sports action photos

[Sports fan]

I'm looking into buying the D60.The main uses will be team photos and action photos.PLEASE ADVISE!!!!

[JR92]

I am a sports editor/photographer and that is all I use. Just be sure to get good glass (lenses). There are many photographic items to skimp on and it is easy to get away with it. I advise a Canon L that can be used for all occasions. I started off with Sigma and regret it. Other than that it is just like other camera as long as you use the correct settings.
Good Luck, JR92.

[Mr. Fogle]

JR92,
I will take up the position of sports photog for the local paper here in Tiverton next week. I know this is not a major jump in my carreer as a photographer but it is a step in the right direction. Oh cut the crap Michael, I am silly with excitement. I have the D-30 and the Sigma 50-500 glass. I know it's not the best but it was all the budget would stretch. Any thing else you can tell me that will make me look good and of course make the boss happy. Thanks for your time, E-mail if you would like, and a Merry Christmas to you all from jolly old England.
Michael and Mo.

[AMintram]

I used to use a D30, and once you appreciate it's limitations and get used to it, you can take good sports action photos with it. (I only shoot football BTW)

There will be those who tell you you need a 1D. It'd be nice of course, but don't let anyone tell you you CAN'T take good photos with the D60. You can.

3 fps can be a slight drawback depending on the situation as you can miss a shot more easily, and the focus, while better than the D30, is still not the best for sport, but as I said above, these are things you need to be aware of, but not afraid of.

Generally, during daylight, you'll have few problems. L glass would be nice, especially a nice 2.8 lens, as this will help in lower light games, or under floodlights (I shoot at 1/500 f2.8, ISO 800 when under the lights).

I have a 70-200 f2.8L and a 1.4x converter, while I can borrow a 300 f2.8L if need be, and generally this is fine. The 70-200 on it's own can be good enough, especially for shots around each area, but you're obviously restricted to what you can shoot, but the extra resolution of the D60 means you don't have to fill the frame quite so much.

I agree with JR92 that the glass is the most important thing because while you might upgrade the body later, good glass can last you a lifetime.

Good luck.

Andy

P.S. Having said all the above, if you can get a 1D, do it! It's a dream to use. Starting with the D30/60 is good though because once you can get good shots with that, the extra features of the 1D can compliment your skill, rather than make up for it.

All the pictures at: http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/article.asp?article=121994&Title=Newcastle+2+Saints+1+-+Verdict&navlid=news

... were taken with the D30 and a 70-200 f2.8L

[Ralf Jannke]

Hi there,

I am shooting basketball since 1996. From 1997 completely "filmless" with a 1,3 Megapixel Kodak/Canon EOS DCS 3, followed by an EOS D 30 in 2000. In spring 2002 I switched to th D 60. The AF is more acurate, sensitive and faster than the D 30 one. The D 30 ISO 1600 was only something for extreme emergency. The most photographers I know, stopped on ISO 800 with their D 30s and used f/1,8 or f/2 leneses. The D 60 ISO 1000 is absolutely usefull. So you have taken a good choice with a D 60. The only thing you have to fight with, is the long, long, long..... D 60 time-lapse. You have to press the button long time before the wanted scene happens. In the beginning I have lost a lot aof basketballshots. Now I am used to the D 60. But if I need shots to be sent online to the newspapers within the breaks of the play, I use an older 2 Megapixel Kodak/Canon EOS DCS 520/D 2000. With that camera I am absolutely shure to get the desired shots. My favorite lens is the 2,8/70-200 mm L USM. I get more razorbladesharp shots like with the faster 1,8/85 mm or the 2/100 mm USM.

Good luck with your sports carere

Ralf Jannke, Bonn/Germany

[Sports fan]

Thanks for all of your input. I'm still up in the air where to turn for my most ecoinomical choice. Its between the D60 or the Nikon D1x . I'm determined to try to find the fastest AF for the price . I wish it wasn't allways about price(but I have five sons,of course all in sports)but it is. Again thankyou all for all your input.Look forward to reading all the fourms. Andy(sports fan

[BayAreaPhotog]

You mention that you are looking for the camera with the best AF . . . Why? I'd be curious how many professional sports photogs use auto focus. I am a sports television camera op . . . none of our cameras have auto focus function. I think that you'd be better off learning how to use the lense, which way you need to "rack" the lense to keep that guy who's running at you in focus. It's not easy, but you will never go back to screwing around with the auto focus modes and your photos will look better. JMHO.

[Sharkman_UK]

Hi all.
First post for me after "lurking" in the background for a few weeks.

As far as the quality of the autofocus on the D60 is concerned, I use it in some pretty extreme conditions. My main subject is drag racing and I quite often shoot from by the finish line where some of the cars are doing around 300mph. Even in those circumstances the autofocus on my D60 does the job. At the startline it has to cope with stationary vehicles accelerating very quickly (0mph to 100mph in 1 second) and again gets the job done.

