a sharper, or faster aperture telephoto lens with autofocus for under about $4999. Not kidding. You can take a high-quality capture made with the 85/1.8 and crop-in on it heavily, to simulate a high-speed longer telephoto. Indoors, that's fairly long, 85mm x1.5x FOV or 127mm effective....even the regular old 50/1.8 AF-S G would be decent for a lot of sports needs indoors or at under 30 feet.

if you need a D5200 body to get a GOOD lens, like an 85/1.8, then do it.

This looks like a great option. It may not offer zoom, but it should get me close enough to the action that I can do a crop and still have a crisp image. This looks like an excellent all around lens to start with and with the very low F should work out nicely for low light/indoor shots. I'm going to look into this lens and a D5200.

 

[gsgary]

Given the fact that your working with a budget I really wouldn't recommend the A6000. Granted the camera body itself isn't too cost prohibitive, but if your shooting action in low light, you really need to consider the choices of available lenses:

Mirrorless System Lenses | B&H Photo Video

You'll notice that you don't have a lot of options for fast glass here particularly in telephoto, and even the shorter range stuff you have limited options and a lot of them are very, very expensive. The high frame rate is tempting and the AF system sounds great, on paper - but unfortunately there is often a bit of a gap between the marketing brochure and real world performance:

Photototo: Sony Alpha A6000 - World's fastest AF?

With the budget you have I think your best bet is to start with a body that is going to give you good lowlight performance, a high MP sensor so that you can crop photos heavily and still have them be of good image quality, and most importantly one that will leave you enough left in your budget to get a top notch lens because really the lens here will make the most difference. You need something fast to get decent shutter speeds in bad lighting without sending your ISO into the nosebleed section.

So I really do think the D5200 is going to be your best bet. I would recommend you look at getting a fast memory card - all camera manufactures will give you the frames per second rating of their cameras but what they often don't tell you is that this is the maximum firing rate and it only shoots that fast if there is room left in the buffer for the images. Once the buffer gets overrun the camera slows down waiting for the images in the buffer to be written to the memory card.

My D5200's will shoot 5 frames per second - but only for a short burst if I'm shooting in RAW - then it will slow to 2-3 FPS until I let off the shutter and let the stuff in the buffer write to the card. By using a card with a very fast write speed I can get a longer burst before the buffer is overwhelmed and the camera slows, or I can switch to JPG mode rather than shooting RAW and if I do that I can hammer away at 5 FPS all day pretty much, but only if I'm using a fast memory card.

I recommend the Sandisk Extreme Pro 95 mbs write cards myself - They are more expensive than your standard Class 10 but well worth it IMHO.

Great info and thanks for the links. Looking at the Sony E mount lenses, would I be correct that these are the only really suitable offerings for indoor action shooting? It appears they are the only ones with a decent F across the focal range, but the other issue is that they don't offer that much zoom. If I'm correct they might be suitable for shots from courtside but beyond that not so much...?

SEL1670Z Vario Tessar 16-70mm F4 (at $1K)
SELP18105G E PZ 18-105 F4 (at $600)

And the best prime offered looks like the 50mm F1.8 (SEL50F18) which would push me closer to the action.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding as this stuff is new to me.


If I went with the D5200 which does look like an excellent option, What would be the recommended lens to go with? I'm assuming the recommendation would be to go with the body (forego the kit lens) and put the extra money into a single quality lens to start?

Nikon AF-S DX VR 55-200mm F/4-5.6 ($250)
Nikon AF-S ED VR 55-300mm F/4.5-5.6G ($400)
Nikon AF-S DX VR 18-140mm F/3.5-5.6G ($500)
Sigma II DC OS HSM 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 ($299)
Nikon AF-S ED DX 55-200mm F/4-5.6G ($180)
Sigma DC Macro OS HSM 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 ($400)


Thanks !!

Non of the Nikon lenses you have listed would be any good for low light sport

 

[robbins.photo]

Given the fact that your working with a budget I really wouldn't recommend the A6000. Granted the camera body itself isn't too cost prohibitive, but if your shooting action in low light, you really need to consider the choices of available lenses:

Mirrorless System Lenses | B&H Photo Video

You'll notice that you don't have a lot of options for fast glass here particularly in telephoto, and even the shorter range stuff you have limited options and a lot of them are very, very expensive. The high frame rate is tempting and the AF system sounds great, on paper - but unfortunately there is often a bit of a gap between the marketing brochure and real world performance:

Photototo: Sony Alpha A6000 - World's fastest AF?

With the budget you have I think your best bet is to start with a body that is going to give you good lowlight performance, a high MP sensor so that you can crop photos heavily and still have them be of good image quality, and most importantly one that will leave you enough left in your budget to get a top notch lens because really the lens here will make the most difference. You need something fast to get decent shutter speeds in bad lighting without sending your ISO into the nosebleed section.

So I really do think the D5200 is going to be your best bet. I would recommend you look at getting a fast memory card - all camera manufactures will give you the frames per second rating of their cameras but what they often don't tell you is that this is the maximum firing rate and it only shoots that fast if there is room left in the buffer for the images. Once the buffer gets overrun the camera slows down waiting for the images in the buffer to be written to the memory card.

