Saw a comment on DPREVIEW from you re: Sigma 120-300mm zoom. Went to your website and am very impressed with your work. NICE PICS!! Can you give me an idea which ones may have been shot with the Sigma 120-300mm? I’m considering buying one as it’s more in my budget for high school sports shooting. And if you would add any thoughts, comments or suggestions regarding the lens on how it performs. I’ll be using it with a D300 and a D700. Your help will be appreciated.
I don’t think there are many 120-300 images in my current baseball gallery; but it’s long due for an update. With baseball, probably 90% of my shots are with either the 80-200/f2.8 AF-S or the Sigma 120-300. It’s a nice lens that many pros use, though it is not in the same class as Nikon’s 300/f2.8 AF-S lenses. For the money, and with the unique flexibility of being an f2.8 zoom in that focal length range, it’s a great sports lens.
I just stumbled across your website and wanted to say how impressed I was with the photos you have posted. I’m recently bitten by the amateur photo bug, in particular, sports photography Most favorite –Lacrosse). Are the lacrosse photos posted the only ones you have? Anything of the pro leagues? If so I would be interested in seeing any. My son is an avid fan. Also, I had a lens question. I’m looking to invest in a telephoto lens but am on a budget. I would love to get the Nikon 70-200 VR 2.8 but the price tag for someone as novice as me is frightening. I was wondering your opinion of the Sigma, Tamron, or any other. Do any of these brands compare and are they worth the money? What do you normally shoot with and what would someone like myself just starting out invest in to see quality results? I would like to photograph outdoor and indoor sports both at night and during the day. As a professional, what would you recommend? I’m currently shooting with Nikon D90. Are there any websites or books worth researching in order to get started?
I see I need to update my lacrosse galleries as well! No, I’ve not shot professional lacrosse, only at the collegiate level.
As for lenses – many years ago, I used Sigma’s 70-200/f2.8 HSM lens, which is closest to one of the current 3rd-party offerings. At the time I was also using the old push-pull Nikon 80-200/f2.8 AF lens. The Sigma was smaller, lighter, slightly less sharp, and about on par with the Nikon in terms of AF speed. It tracked moving subjects a little better. Even with the HSM motor, however, the Sigma couldn’t touch Nikon’s equivalent AF-S motor — the 80-200/f2.8 AF-S is much faster. For the price, again, the Sigma is a viable alternative and a number of pros use this lens with great results.
Came across your site and just wanted to tell you that I really dig your work. I am from a small town in Southside VA and shoot for the Courier-Record newspaper in Blackstone VA. Love your sports shooting. I am trying to ease myself into the same type of thing. Hope I get a chance to meet you sometime. I make it to the Lexington area every once in a while. Cheers and happy shooting!
I spent a month in Blackstone one weekend…OK, cheap shot. It was really Fort Pickett, back in the 80s in ROTC. I drive past occasionally on 460, my favorite piece of highway anywhere.
Hi, i own a D90 and 17-80mm IF AF lens and would like to take good pictures in a night club. i ve tried doing it before but they come out without ambient lights. i want to put some life in my photos to really look good. any ideas sir? thank you.
I was wondering if you could do me a favour and test some of the highest-speed CF cards you’ve got outside of camera usage. I’m looking to build a solid state RAID array, and using CF cards looks to be the way to go (Only looking for something to make my computer boot times super-speedy). Your site here seems to be the only resource I can find that has reviews for the newer, supposedly higher-speed cards. While I understand that the Sandisk cards seem to be particularly optimized for photo usage, I have a suspicion that for “normal” data use these newer “high speed” cards might actually deliver on their performance claims. Since I obviously need to consider this carefully and can’t just blow a bunch of cash on CF cards from each manufacturer it’d be pretty cool if you could give things a try and help me out a bit.
I’d recommend Hans Reggel’s CARDSPEED site: http://www.hjreggel.net/cardspeed/index.html. He seems to have the best handle on the technology out there. Notice, however, his warning at the top of the page.
I just ordered an Intel X25-M SSD for my new laptop; while I won’t be putting it in a RAID, my guess is it will outperform any CF card regardless of what reader you put it in. I plan to report on that in a couple of weeks.
