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Want to buy a camera for sports photography. What camera, lenses should I look for? ?

July 5th, 2012 4 comments

I want to take action pictures of field hockey (outdoor) players. I tried a Canon SLR (forgot the model #), didn’t go wide enough. Any pointers to reading materials, or camera makes/models recommendations?
thx

You will need a fast-shooting camera body coupled with fast lenses.

If you’re going Canon, the fastest prosumer dSLR is the Canon 40D. It gives you 10MP quality and shoots at 6.5 fps (frames per second), which should be sufficient for your shooting needs. It retails for about $1000 on Amazon.

As for a good lens for sports shooting, I’d highly recommend the EF 70-200mm f/4L. It’s fast, it has a good zoom range, lightweight, and incredibly sharp. Its large aperture (low f-number) allows more light in and blurs the background to draw more sharpness to the player(s). Best of all, it only costs $450 on Amazon!

You mentioned wide; I guess you want to capture a large spread of players then? If so, and you’re using the 40D, I’d recommend the Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8. It’s also fast, sharp, goes very wide, and has good build quality. It retails on Amazon for $400! I recently bought mine for landscape and photojournalism work, and I’ve loved using it.

Good luck!