Home Forums Gear Photography Lens for sports photos?

Looking for a new lens to capture some photos of my son playing football on friday nights. I know the next 4 years will go by pretty quick, so I hope to catch some action shots. I have a Canon EOS 60D and need more reach than my 135mm will give. I don't have the cash for a "L" series lens from Canon, so I'm looking at the cheaper Canon's, Tamron and Sigma. Any suggestions?

Someone on a different thread was asking a similar question and I recommended they take a look at the Tamron SP 70-300mm f4-5.6 VC USD lens. It is designed for full frame but will work fine on your 60D. It has a great VC(vibration compensation) system and is pretty lightweight. With your camera you could easily bump up the ISO a little to make up the stop or two of light. The great part is at Camera Land they have the lens listed at $449 and there is currently a $100 rebate on the lens through the end of the month. $349 end price on a great lens is in my opinion the best way to go. Here is a link to Camera Land's page on the Tamron SP 70-300mm Di VC USD lens. Give Joel a call up there and let him know you are a member of the Campfire forum.

Another option with more reach for about $950 would be the Sigma 150-500 f/5-6.3 It has image stabilization, would be heavier, and is about 1/2 stop slower that the 70-300. Lighting at HS fields is generally poor, so get as close to the action as you can.

I've got the older 170-500 and it is a nice lens. Draw back for me would be the short side, 170mm. Quite a bit if your're to close the the subject. Just looked up the D60 in a catalog and it's got plenty of resolution to crop a photo. More than my D5000 and I can crop a lot with it. I think I'd go the 70-300 route also. For shooting dog's I use a 55-300 Nikon. Don't need the 55mm much and probably wouldn't need the 70mm much either but about 135mm works out well. Problem with less is that when the dog get to where I could actually use a wider lens they are going so fast I can't catch up Any way.

I'm going to get one of those Tamron lens one of these days. Had a 75-150 a whole lot of years ago and it was super. Now they don't focus on my D5000 so for now Tamron is out. I do have a Sigma 70-300 and it does alright but, well, I wouldn't buy another. feels cheap.

Thanks for the advice. Any drawbacks to using this lens on my Canon since the lens was designed for a full frame camera?

No, actually there are some advantages. You pick up the additional amount of lens via the crop factor of 1.6x, plus you are using more of the "sweet spot" of the lens.

I'm going to be the off man out here. Having been a sports shooter for a long time, I'm going to say save a few extra bucks and get something with at least f/2.8. Anything less will be a adventure in frustration. I thought I could get by with the Canon 70-200 f/4L. While the reach "field-side" was good enough, even the F/4 was limiting come sunset. I've used the Tamron SP 70-200mm F/2.8 Di VC and have been very impressed. The focusing speed is a little slower than my Canon 70-200 f/2.8L IS II but it's also $1000 cheaper for 95% of the results. Another option is the Sigma 70-200mm F2.8 EX DG Macro HSM II (Man, they like long names). I've read good things about that lens as well but if I'm going third party lens, I've always been a Tamron fan. Don't be afraid to ask to shoot from the end zone of the sidelines. I've never been told no...
Field side you can really get some good shots with the 70-200:

The Tamron lens is amazing and of course tack sharp. Due to their coatings the contrast is always terrific and the colors are vibrant and true.

I shoot a fair amount of sports. If you're shooting outdoors in good light, you'd probably be happy with a F4-5.6. But if you're going to be shooting in the evenings, or under artificial light, you're going to find yourself wanting a F2.8 at some point even with the great high ISO performance of the newer processors.

Indoors don't even think about anything smaller than 2.8.

I would completely agree with the f2.8 in low light and indoors. I think he was qualifying his search to non L series glass due to budgeting.

On needing an F2.8 lens, would that depend on what ISO he'd chose and what WB?

Thanks for all the suggestions. Now I'm really torn! The lighting at the local HS field is not very good. I'm going to play around with the ISO and my current lens and see what happens.

My answer is yes and no. As a general rule you want to go with the lowest ISO possible for the best image quality. A bigger aperture let's you do that. The higher you go on ISO, the more grain you'll see. However, many of the processors today will let you shoot at iso's i'd have never dreamed possible 10 years ago. It comes down to how big you're going to use the images, and how picky you or your customers will be.

I have a friend that shoots a Nikon ???-300 variable aperture at iso 1600-3200 to keep his shutter up at 1/2000 or so and f6.3. He then post processes the crap out of them. They look fine as long as you're not making posters out of the images.

WB doesn't enter into my equation for aperture. How is it a factor for you?

WB has nothing to do with it unless I'm missing something?
As for f/2.8? As any sports photographer and they'll agree, night time sport or indoor sports, you'll want a 2.8. Yes, can can bump up your ISO. When I had an F/4 lens, I cranked up the ISO all the way up on my 40D, opened the lens all the way to f/4 and tried shooting indoor volleyball...it's was a waste of time. Even with my f/2.8, it's rough.

Indoor volleyball is rough! You could always try the 200mm F2.0 prime!

Arguably Canon's best lens ever but then again, WAAY out of my price range..:)

It does get expensive doesn't it! I've got a friend that shoots a medium reach 1.8 lens wide open on a full frame body then crops the shots way down and is still left with salable shots. Oops did I just let out a secret?

...oops...just checked in with my friend...he's shooting a 85 f1.2!!! Even with that big an aperture, it's not uncommon that he's at ISO6400 or more.

On thing he mentioned (since white balance was mentioned as a tangent)...was that a single WB was difficult to pin down because the cycling of mercury vapor or fluorescent lights give you varying WB that can only be corrected in PP.

I shoot a lot of high school soccer -- and the lights are usually pathetic -- if you hope to capture any usable images - anything that won't let you shoot at f2,8 won't work for you.

I'll repeat that - you need a lens that will let you shoot at f2.8.

Not only does it not let in enough light for good exposures, they focus so slowly you won't be able to follow the action.

If you have a pro body (I shoot a Nikon D3S) that allows to shoot at very, very high ISO levels you can shoot at f4 - barely.

I've been shooting my D3S using my Nikon 200-400 f4 and finally decided I needed more light so I've just ordered one of the new Sigma 120-300mm f2,8 Sport Zooms.

With respect to WB - the more the WB is off, the less happy you will be as the combination of under-exposed images + a poor WB will render most images unusable.

Shooting sports at night or inside a poorly lit gym is difficult and without fast lenses is damn near impossible.

One last thought - someone mentioned a 200mm f2 --- a great lens but a disaster for sports because the depth of field is much to shallow.

VA Hunter, it looks like a lot of recommendations to spend all your money! In regards to your original statement. I think you are right in using your existing lens until your budget may allow something more. I am not sure what the current f-stop is on your existing lens but your decision to shoot at a higher ISO is obviously a starting point. What you may do is look at getting one of the WB caps that will allow you to calibrate your WB in the camera and minimize some work later if the lighting is mixed or the camera has a hard time reading it. I did a little research on the 60D in case it might help a little, and the tests show it gets really good test results up to ISO 800 and doesn't get to "unacceptable" until ISO 6400. I think you should be able to get away with ISO 1600 with good results maybe ISO 3200 with a little frustration.
Good luck, post some of the shots if you can. If there are any other questions that can be answered don't hesitate to ask. Good luck!