I am new here and looking for advice on my next lens. I currently have a R7 and R6m2 that I use to take photos of my kids at their activities. Occasionally, another family will ask me to take some photos for their kids too.
The main activities are baseball, soccer, wrestling, basketball, and dance recitals.
I have had really good success with the ef 70-200 f/2.8 ii adapted to both cameras. I have a rf 24-105 f/4 as an all purpose lens, but for the most part the bigger rf glass is out of my budget. I grabbed a rf 100-400 but at f/8 at 400mm I am finding it limiting.
The lenses I am considering are all ef due to budget. I need more reach as my kids are moving up to larger fields.
ef 100-400mm but concerned with the f/5.6 at the long end for under the lights.
ef 300mm f/2.8. Was told version ii would be the one to target?
ef 400 f/2.8. also told version ii?
ef 200-400 f/4 with extender.
I have never used a big prime before, so I am hesitant to go that route. Being a parent, I won't always have the best sideline access either.
The 70-200 with the f/2.8 has been great, just need more reach now. For wrestling and dance, I can keep using this lens. I don't care about size or weight and can use a monopod.
I shoot mostly soccer and use an EF 100-400 II almost exclusively, but all of the games are in the day. I sometimes use the 1.4x TC, but find I usually get better results by just being patient and waiting for the action to get closer.
I shot one night game with it (under pretty good high school lights) and got better than expected results, but the ISOs were very high. They cleaned up well with Lightroom's AI denoise. It's definitely not a night time lens. How important is night time coverage to you? There are no cheap solutions to covering field sports in low light.
The big primes like the 400/2.8 are great, but will limit what you can capture unless you carry two cameras. How serious do you want to get? The typical soccer kit I see pros use is a 400/2.8 on a monopod and a 70-200 on a second body. I like to cover as much of the game as possible, so the zoom is key without carrying $20k+ worth of gear that I can't afford.
I would also suggest first trying the EF 100-400 v2, in part to get comfortable with shooting at 400mm.
I'm biased, but IMO the 200-400 would be the best 'compromise' lens because it offers zoom flexibility, the built-in TC (for convenience) and reasonable speed so that it's also usable in many indoor venues.
I'll reiterate Mike_5D's point/question: how much will be at night or indoors under artificial light?
The rf 100-400 had too much of a busy background for me at f/8. I used it on a cloudy day and needed to clean it up quite a bit due to noise. I really bought that lens for hiking, but tried it anyway to see what kind of reach I could get with 400mm. 400mm seemed to cover most of the soccer field from end to end. I only needed to crop for the goalie. My kid doesn't play goalie though.
I carry 2 bodies already with one using the ef 70-200mm f/2.8.
My kids range from 7-15 years old, and are starting to play under high school lights. My youngest will be into youth sports for awhile so I don't mind making investments now.
I shoot youth/UPSL/NPSL soccer with an R7 and R6m2. I've shot previously with EF 70-200 2.8 III, EF 100-400II and EF 300 2.8 II. I and now the RF 70-200 2.8 and RF 100-300 2.8.
I too find that the high fstop of the 100-400II is annoying and with the 300 2.8 I stopped grabbing it when headed to a game. The 300 2.8 was always on the R7 and the 70-200 on the R6m2, so about the same as a 400 on the crop body and a bit more affordable then a 400.
Neither the 300 2.8 II or 100-300 2.8 are cheap, but the zoom is another level cost wise and if out of reach the 300 is a wonderful lens. V2 is lighter then the earlier versions and handholdable imo.
The rf 100-400 had too much of a busy background for me at f/8. I used it on a cloudy day and needed to clean it up quite a bit due to noise. I really bought that lens for hiking, but tried it anyway to see what kind of reach I could get with 400mm. 400mm seemed to cover most of the soccer field from end to end. I only needed to crop for the goalie. My kid doesn't play goalie though.
I carry 2 bodies already with one using the ef 70-200mm f/2.8.
My kids range from 7-15 years old, and are starting to play under high school lights. My youngest will be into youth sports for awhile so I don't mind making investments now.
An f/8 lens isn't going to give you much background separation at distance, but neither is an f/5.6 lens. You want f/2.8 for that. But you can maximize background blur by being more selective about your background distances and shooting nearer subjects that fill the frame. I have kids in that range and crop a lot, even at 400mm. But I like tightly framed shots, focusing on 1-3 players. From behind the goal line, 400mm is really only good out to the halfway line on an 11v11 field. From there, progressively more cropping is required to fill the frame.
I'm not sure why you needed to clean up the shots from the RF 100-400. I think the darkest day game I shot was in the rain with a borrowed 100-500 f/4.5-7.1 and the ISOs were like 2500. That's no sweat for an R6Mk2.
The rf 100-400 had too much of a busy background for me at f/8. I used it on a cloudy day and needed to clean it up quite a bit due to noise. I really bought that lens for hiking, but tried it anyway to see what kind of reach I could get with 400mm. 400mm seemed to cover most of the soccer field from end to end. I only needed to crop for the goalie. My kid doesn't play goalie though.
I carry 2 bodies already with one using the ef 70-200mm f/2.8.
My kids range from 7-15 years old, and are starting to play under high school lights. My youngest will be into youth sports for awhile so I don't mind making investments now.
The EF 100-400II is the best bang for the buck as it takes an extender well and it can produce decent bokeh if you fill your frame. But this isn't going to help you under the lights.
If you are wanting to dabble into 2.8 glass then the EF 300 and 400 models are your options. The oldest I would go is the 300II or 400II. The 400II is preferred but it's a lot more expensive than the 300II, and the 300II would be much easier to handle for you since you've never shot with big whites. The 300II takes both extenders really well, so you could add more reach during day games and still get nice bokeh at 420 f/4, or even 600mm f/5.6
And then there's the best field sports lens of all time which is the EF 200-400. IMO you should be able to get away with f/4 under the lights, so this would be my choice if you want the most flexibility. This lens is a beast though, so be prepared to lug it around and support it.
