NEW FROM SOUTH ALABAMA

[awp]

Hey Y'all,
I would like to introduce myself. I am Alisha, I reside in South Alabama. I joined this forum about a week ago and it has taken me this long to figure out how to start my own thread. So, needless to say I need all of the help and advice I can get. I have enjoyed reading the forums and viewing your photography and sites. I recently purchased a Canon 20 D, a couple of zoom lenses as well as a 70-200L 2.8. I AM LOVING MY 20D. I almost love my 70-200. I would like to seek any advise on the 70-200 2.8. I am shooting ballpark action shots. The daylight shots are excellent. The night underlights, I am loosing about half of them with blur. I am also planning to shoot my daughters dance recital. Also, I am considering purchasing Sigmas 120-300 2.8 and would appreciate any feedback on that.
Alisha
awp

[Dante King]

Welcome to POTN! For night time shots a tripod, monopod and higher iso helps. I would avoid the sigma 120-300 as it overlaps your 70-200 too much.

[RichardtheSane]

Welcome to POTN Alisha.
And good choice on lens!

When you are shooting ballpark at night you will still need to up your ISO to 1600 even at F2.8. What sort of shutter speed are you getting?

If you shoot in sports mode, don't as that limits your ISO to 400...

[ron chappel]

Gidday alisha !:)
Wow that is an awsome setup to be starting out with!
As the others say,the night shots are being blured because the lighting isn't strong enough.
Set the camera to a higher ISO (if you aren't on the highest allready)
There is little else you can do because you allready have one of the best light gathering lenses around.
Some prime lenses (non zooms) gather more light but even they would only fix a certain percentage of the blured shots-not all of them
The other option is to use a flash ...if that suits the type of look you want in the images.

As for the sigma 120-300/2.8 ,it's an awsome lens according to comments by owners-every bit as good as the best canons
I guess you would buy it as a replacement for the 70-200?Otherwise it would be abit pointless having two expensive lenses of about the same length/abilities

[steibeldj]

Welcome to POTN! For night time shots a tripod, monopod and higher iso helps. I would avoid the sigma 120-300 as it overlaps your 70-200 too much.

Dante, maybe you can speak to this. Have you used your 70-300 DO IS for any indoor events. I find that the IS helps out more than one would think even with f4.5 and ISO 800,1600. As long as there isn't a lot of motion I've gotten good results. It's been great for the kids events without attracting too much attention.

[pcasciola]

Welcome Alisha.

I use the 70-200/2.8L IS for baseball. The IS helps a lot with night games, and a rarely get any blurry shots from shake because of it. Without IS, I'd recommend taking a look at some monopods. You can get a decent one for $50-100. I use a Manfrotto 684B, which I really like because it uses a squeeze grip instead of clamps so it can be adjusted very quickly.

The Sigma 120-300/2.8 is on the top of my wish list for zooms. I could see owning it in addition to the 70-200/2.8 even though there is so much overlap, because of the flexibility. If I had both, I'd probably mainly use the Sigma for day games and the IS lens for overcast days and night games.

One of the cool things about the Sigma 120-300/2.8 is what you can do with teleconverters. Put a 1.4x converter on it, and you have a 170-420 f/4. It might soften up a little with a 2x converter, but now you have a 240-600 f/5.6 with autofocus. Pretty cool.

[Dante King]

Dante, maybe you can speak to this. Have you used your 70-300 DO IS for any indoor events. I find that the IS helps out more than one would think even with f4.5 and ISO 800,1600. As long as there isn't a lot of motion I've gotten good results. It's been great for the kids events without attracting too much attention.

Well, If you call indoor sports capturing a pillow fight between my 3.5 year old and grandma, then yes. The IS helps shake loss, but is no sub for higher iso.

[MTalley]

Welcome, Alisha. Another resident from L.A. (Lower Alabama). :)