Lens Question

[ropeman]

My daughter is a Soccer GK. I take pictures at all her soccer games. I started doing it to keep me from yelling during games but has turned into a nice little hobby. I take pictures of every girl during the game. I then post the good pics on a site for the parents and kids to see.
My daughter is currently playing 8v8 but is graduating very soon to 11v11 full field. I position myself at the opposite end of the field from my daughter so I can get good pics of her. The lens I am using currently is a 70 to 300 zoom which is ok not great for a 70 yrd distance. Some photos of her are good but not great. Since she is moving to a 100 yrd field I want to get a longer zoom. I was thinking of just getting a 100 to 400 zoom but not sure if that is enough. I know there is a 200 to 500 and a 150 to 600 zoom. See I still want to get the pictures of the girls in front of me scoring the goals. This is why I need a zoom, so I zoom in and out depending on where the ball is.

Does anyone have any suggestions on the type or size of lens I should look at?

I currently us a Canon T2i camera.

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[table1349]

I am quite happy with my 400mm f2.8. But I move with the game. I also use a second body with a 70-200 f2.8 on it.

 

[tirediron]

I've never shot soccer, so I can't really "imagine" the focal lengths I'd use, but I've always thought that the 200-400 would be a great choice for field sports (now that Canonites have one of their own).

 

[curtyoungblood]

I don't 400 is going to be enough to get great shots of the goal keeper from the length of the field. However, there should certainly be a spot on the sideline somewhere that you should be able to get good shots of her with you current equipment.

 

[SpikeyJohnson]

I was watching a review for the new Tamron 150-600 on YouTube the other day. I don't know if it is out yet but it would probably be a great choice to cover the wide range of focal lengths that you could find on a soccer field.

Here is that review:

 

[SpikeyJohnson]

Now that I think about it you may want to consider smaller range even. I forget that you are using a T2i so that crop factor would make that lens crazy long. Maybe something near the 400 range on the long end.

 

[JerryLove]

Budget?

 

[KmH]

I shot daytime soccer from the end lines and near the goal. To 'reach' the other end of the pitch i used a Sigma 150-500mm f/5-6.3 AF APO DG OS HSM Telephoto Zoom Lens for Canon Digital SLR Cameras

Like others that shoot from the end lines I used extra camera bodies - a second body with an 80-200 mm f/2.8 lens, and a 3rd body with a 24-85 mm f/2.8-4 lens for use near the goal where I was set up.
All 3 cameras were crop sensor cameras.

Soccer photos look best if the camera is positioned no higher than the middle of players chests. That lower camera perspective makes the player look bigger and more powerful while also helping to eliminate some background distractions.

So I essentially shot while down on a knee. Actually I was down on a knee but sat my butt on a Walkstool without the legs extended.
Walkstool Comfort 26

 

[table1349]

+1 for the Walkstool. Love mine.

 

[Gavjenks]

Lots of the lenses suggested in the OP might work, hard to say without experience with your field and the layout of it and stuff, and more exactly what you want to do and how far off you are from it now.

The one thing I would caution in general, though, is that you should never just assume a larger number means the lens actually can achieve better images of things far away. Oftentimes, a telezoom lens will lose a lot of quality in it's last 100mm or whatever. And sometimes, it loses enough quality that you'd actually get a better image by using a shorter lens and cropping out the middle of the image equal to the amount of magnification you would have gotten with the longer lens.

For example, a 150-600 might be low enough quality at 600mm that you'd actually get a better image with a 500mm cropped down slightly to equal the same field of view as 600mm (I'm not talking about real lenses here, just illustrating what I mean).

You can learn about this in reviews, or possibly on websites if they provide 100% images of the lenses at different focal lengths, or MTF charts (it's proportional to the resolution achieved. So if the resolution line on an MTF chart is more than 20% lower at 600mm than 500mm, then you'd be better off cropping from 500mm. Possibly even on the same lens in some extreme cases!)



I own a 500mm ****ty mirror lens that I got for like $50 once out of curiosity, and it's image quality is so poor that I can actually get sharper images from a 135mm vintage prime lens corpped all the way down to 500mm than I can get from the mirror lens. *eyeroll* It CAN be that extreme in some cases.

 

[ropeman]

Thanks to everyone for all your responses.

I will look at different lengths. I will try with a 400 zoom and see how it works. I dont think I would have 2 camera bodies. Too much to carry around. I am just a weekend photographer of my daughters soccer events.