MDelinquento Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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Mike,
I'm going to offer some alternative ideas, based on my shooting youth sports for families over the past ten years, as well as shooting adult soccer for a corporate employer.
I think the 70-200mm lens most likely serves you well for gymnastics, so I'll limit the scope of my comments to soccer. I also assume you are shooting outdoor soccer--indoor would be well served by the same zoom, or an even faster prime.
I'd suggest you think through your current and emerging shooting requirements. consider who your audience is and what your objectives are. Also consider how the field expands as the kids grow, and how the speed of the game hastens too. As my kids have grown in sports (my son plays U15 premier soccer; my daughter high school lacrosse), the game seems more disciplined and a bit more predictable, though I want to believe I've gotten smarter about soccer as well. Still working on girls lacrosse though.
To me covering youth sports for clubs and families implies very different shooting objectives than covering a match for news publication. The latter has one focusing on key plays and key star players. Often the photographer is restricted to a set piece of real estate on the sidelines.
My objective in shooting teams is to get shots of all the kids and to help frame them positively. That means being able to grab shots of close-in action, or goalkeeping, or a competitive header at midfield. Or a mundane throw-in. Or safety shots for the days when the team just stinks. I've always found a prime to be too limiting for me in this context.
So I would recommend a zoom lens. I'd also recommend a wide ranging one with a minimum reach of 400mm. As the kids age and the fields grow, you'll want more reach. But you'll also want relatively wider capability for corner kicks or behind the goal action. You also want to fill the frame at least halfway with the ball and bodies.
Though I shoot Canon, I've thought that the new Nikon 80-400mm would be worthwhile for soccer. I regularly use the Canon 100-400mm f4.5-5.6. It's very handholdable (I eschew monopods when I'm the only shooter with free range roaming rights) with very good image quality.
I would also recommend, less enthusiastically but still, the new Tamron 150-600mm f5-6.3. I've posted some shots here taken with the Canon 5D MK3. Though my keeper rate is less than with using the Canon zoom, I was still fairly pleased with the extra reach and the price was a bargain. I'm still learning the lens and expect my results to improve as more matches are played.
Of course none of these lenses are fast f2.8 ones, but with good high ISO performance of newer bodies that hasn't been an issue for me. I don't consider these shots to be fine art (something akin to what I've been doing for the past 40 years). I often shoot during very dismal, wet Puget Sound days. At a certain point one's skills take over.
Hope this helps,
M
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