Hammy Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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Joe,
Listen to Russ on this one! He has been shooting gymnastics probably longer than I have, but my business was started over 10 years ago with the EXACT same question that you have posted here!
My journey started when my oldest daughter (who turned 18 today!) started 'gymnastics' classes when she was less than 2 years old. She started competing at age 6 (started the season at 5, I think).
I 'needed' a lens/camera system to capture her. I was shooting Minolta film bodies at the time. I looked at the Minolta zoom: 80-200/2.8 I think and saw that it was several hundred dollars ($600) - for which my purchasing department (wife) was not in favor of... since I had "just bought" that fancy camera (7 years ago) - so why was it not good enough?
Light.
As you know, gymnastics no flash policy puts you into the realm of cave lighting, yet trying to get stop action. That's where I was, and my f/3.5 zoom wasn't going to cut it.
The more I looked around, all the gymnastics photographers talked about the 200/1.8 lens that was given to mortals from Hyperion But $4-5000!!! Who would pay that kind of money for a piece of glass!!
So I kept looking and found a Tamron 80-200/2.8 for Minolta at like $200. And I got what I expected/deserved: about 1 in 4 shots in focus... on film!
Back to the drawing board (internet)...
200/1.8
200/1.8
200/1.8
Well, I finally found one on ebay for $2500 - pristine condition, from a user who had used it less than half a dozen times and it was too much for him to handle. So I ended up buying it.
Wait... I shoot with a Minolta body!
On a trip to NYC, I stopped in B&H and held a 1V in my hands with price quote... but film at 10fps ends up being about $5 per SECOND of developing! {Sigh} I went home empty handed as there was talk about a sports capable digital camera from Canon (D30 was out at the time), but soon after ordered an EOS3 (film) and 85/1.8 to have another option of lens.
So I started her first season with the EOS3 and 200/1.8 - where I first learned about light cycling. In the mean time, I put my name on a wait list for the recently anounced 1D
Well, somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I get an email saying that my 1D has shipped and my credit card charged! $5500
Remember that same purchasing department that didn't approve $600...
Imagine where I was when she realized that I had spent nearly $10,000 on camera gear to this point.... just to take photos of our daughter's gymnastics!
Her response was..."Well, you'd better figure out a way for that to pay for itself!"
Which ended up next year with me getting two contracts for over 10,000 kids and spending ALOT more money to start our business.
All this to say... spend your money on glass. That 200/1.8 is so beloved, my wife was so jealous of me using it so much, she ended up buying another one a few years later! It is still our most used lens - for just about anything we shoot, yet I have lenses from 10mm-2000mm!
The best value lens is probably the 135/2 - VERY sharp and good range.
The cheapest (for your range) is easily the 85/1.8
But if you start off with the 200/1.8 (or newer 200/2), then I promise you, spending money on the 'cheaper' primes is so much easier once you've bagged the BIG ONE first!
Honestly, ALL of those lenses should be in your bag for gymnastics...eventually. You'll find yourself at some meets reaching across the gym to get a bars routine, yet right up next to the mat for floor, where even a 50/1.4 would be nice.
But as Russ said, f/2.8 rarely is enough to cut it in most gyms. First of all for the amount of light to get the shutter speed up. If/when you do end up getting a new body where you can push ISO, then it would help your shutter. But in the mean time and even with generous ISO, primes give you and the AF sensor more light to work with as well as so much more background bokeh that makes your gymnasts stand out from the clutter of tight gyms.
Again, start with glass - it will last you through many generations of bodies!
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