Find solution
Whats a good Fisheye lens for a canon rebel xt?

What is best lens for photographing sports? Have a Canon Rebel xt with 75-300, 80-200mm lens..?

  • I have a digital Canon Rebel XT, efs18-55mm lens, 35-80mm lens, 80-200mm and a 75-300mm lens. I take pictures of my sons midget football team and also college football, I have been looking at tube extensions and close up lenses to get some better shots. Any suggestions of what I could add to any of these?? Thanks

  • Answer:

    What you already have should be sufficient for the application you have. A cheap solution if you need to get closer is to buy a teleconverter possible a 1.4x or a 2x. That will increase your focal length and get you a lot closer. If you're really serious about this kind of thing however, you're also into big bucks. The true sports photographers use dedicated telephotos (600mm to 1000mm) that are also fast lenses (f2.8 usually). The problem is that those are hellishly expensive, costing several times what your camera cost. Which focal lengh you choose depends on how far away the action usually is from you. The farther away, the longer the telephoto you need. You can save money by buying a slower lens (f5.6 or so) but that then gets you into exposure problems often forcing you to use very slow shutter speeds that result in a blurry image. As to close up lenses and extension tubes, those are not for sports, they're for close up or macro photography. They allow you to get nearer your subject so that you can get a larger image. If you're interested in that too, I'd prefer the extension tubes. The problem with them is that you lose considerable light however in return you get crisp wonderful images. Close up lenses are cheaper but wil not get you a sharp image. I hope that helps a little.

wvmom at Yahoo! Answers Visit the source

Was this solution helpful to you?

Other answers

extension tubes and close up?(?you mean macro or telephoto?) wont help for sports use the 75-300, invest in a 1.4 or 2x converter if you can use a monopod

Antoni

For sports its a very good idea to use a lens with a wide aperature like a 2.8 A lot of the sports shooters i know use numerous lenses but usually they will have a 70-200mm 2.8 and a 300mm 2.8 These lenses are expensive though. You can get a Sigma 70-200 2.8 for the canon (I have one) and it will cost you around $600 or so online, it works just as well as the canon but its half the price.

Todd S

A fast lens (meaning, low f-stop like f2.8 or lower) is a great thing to have for sporting events. Fortunately for you, many of the sporting events you want to do are daytime, so you won't have as much worry with setting the exposure speed high. For your son's football games, you can get a little bit closer to get good shots than at most college football games. Otherwise you'll want to look into a zoom lens to bring the action full frame. The 300 is a good start for that, especially for daytime games. Another benefit of a fast lens is the narrow depth of field can add a nice emphasis on the key part of the photo that you want to highlight, while putting a pleasant blur into the background. Unfortunately, as stated, the faster zoom lenses can cost thousands of dollars, and they're large and heavy. Extension tubes essentially lower the perceived aperature and slow your exposure down, so be careful with them. Monopods are a regular requirement for sporting photographers, who need to have a bit of stability but also need to be able to adjust a lot faster than a tripod will allow. You might want to consider adding a powerful flash to fill in shadows and add more highlighting. They're effective even in the daytime. Good luck!

todd

I can't imagine why you couldn't use what you already have, with your longest lens, your looking at over 450mm [when compared to full frame, 35mm]. A 2x teleconverter will double that to give you just over 900mm, but it will slow your lens down 2 stops. Tube extensions are not generally used for the type of telephoto shooting you would be doing in sports photography. They're mostly used for macro work. A good canon 2x teleconverter will set you back almost $400, and know that you may loose your AF ability, so keep that in mind.

Joe Schmo Photo

Related Q & A:

Just Added Q & A:

Find solution

For every problem there is a solution! Proved by Solucija.

  • Got an issue and looking for advice?

  • Ask Solucija to search every corner of the Web for help.

  • Get workable solutions and helpful tips in a moment.

Just ask Solucija about an issue you face and immediately get a list of ready solutions, answers and tips from other Internet users. We always provide the most suitable and complete answer to your question at the top, along with a few good alternatives below.