Occasionally I have found if the subject is a dull single colour in low light coniditions it will hunt a bit, but I have yet to come across a camera that doesn't do that occasionally in those conditions.

I have not found any shutter lag with my D60 and surprisingly for my choice of sport, the slow 3fps has never been an issue.

The issue I have had is the well known one that has been addressed numerous times elsewhere in this forum of the under exposure problems, but I have learnt what the camera likes and doesn't and adapted to cope. Bright conditions seems fine, the more usual for the UK dull conditions need some compensation dialed in from my experiance.

[Sports fan]

Dear bay area Photog& UK,thanks for your input but I keep on reading the fourms . I'm hearing about the slow response under action photos. I keep hearing go to the 1Ds(love to but cant). Is there a mode on the D60 that will allow me to manu focus? That would solve my prob. that the shot only as good as the photog.That I can deel with. thanks again andy

[JR92]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention in my response a few weeks ago that I rarely use auto-focus. I don't care how fast they say it is getting it is still to slow. A good lense makes it easy to get great manual focus shots, others seem that it takes infinity to get from 'unfocused' to focus.

[Jim Clarke]

Sports photography is as diverse as sports itself. For baseball Af is not as critical as say football and soccer.
Basketball, Hockey, etc.... all can be done with manual focus but at times AF will yield the best result. I have shot NFL football for seven years using Eos1N's and a wide array of lenses, 70-200 2.8, 300- 2.8, 400 2.8 etc...
Last year I started to use a D30 and got good results. It takes a while to get used to the different response time and slower FPS. I did at times miss the 6fps speed. The beauty is editting while on the fly. You can check images and know that it is there. Takes the quesswork out of exposures also. Invest in the glass Get the F2.8 Canon (or Nikon) over indepedent
galss in the long lenses. You may get by with a wide angle such as sigma etc.

[Jim Clarke]

Sports photography is as diverse as sports itself. For baseball Af is not as critical as say football and soccer.
Basketball, Hockey, etc.... all can be done with manual focus but at times AF will yield the best result. I have shot NFL football for seven years using Eos1N's and a wide array of lenses, 70-200 2.8, 300- 2.8, 400 2.8 etc...
Last year I started to use a D30 and got good results. It takes a while to get used to the different response time and slower FPS. I did at times miss the 6fps speed. The beauty is editting while on the fly. You can check images and know that it is there. Takes the quesswork out of exposures also. Invest in the glass Get the F2.8 Canon (or Nikon) over indepedent
galss in the long lenses. You may get by with a wide angle such as sigma etc.

[BayAreaPhotog]

Sports Fan,

The auto focus or manual focus switch on the Canon EOS Systems is on the lenses. Just a little switch that you slide to either AF or Manual.

[SteveCliff]

Sharkman_UK wrote:
Hi all.
First post for me after "lurking" in the background for a few weeks.

Hello Sharkman! It's been a while since I've been to Santa Pod (usually with Bob, Carole and Rachel), so it's a suprise to see you with a D60. The last time you had a Sony Mavica beast I think ?

So how are you getting on with the D60 ? I made the jump a few months ago and love it ... so far. Apart from the weird exposures it sometimes thinks is best ... and it's insatiable appetite for money from my bank account for lenses ... ;-)

[SteveCliff]

Sports fan wrote:
I'm hearing about the slow response under action photos

Just my 2 pence/cents worth ... I've never had a problem with slow response! For your sports stuff, just bang it in manual and shoot away. I had *thought* that shutter response of the D60 had been improved over the D30. Are you sure you havn't caught some posts about the D30 instead ?

And yeah, a 1Ds would be loverly! I'm waiting for the 1Ds2 ..... full frame CMOS, 30fps, comes with a 10Gb microdrive and costs £100. Mind you, I might have to wait a bit ..... ;-)

[Sharkman_UK]

Hi Steve,
I made the jump to the D60 in April of last year after someone was kind enough to trust me with their D30 for a day. I had been using an EOS3 based outfit so already had the lenses, although most of them have since been changed out for L series glass....

The only thing that bothered me to start with was some of the exposures I got, but once I had got to grips with the "quirks" of the metering system it was much less of a problem. The D60 for me and what I do seems almost perfect, I really struggle to find fault with it (apart from the odd time I use flash indoors, but thats not very often). Adding the L series glass to it seems to have helped a lot as well with better sharpness straight from the camera.

Buying those L series though, I know what you mean about an empty bank account!

[Motorsports Photo]

FWIW-

I agree with Sharkman. His post on the limitations fit in with my own. My subjects only make it to about 160mph but I'm not usually shooting them at that speed.

Amusing related story: A potential customer was bragging about how fast he was going in a corner. A couple of clicks on the mouse and the speedo on his motorcycle was in clear view.....and about 20mph slower than what he said. (-:

-PS
Strasburg, OH