35 1.4 For basketball????

Ther are a lot of really good indoor sports photogs out here and I am really thinking of buying a 35mm 1.4 to use on my 30D for under the basket shooting this year. I aleady have the 85 1.8 and need to know if you all think the 35 is fast enough for this, any and all comments will be greatly apprec.
THX.

The only place obviously this lens would be usefull would be under the net. Never used it - but per photozone.de those that use it rate the focus speed as fast. Depending on the body your going to use it with though I wonder if it is really wide enough to be used under the basket. I have toyed with teh idea of the Sigma 30 f1.4 on a 1D, but even even on a 1.6x factor body the 30 may not wide enough. It can't hurt to try, but I wouldn't buy or use Basketball as the rationalizion for the this. If you use it.... would love to see the results because it is tempting.

its an absolute gem under the basket for bball games but I might be more inclined to get the 24-70 2.8L at about the same price...it is a little more versatile under the net.

Cheers,

Don't know about the 35 1.4, but contrary to the last post, I can attest that the 24-70L is dog slow for basketball in the poorly lighted gyms I have been in.

Even if you get a decent shutter speed with the f/2.8, the 24-70L just won't focus fast enough for the action. The 85 1.8 has been my only successful lens for this application.

The question at hand, I believe, is that is the 35 1.4L focus equal or better than the 85 1.8? The 85 is great, but on my 20D it is a bit too long on the near court sometimes. I am going to try a 50 1.4 this season and see how it works.

The other issue to consider is that if you are very close to the action, as in under the basket, is the depth of field large enough at wide aperatures to give decent results?

I am also considering the 35 1.4 so the answers to these performance questions would be greatly appreciated.

On a 1.6 crop, it gives you about 55mm. So that's a fairly good focal length for wide. You would want to combine that with something longer though. This is where two bodies is useful.

I have four kids who played varsity basketball in high school. I used three different L lenses and a Tamron 28-105mm. The best by far was the 135mm f/2L.

My personal favorite lens to use for basketball is a 70-200 f/2.8. Having said that, the pictures that one yearbook staff selected for the book that I took were shot with an 85 f/1.2 (stopped down to f/2.0)

grego wrote in post #2129370
On a 1.6 crop, it gives you about 55mm.

Please don't confuse newbies with this sort of statement. It's awfully hard to "unteach" them the idea that lenses magically change their focal length when you put them on different format bodies.

The correct statement, without causing confusion for newbies, would be:
On a 1.6 crop body, a 35mm lens gives you about the same field of view as a 55mm lens on a 35mm film (or "full-frame digital") body.

Helping to teach the newbies the real facts would be appreciated...

My 35L focuses as fast as my 85 f/1.8 in the same lighting conditions. With reasonable contrast subjects, focus is almost instantaneous with no hunting in room light that requires an exposure of 1/40, f/1.4 ISO800 using my 20D.

I've used the 85 f/1.8 for shooting a few volleyball games in our church gym. I've not used my 35L for VB or BB but I'm confident that the 35L would perform well, as far as focus speed and exposure, under the hoop in basketball. BUT, it may not be wide enough unless you can get back 3 or 4 meters. If you have access to the gym and a zoom that covers the 35mm range and wider, stage and check a few shots under the hoop to see what FL is appropriate.

DOF at ~2M, f/1.8, is sufficient to capture most of the body thickness in acceptably sharp focus.

Even if you only occasionally use the 35L for under the hoop shots, it will pay for itself in the pleasure it gives for everyday usage with the beautiful colour, contrast and bokeh - not to mention the crisp images it gives.

A f/2.8 zoom is far too slow to stop action of a volleyball and I expect the same for a basketball.

While I can't speak specifically about your application, the 35mm f/1.4L lens is about as good as it gets in general. Super sharp, great color, fast focus. My only gripe is that it's not weathersealed. Maybe there's a Mark II coming down the line...