Need advice for sports lens

[heagarty5]

I currently own a Canon 7D and a Canon 5D Mark III. I also have my lens that I love, despite its limitations, Canon 70-200L 4.0 non IS. And a 50 1.8. I used to take a lot of football action pics of my son in middle school football during the daylight. When he moved to high school Varsity and games are on Friday nights under the awful lights, I just haven't put in the effort to take these pics. Next football season I have been signed up to be the team photographer and want to have the right lens for that task. My lovely husband listened to my lens 'issues' and bought me the Canon 100-400 f4.5-5.6l is usm ii for Christmas. I don't think for the expense, this lens is going to move me towards taking football action in low light. I have a monopod to use and know I will need to make compromises. Looking at maybe the 70-200 2.8 IS USM II or even the 200L 2.8 non IS and save a few pennies. Any thoughts or overall advice on this decision. I could also just use my 70-200 4.0 and save the money completely. I will be using the 7D crop sensor for the football action for extra reach and burst rate.

 

[Derrel]

I would rather have a 70-200/2.8 than the same zoom (70-200) but with an f/4 maximum aperture. 200mm on 1.6x is awfully "tight" for action that is close to your camera position, so if you're used to moving along the sidelines, 3 to 6 yards ahead of the line of scrimmage, a fixed 200mm lens is going to be more-limiting in framing than a zoom lens, especially on action that comes close to your position.

Canon's 200mm f/2.8 L does not get a lot of attention these days, but it is a good, sharp,light-weight prime lens. I think it could be used for a lot of football plays; not every,single play, but it could be used!

The 100-400 f4.5-5.6 L IS USM II is NOT going to be very good for nighttime football under dim, high school field lights...the aperture range is really not favorable for night football, and will require you to shoot at very high ISO settings, like 3,200 or 6,400, or higher, to get the motion-stopping you'll most likely want to have.

I hope @ronlane weighs in on your thread.

 

[heagarty5]

The Christmas lens has to go back for sure. So I guess I have 3 options from there...

1. Settle for the pics I get with my 70-200 f4 that I’ve used for years and am fully aware of its limits. However as the season moves in to October and November that means at most the first quarter of action shots because of the dark spots on the field. Our field has especially horrible light coverage in the end zones. This is free monetarily.

2. Get the 70-200 2.8 with IS for about the same price as the lens I return. Still won’t have the reach I would love but that’s not attainable in this price range anyway. However, after the football season is over, I will then have basically a duplicate lens for what my average use will be. Because I won’t have a need for lowlight action shots in the foreseeable future.

3. 200l 2.8 non-IS canon lens. This lens is on the list mainly because it still gets good reviews from users even though it’s an old lens. And the price point is a little easier to swallow for a lens that won’t get much use after November 2019. The players/coaches box takes up about 25 (maybe 30) yards of the middle sideline of the field. I will not place myself in that box for pics because that’s not my comfort area. I always felt like I was using my 70-200 out to the full 200 for a good bit of the time anyways. So this would be a compromise for missing some of the shots that move closer than I can retreat from while the action is happening.

I also could carry both cameras. Honestly, I have shot a small amount of semi-slow action with 5DMark III and it’s a little frustrating how limiting the burst rate and write rate are after having used a 7D for so many years.

Kristin

 

[ac12]

Long post coming:

I shoot high school night games with a Nikon 70-200/4 lens on a DX Nikon D7200.
While I would like the faster f/2.8 lens, the f/4 lens is half the weight and half the cost of the f/2.8 lens.

At my senior citizen age, weight is an issue, so the 2x weight of the f/2.8 lens was a big negative against it.
Yes, I could shoot on a monopod to support the heavy lens, but I found that shooting handheld allows me to track the players much easier over a wider arc of coverage, than on a monopod. Though this is tracking arc is more important for shooting soccer and lacrosse than football, because a play can go the length of the field, not just 10 yards.

IMHO, the 100-400/4.5-5.6 is too slow for night games. That would be an OK day-time lens, but NOT a night lens.
I replaced my 18-140/3.5-5.6 with a 70-200/4 primarily for lens speed for night games.
You want at least a constant f/4, but even better a constant f/2.8 lens. The 70-200/2.8 is your best bet, if you can handle the weight and cost.