I like many others just stumbled across your website.. I am a photographer in Alabama and I just ventured to using manuel and at first I didnt have a problem. Here recently I have had a problem with blurry or pixlated pictures.. Is there a setting on the D300 when your in manuel you can have a auto iso?..
Than
Unfortunately, while every other manufacturer has been cutting prices on their card readers, CompuApps has raised theirs, and it’s no longer feasible for me to carry the readers.
That being said, there are better and cheaper alternatives out there. See my USB card reader roundup for some ideas.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading on your site and love it. The information is great and I’ve found myself double checking my settings against your recommendations.
I have a unique situation that I can not figure out that I wanted to bounce off of you. A location that I often shoot is an indoor riding area near my home. I shoot polo and other riding events when they happen. For some reason, this location plays havic with my camera’s metering. (Actually, all of my cameras.)
There appears to be no consistency. One shot will be dead on and the next two might be overly colored. With the texture of the dirt floor, there probably is a 1000 different colors of brown that the camera seems to pick up.
I think I’ve tried everything though I might be missing something.
I’ve changed the different metering modes.
I’ve changed the Picture Controls.
I’ve turned off Active D.
I’ve turned off High ISO.
Shooting other events, I’ve seen the result of my camera firing faster than indoor lights cycling. I do not think this is the issue as it happens almost every other of every third shot.
Not sure what you mean by ‘overly colored’ – perhaps you could send me a “normal” frame and an “overly colored” frame (chuck@sportsphotoguy.com) and let me have a look.
Most likely I would imagine white balance is the real issue. Are you relying Auto WB? If so, you might try setting a Custom WB.
But the bottom line: don’t skimp on equipment for this – use magic arms, clamps, and safety cables and make sure you have permission before you attempt this. Also be prepared for contingencies like what happens if the backboard has to be lowered mid-game to repair a shot clock or something like that. You don’t want to be the cause of a further play stoppage!
This warrants an article, as I use a variety of mounting locations on or over the post and backboard. Stay tuned!
I have a Sandisk Extreme IV UDMA 8GB card and this past summer while shooting Macro shots of Tiger Lillie’s in my backyard I noticed an error message on my D300’s LCD while reviewing shots that read ” File does not contain Data”. I had just reviewed the focus on a shot and after my shooting session ended I went back to review the same shots and I got the same message several times which scared the heck out of me. Do you have any ideas about what happened. The LCD displayed a file number but when I selected it for playback I got the error message. Have you run into this yourself. I’m not sure now if it’s the D300 or the card. I formatted the card hoping that would solve the issue. The sad thing is that I lost a bunch of Macro shots I took.
While card failures are rare, they do happen, even when card and camera are operating normally. I’ve found that with the various Nikon bodies I have owned, shooting with nearly-drained batteries can lead to all sorts of problems, including corrupted files on a CompactFlash card.
A one-time error is usually not cause for concern (aside from the images lost). A second, similar error, however, is cause for concern and should be investigated. See if the error occurs with other cards or it is isolated to a particular card.
Many top-flight cards (SanDisk, Lexar, even Calumet) come with file recovery software; unfortunately, these do a much better job of recovering accidentally deleted files than files that have become corrupted, regardless of cause.
Chuck,
Love the 50mm f/1.4 you sold me a few months back, Thanks.
Today’s question is regarding the AF-S 80-200 f/2.8 with the TC-14/17/20. Do you have comments or suggestions about the use of the TC’s for action photography?
Thanks
Tim
The AF-S 80-200/f2.8 is somewhat famously mediocre with the TC-20E (not very sharp at all). The TC-14E, however, was excellent. This lens was also incompatible with my otherwise excellent Kenko Teleplus 300 1.4x (it would mount but just hunt back and forth and never lock focus) so I’d stick with Nikon for this particular lens. I haven’t used the TC-17E but have only heard good things about it.
I have a D90 using a nikon 80 200 – 2.8 af. I am shooting high school wrestling. Thinking of getting a 85mm 1.8 to get some sharper pics. Might have to crop alittle. Settings 1600 iso + or -, App 2.8, 320 to 400 sp, app mode sometime on manual using mono pod. Ah one more thing, on 3d tracking focus.
