Is this a good set-up for nighttime sports?

[bousozoku]

and what's your shutter speed?

i've gotten usable shots ... but very few - if you are shooting basketball or volleyball ... you will not freeze the ball, you'll be lucky if you can see the ball.

a motion shot CAN be desirable in the right context ... BUT few agencies really care about you're artistic vision ... sports is about the action more then it is about the art.

I generally get 1/160 fine but I have to anticipate really well. Lacrosse has worked especially well.

 

[Abstract]

Likely better than my camera at 400. Run it through Neat Image and sharpen it a bit and all is well.

Don't sharpen a noisy image.

Although I do agree that the more important part of a set-up is the photographer and not frames per second if one wants to get the right moment, I like having the burst and the 20d simply feels better in my hand.

No, the most important thing in sports photography is the lense. A great photographer is going to be very very limited in his ability to shoot sports photography if he's using a crappy 75-300 mm f:4-5.6 lens and tries to shoot at 200 mm using it. He may not get any usable shots at all.
Get an average photographer a nice fast lense, and he'll get many more chances. He may not take any gems, but he'll have at least several usable photos.

 

[djbahdow01]

I was hoping I could take advantage of the ISO 3200 option on the 20d and use a 1/80, preferably 1/100 shutter to use that lens, and the more I think about it, the more I think I will probaly have to go with the 100-300 lens. I am having a hard enough time saving enough for the 20d, let along a $600 lens. Right now I have enough for the Rebel XT, but I went to Best Buy(I would have gone to a REAL store but we don't have one here) and played with both and the Rebel XT is just too whimpy and the 5 FPS compared to 3 FPS is a big difference.

Thanks for the response!

One quick mention, many umpires and coaches frown (read do not allow) flashes used at games, as they can be a distraction to the players. The first year I was shooting HS i used the flash at 1-2 games and got asked politely to stop with the flash.

Like you said you plan on doing HS sports, check out my photo gallery @ http://www.atlanticexpressinc.com/Photos/index.html the Baseball ones are from a HS team, all shot with a crappy 70-300 f4-5.6 lens. The dark shots were all taken around 1/160 or so at ISO 1600 at aperture priority, and as you can see they are not the greatest. Don't worry about the camera for now, get quick lenses. I am in the process of saving up for a quick lens 70-200 f2.8 as it was recomended by the local newspaper photographers in the area. Then again, I am also saving to start paying off my college loans as well, so hopefully I can get a nice photo gig this summer freelancing to support my photo habit.

 

[Wes Jordan]

One quick mention, many umpires and coaches frown (read do not allow) flashes used at games, as they can be a distraction to the players. The first year I was shooting HS i used the flash at 1-2 games and got asked politely to stop with the flash.

Like you said you plan on doing HS sports, check out my photo gallery @ http://www.atlanticexpressinc.com/Photos/index.html the Baseball ones are from a HS team, all shot with a crappy 70-300 f4-5.6 lens. The dark shots were all taken around 1/160 or so at ISO 1600 at aperture priority, and as you can see they are not the greatest. Don't worry about the camera for now, get quick lenses. I am in the process of saving up for a quick lens 70-200 f2.8 as it was recomended by the local newspaper photographers in the area. Then again, I am also saving to start paying off my college loans as well, so hopefully I can get a nice photo gig this summer freelancing to support my photo habit.

The Baseball games were at night?

 

[jlcharles]

I have been shooting little league football and high school girls basketball, I tried the 70-200L and found that when zoomed in at 200mm i was way to close, I changed lenses to my 28-135 and thought it was a perfect fit for what I wanted, now for football when they run the opposite sideline it was a bit farther but when they were in the middle of the field or closer to my sdeline the 135 seems perfect. Don't forget the crop factor of the digital camera's, with a 1.6 crop factor a 200mm turns into a 320mm @ 200mm.

But then you limit yourself to action closer to you. I find that since my location during games is static, I sit between the benches in the penalty/scorers box, to get the action at either end of the rink I need 200 and I would love to have more a lot of the time.

 

[djbahdow01]

The Baseball games were at night?

Some of the games were at night. The darker ones were taken in the evening or at nite. The light ones are of course taken in the daytime.

 

[sjl]

But then you limit yourself to action closer to you. I find that since my location during games is static, I sit between the benches in the penalty/scorers box, to get the action at either end of the rink I need 200 and I would love to have more a lot of the time.

Which is why I mentioned cropping earlier. If you're shooting with a 20D, you have 8 MP to play around with; more than enough for most purposes (unless you're planning to blow the shot up to poster size or something crazy like that). So you get a lens that will cover the close up shots and mid range shots with a full image, and the long range shots you obtain by shooting at the narrowest end of the zoom, and crop the end result.

If the lens is a good quality one (and the Canon 70-200 lenses fit this bill, regardless of whether it's the f/4, f/2.8, or f/2.8 IS), there is absolutely no reason why you can't get good results this way. This is one of the big advantages of digital.

In other words, what I'm saying is, don't feel that you have to get a lens that will cover every situation. Get a lens that will cover the wide angle shots you're likely to want, and as long as you're not cheaping out and getting something like the 75-300 f/4-5.6 (my $DEITY, that was an absolute piece of junk; I hear the 70-300 is a better lens, but I've never used it myself), you'll be able to crop to suit the desired end.

Of course, shooting something in the distance with the EF-S 10-22 is not likely to give the desired end result after cropping.