For the weight, you will most likely have to shoot on a monopod, to support the weight of the lens + camera, especially if you shoot both JV and Varsity games, one right after the other. Or your arms will be TIRED and SORE. You also need to practice using a monopod to track players; you have to revolve AROUND the monopod using your feet to move your body.​

I've seen a few people with primes (300/2.8), but you are limited with the prime lenses, it will be; too long, just right or too short. IOW, you loose all flexibility. I would consider a prime if it were faster than the zoom. But the 200/2.8 is the same speed as a 70-200/2.8, so you do not gain speed, and you loose flexibility.

When I was in high school, a long time ago, we shot with primes. But we also shot with a team of 5-7 photographers, so we had coverage all over the field, and thus did not need the focal length flexibility of a zoom as much. If the play was too far away from me, it was close to my team mate on the other side of the field.​

Note: In my experience a 70-200 is best on a FF camera. On a crop camera like my D7200, when the players get close to you, the 70mm end is too long to shoot them. IOW, when they get close, you get out of the way, because they are too close to shoot anyway.
However, on a crop camera, you have more reach than a FF camera, for the longer shots.
Each camera, crop and FF, have trade-offs.

At my high school; football is a fall game, soccer is a winter game and lacrosse a spring game. All start at about 430 for the first game and about 7 or 730 for the 2nd game. Part of the 1st game is under lights and all of the 2nd game is under lights.

If your high school has a similar schedule, I suggest you go out and shoot as many games as you can, to get used to shooting in that light and see just what your gear can do, and how far you can push it.

• Can you get by with your 70-200/4, or do you need the faster f/2.8 lens?
  
• How high can you push the ISO on your camera and still maintain decent image quality?

Here is my setup:

• Camera = Nikon D7200 DX/APS-C/crop sensor
  
• Lens = Nikon 70-200 f/4
  
• exposure mode = M
• ISO = 6400
• shutter = 1/500 sec
• aperture = f/4

IF I had a f/2.8 lens I could be down at ISO 3200, or ISO 6400 and shutter = 1/1000 sec.

I shoot in M mode, because I am on the field, and I am shooting ACROSS the field, where the background is the DARK area beyond the field. As a result, direct metering is difficult. A player shot and metered with the DARK background will be overexposed.

I have been able to use a trick to sometimes shoot in Aperture priority. Set meter to CW, set AF point to 1 or 2 above the center of the screen. This way you aim and focus above the center of the screen, and force the center and the CW metering area down onto the field. This way you meter the light on the field, not the dark background. But this does not work very well for the LONG shots, to the other side of the field.​

The lighting on fields are NOT the same. My high school and the next high school north of us have 2 different lighting setups. So as I did, you have to determine what YOUR lighting is and then figure it out.

The lighting on our field is not even

• There are 2 light stands on each side of the field, at approximately the 15 yard line.
  • Another school has 4 light stands on each side, with more even lighting to the end zone.
• Lighting is decent between the 15 yard lines. See my setup above.
• 10 yard to goal and the light goes down by about a stop.
• In the corners it is down about 2 stops.
  • And it sucks when a player decides to run for a TD, down the sideline and into the dark corner.

Because of this lighting, I do NOT shoot from the end zone once the sun goes down. Anyone inside the 15 yard line will be side or backlit, and you can't see their faces, and the front of their body will be in a deep shadow.

SAFETY WARNING: Always remain mobile and always have an OPEN escape route. If you get hit/run over by a football player, you loose. They have padding/protection, you don't. The varsity players are faster and bigger than the JV players, and the JV players are faster and bigger than middle school players. So, do NOT wait till the last minute to get out of the way, or you may not make it.

 

[ac12]

Is your son a Junior, so next fall is his senior football season?

If you feel that after Nov 2019 you will not be using the 70-200/2.8, an option is to buy a USED lens. Then after next Nov, sell it, hopefully for about what you paid for it, or not too much less.