With that said, if you have another use for the 300II you can't go wrong with that as it's a very versatile lens. You can shoot great portraits with it and it's still compact enough to carry around at all times, unlike the 400II or 200-400.
Cnyphotoguy wrote:
Canon Supplemental Information - https://cam.start.canon/en/H001/supplement_0080.html. There is a table of EF lenses which support max FPS in the above link. Short answer, yes both do max FPS.
I'm envious that you can shoot at f4, the indoor facility and the fields I'm at at times 1/800 at 2.8 is still north of 16,000 ISO.
That sounds like the lighting in the gym where my oldest used to play indoor soccer. It was dark in there even to my eyes. And of course the mercury vapor lights flickered and never gave nice looking skin tones no matter what I did.
Mike_5D wrote:
That sounds like the lighting in the gym where my oldest used to play indoor soccer. It was dark in there even to my eyes. And of course the mercury vapor lights flickered and never gave nice looking skin tones no matter what I did.
The indoor youth sport I mostly cover in my area is ice hockey and pretty much every facility, even the worst of them, has transitioned to LED lighting, which has been a massive improvement in color consistency and overall lack of flicker problem. A lot of the facilities are not that bright though and it appears there's probably a minimum level of illumination standard because many are in the ISO 10000 1/500 f/4 range plus/minus 1/3 stop.
I use the 200-400 on the R6II but lately have been using the R5II. The 100-300 and APS-C crop is actually an even better combo IMO but because I also do field sports, where I found the 100-300 on the short side, I haven't made the transition. When ice hockey resumes, I plan to test the 70-200Z with 1.4x TC on the R5II in APS-C, which will basically be a stop slower version of the 100-300 but less than half the price and a lot smaller and lighter.
I'd really like to see Canon release an APS-C stacked sensor in a decent camera based on the R5II/R6II platform.
rscheffler wrote:
I'd really like to see Canon release an APS-C stacked sensor in a decent camera based on the R5II/R6II platform.
I'd love to have a really good APS-C sports camera with at least R6 level AF and matching form factor. Hopefully the R7Mk2 is what everyone hoped the R7 would be.
I am new here and looking for advice on my next lens. I currently have a R7 and R6m2 that I use to take photos of my kids at their activities. Occasionally, another family will ask me to take some photos for their kids too.
The main activities are baseball, soccer, wrestling, basketball, and dance recitals.
I have had really good success with the ef 70-200 f/2.8 ii adapted to both cameras. I have a rf 24-105 f/4 as an all purpose lens, but for the most part the bigger rf glass is out of my budget. I grabbed a rf 100-400 but at f/8 at 400mm I am finding it limiting.
The lenses I am considering are all ef due to budget. I need more reach as my kids are moving up to larger fields.
ef 100-400mm but concerned with the f/5.6 at the long end for under the lights.
ef 300mm f/2.8. Was told version ii would be the one to target?
ef 400 f/2.8. also told version ii?
ef 200-400 f/4 with extender.
I have never used a big prime before, so I am hesitant to go that route. Being a parent, I won't always have the best sideline access either.
The 70-200 with the f/2.8 has been great, just need more reach now. For wrestling and dance, I can keep using this lens. I don't care about size or weight and can use a monopod.
Older 300/2.8's are relatively inexpensive, sometimes even IS V1, around $2k or so, and it's debatable how useful IS is for sports, anyway. They probably don't support higher frame rates, and difficult to get parts if needed. But, it's not that hard to lose $2k on teles, in general
I use an EF 400 2.8L IS I on an R6II, and it works great. Covers a full soccer field from the end line. I've seen used ones for about half the price (or more) off a used 400 2.8L IS II and even less than a 300 2.8L IS II. For me, the only downside is the v1 is very front heavy. You'll probably need a monopod.
For me, the 2.8 is less about shooting in low light and more about creating better separation. Especially for youth sports where backgrounds can be a mess.
Before you dump serious money on semi-obsolete EF lenses, have a at least as serious look at the RF 100-500. The image quality you get out of such a light and handy 5x zoom is really hard to beat.
With the R7 you get a field of view (=reach) of a 160-800mm lens, so you have a choice of 100-800mm depending on which body you use with the lens.
The EF 100-400 mk2 is a great lens. But the 100-500 is slightly better, up to date, and half a pound lighter.
Dont make too much of a problem out of the F/7.1 or f/8. As you mention with the RF 100-400 it is the quality of the blur that is the one important factor. OK, they cant compete with a fast prime. Neither can the fast primes, and I would throw in the 200-400 in this category too in this comparison, neither can the Big Whites compare to the flexibility and ease of use, the total experience of the handling when the day is on the memory card. There are always compromises. Takes experience to find the right one for your self. And it changes with the years passing! Test a 100-500, in parallell with a 400/2.8 if possible. Usyk vs Bob Sapp!
Often forgotten, but the 400 f4 DO II is an amazing piece of glass and super lightweight to carry. While I have the new RF 100-300 f2.8 and think this is nearly the perfect lens, the 400 f4 DO II is almost as perfect.
Thank you for all the suggestions. I had a chance to check out the ef 100-400 and rf 100-500 at a baseball game. Both had really sharp images, but the backgrounds at the long ends just didn't have enough separation for me after using f2.8 on the 70-200.
With how small the fields are my kids are playing at, and the backgrounds are really busy with spectators, lawn chairs and parked cars, I think I am going to go with f4 or f2.8.