My D5200's will shoot 5 frames per second - but only for a short burst if I'm shooting in RAW - then it will slow to 2-3 FPS until I let off the shutter and let the stuff in the buffer write to the card. By using a card with a very fast write speed I can get a longer burst before the buffer is overwhelmed and the camera slows, or I can switch to JPG mode rather than shooting RAW and if I do that I can hammer away at 5 FPS all day pretty much, but only if I'm using a fast memory card.

I recommend the Sandisk Extreme Pro 95 mbs write cards myself - They are more expensive than your standard Class 10 but well worth it IMHO.

Great info and thanks for the links. Looking at the Sony E mount lenses, would I be correct that these are the only really suitable offerings for indoor action shooting? It appears they are the only ones with a decent F across the focal range, but the other issue is that they don't offer that much zoom. If I'm correct they might be suitable for shots from courtside but beyond that not so much...?

SEL1670Z Vario Tessar 16-70mm F4 (at $1K)
SELP18105G E PZ 18-105 F4 (at $600)

And the best prime offered looks like the 50mm F1.8 (SEL50F18) which would push me closer to the action.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding as this stuff is new to me.


If I went with the D5200 which does look like an excellent option, What would be the recommended lens to go with? I'm assuming the recommendation would be to go with the body (forego the kit lens) and put the extra money into a single quality lens to start?

Nikon AF-S DX VR 55-200mm F/4-5.6 ($250)
Nikon AF-S ED VR 55-300mm F/4.5-5.6G ($400)
Nikon AF-S DX VR 18-140mm F/3.5-5.6G ($500)
Sigma II DC OS HSM 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 ($299)
Nikon AF-S ED DX 55-200mm F/4-5.6G ($180)
Sigma DC Macro OS HSM 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 ($400)


Thanks !!

Non of the Nikon lenses you have listed would be any good for low light sport

Well the only Nikon lens I discussed was the 85mm 1.8 afs g, which actually does make a good lens for lowlight sports shooting if you can get courtside or close.

It's also on of the very few options available given the listed budget.

 

[gsgary]

Great info and thanks for the links. Looking at the Sony E mount lenses, would I be correct that these are the only really suitable offerings for indoor action shooting? It appears they are the only ones with a decent F across the focal range, but the other issue is that they don't offer that much zoom. If I'm correct they might be suitable for shots from courtside but beyond that not so much...?

SEL1670Z Vario Tessar 16-70mm F4 (at $1K)
SELP18105G E PZ 18-105 F4 (at $600)

And the best prime offered looks like the 50mm F1.8 (SEL50F18) which would push me closer to the action.

Forgive me if I'm misunderstanding as this stuff is new to me.


If I went with the D5200 which does look like an excellent option, What would be the recommended lens to go with? I'm assuming the recommendation would be to go with the body (forego the kit lens) and put the extra money into a single quality lens to start?

Nikon AF-S DX VR 55-200mm F/4-5.6 ($250)
Nikon AF-S ED VR 55-300mm F/4.5-5.6G ($400)
Nikon AF-S DX VR 18-140mm F/3.5-5.6G ($500)
Sigma II DC OS HSM 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 ($299)
Nikon AF-S ED DX 55-200mm F/4-5.6G ($180)
Sigma DC Macro OS HSM 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 ($400)


Thanks !!

Non of the Nikon lenses you have listed would be any good for low light sport

Well the only Nikon lens I discussed was the 85mm 1.8 afs g, which actually does make a good lens for lowlight sports shooting if you can get courtside or close.

It's also on of the very few options available given the listed budget.

I meant these
Nikon AF-S DX VR 55-200mm F/4-5.6 ($250)
Nikon AF-S ED VR 55-300mm F/4.5-5.6G ($400)
Nikon AF-S DX VR 18-140mm F/3.5-5.6G ($500)
Sigma II DC OS HSM 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 ($299)
Nikon AF-S ED DX 55-200mm F/4-5.6G ($180)
Sigma DC Macro OS HSM 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 ($400)

 

[robbins.photo]

Non of the Nikon lenses you have listed would be any good for low light sport

Well the only Nikon lens I discussed was the 85mm 1.8 afs g, which actually does make a good lens for lowlight sports shooting if you can get courtside or close.

It's also on of the very few options available given the listed budget.

I meant these
Nikon AF-S DX VR 55-200mm F/4-5.6 ($250)
Nikon AF-S ED VR 55-300mm F/4.5-5.6G ($400)
Nikon AF-S DX VR 18-140mm F/3.5-5.6G ($500)
Sigma II DC OS HSM 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 ($299)
Nikon AF-S ED DX 55-200mm F/4-5.6G ($180)
Sigma DC Macro OS HSM 18-200mm F/3.5-6.3 ($400)

Which wasn't a list I provided, so honestly I'm a little confused.

 

[gsgary]

Which wasn't a list I provided, so honestly I'm a little confused.

The op listed these lenses if he went with a D5200

 

[JustJazzie]

I don't have much to add apart from personal experience. First off, you've gotton some great advice here, hopefully you take it!. I switched to mirrorless and gave up my dslr a few years ago. Now that my boys have started sports I HAD to switch back. Because I LOVE my vex7 so much,.I did hours of research trying to convince myself that mirrorless (like the a6000) would cut it. After much research I had to accept that even though the a6000 has BETTER af than other mirrorless cameras and may be blazing fast when it comes to still subjects in GOOD light, it is still not up to par for sports and low light autofocusing. Combine the two, (like in a gym) and I think you will find yourself disappointed you didn't just go with a dslr.