An 85/f1.8 would not be bad; a 50/f1.4 would be even better. That’s what I now shoot with for wrestling, along with the 70-200 VR. I’d also recommend using flash set to -1 stop @ 1/320 or 1/400 via FP sync. Even better if you have an SB-600/800/900 that you can mount remotely – see my article on wrestling.
I have a new Nikon D300s. I have been using it to photograph high school basketball games. Your site has been very helpful as I refine my techniques and learn my new camera. I have noticed you have lots of information on CF cards but I haven’t found/seen similar type information on the SD cards. Have you tested any SD cards? Do you have any recommendations on SD cards? Thanks.
The intent behind the CF card tests I’ve done has been to differentiate between the various UDMA-capable cards in order to find those that perform best in the D300 and other UDMA-enabled cameras. While some of these cameras, like the D300s, now support SD cards, the SD specification currently in widespread use does not include a provision for UDMA and thus SD cards all operate at a much slower speed than high-end CF cards.
That being said, I can recommend most any Class 6 or Class 10 SD card from the major manufacturers – SanDisk, Lexar, Transcend, Kingston, PNY, PQi, a-Data, Ocz, have all been used in my D300s and D90 with no problems and are fully capable of recording HD video without problems. For me,
Transcend cards have prvovided the best bang for the buck in terms of performance and reliability.
Lenmar Digital Camera Battery, No Memory, for Nikon Lithium-Ion EN-EL3E, 7.4v, 1500mah For Nikon
22 responses so far ↓
1 The Sports Photo Guy // Apr 22, 2009 at 7:46 am
Joel T writes:
Saw a comment on DPREVIEW from you re: Sigma 120-300mm zoom. Went to your website and am very impressed with your work. NICE PICS!! Can you give me an idea which ones may have been shot with the Sigma 120-300mm? I’m considering buying one as it’s more in my budget for high school sports shooting. And if you would add any thoughts, comments or suggestions regarding the lens on how it performs. I’ll be using it with a D300 and a D700. Your help will be appreciated.
I don’t think there are many 120-300 images in my current baseball gallery; but it’s long due for an update. With baseball, probably 90% of my shots are with either the 80-200/f2.8 AF-S or the Sigma 120-300. It’s a nice lens that many pros use, though it is not in the same class as Nikon’s 300/f2.8 AF-S lenses. For the money, and with the unique flexibility of being an f2.8 zoom in that focal length range, it’s a great sports lens.
2 The Sports Photo Guy // Apr 22, 2009 at 7:51 am
Ray Mwrites:
I just stumbled across your website and wanted to say how impressed I was with the photos you have posted. I’m recently bitten by the amateur photo bug, in particular, sports photography Most favorite –Lacrosse). Are the lacrosse photos posted the only ones you have? Anything of the pro leagues? If so I would be interested in seeing any. My son is an avid fan. Also, I had a lens question. I’m looking to invest in a telephoto lens but am on a budget. I would love to get the Nikon 70-200 VR 2.8 but the price tag for someone as novice as me is frightening. I was wondering your opinion of the Sigma, Tamron, or any other. Do any of these brands compare and are they worth the money? What do you normally shoot with and what would someone like myself just starting out invest in to see quality results? I would like to photograph outdoor and indoor sports both at night and during the day. As a professional, what would you recommend? I’m currently shooting with Nikon D90. Are there any websites or books worth researching in order to get started?
I see I need to update my lacrosse galleries as well! No, I’ve not shot professional lacrosse, only at the collegiate level.
As for lenses – many years ago, I used Sigma’s 70-200/f2.8 HSM lens, which is closest to one of the current 3rd-party offerings. At the time I was also using the old push-pull Nikon 80-200/f2.8 AF lens. The Sigma was smaller, lighter, slightly less sharp, and about on par with the Nikon in terms of AF speed. It tracked moving subjects a little better. Even with the HSM motor, however, the Sigma couldn’t touch Nikon’s equivalent AF-S motor — the 80-200/f2.8 AF-S is much faster. For the price, again, the Sigma is a viable alternative and a number of pros use this lens with great results.
3 Jeff Clements // May 3, 2009 at 6:59 pm
Came across your site and just wanted to tell you that I really dig your work. I am from a small town in Southside VA and shoot for the Courier-Record newspaper in Blackstone VA. Love your sports shooting. I am trying to ease myself into the same type of thing. Hope I get a chance to meet you sometime. I make it to the Lexington area every once in a while. Cheers and happy shooting!
4 The Sports Photo Guy // May 3, 2009 at 7:05 pm
I spent a month in Blackstone one weekend…OK, cheap shot. It was really Fort Pickett, back in the 80s in ROTC. I drive past occasionally on 460, my favorite piece of highway anywhere.
5 Kim // Sep 13, 2009 at 8:22 pm
Hi, i own a D90 and 17-80mm IF AF lens and would like to take good pictures in a night club. i ve tried doing it before but they come out without ambient lights. i want to put some life in my photos to really look good. any ideas sir? thank you.
6 James // Oct 22, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Hey there,
I was wondering if you could do me a favour and test some of the highest-speed CF cards you’ve got outside of camera usage. I’m looking to build a solid state RAID array, and using CF cards looks to be the way to go (Only looking for something to make my computer boot times super-speedy). Your site here seems to be the only resource I can find that has reviews for the newer, supposedly higher-speed cards. While I understand that the Sandisk cards seem to be particularly optimized for photo usage, I have a suspicion that for “normal” data use these newer “high speed” cards might actually deliver on their performance claims. Since I obviously need to consider this carefully and can’t just blow a bunch of cash on CF cards from each manufacturer it’d be pretty cool if you could give things a try and help me out a bit.
Thanks in advance,
James
7 The Sports Photo Guy // Oct 22, 2009 at 6:54 pm
James,
I’d recommend Hans Reggel’s CARDSPEED site: http://www.hjreggel.net/cardspeed/index.html. He seems to have the best handle on the technology out there. Notice, however, his warning at the top of the page.
I just ordered an Intel X25-M SSD for my new laptop; while I won’t be putting it in a RAID, my guess is it will outperform any CF card regardless of what reader you put it in. I plan to report on that in a couple of weeks.
8 Morgan Rhodes // Nov 17, 2009 at 11:29 am
I like many others just stumbled across your website.. I am a photographer in Alabama and I just ventured to using manuel and at first I didnt have a problem. Here recently I have had a problem with blurry or pixlated pictures.. Is there a setting on the D300 when your in manuel you can have a auto iso?..
Than
9 The Sports Photo Guy // Nov 20, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Sure is – check out the article, Secret D300 High-Speed Auto ISO Trick.
10 Wren McMains // Dec 5, 2009 at 3:05 am
Will you get any any more Omniflash Uno! USB 2.0 CF Readers? I tested a friend’s and it was amazingly fast.
11 The Sports Photo Guy // Dec 5, 2009 at 5:37 am
Unfortunately, while every other manufacturer has been cutting prices on their card readers, CompuApps has raised theirs, and it’s no longer feasible for me to carry the readers.
That being said, there are better and cheaper alternatives out there. See my USB card reader roundup for some ideas.
12 Grant // Dec 14, 2009 at 11:47 am
I’ve been doing a lot of reading on your site and love it. The information is great and I’ve found myself double checking my settings against your recommendations.
I have a unique situation that I can not figure out that I wanted to bounce off of you. A location that I often shoot is an indoor riding area near my home. I shoot polo and other riding events when they happen. For some reason, this location plays havic with my camera’s metering. (Actually, all of my cameras.)
There appears to be no consistency. One shot will be dead on and the next two might be overly colored. With the texture of the dirt floor, there probably is a 1000 different colors of brown that the camera seems to pick up.
I think I’ve tried everything though I might be missing something.
I’ve changed the different metering modes.
I’ve changed the Picture Controls.
I’ve turned off Active D.
I’ve turned off High ISO.
Shooting other events, I’ve seen the result of my camera firing faster than indoor lights cycling. I do not think this is the issue as it happens almost every other of every third shot.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
13 The Sports Photo Guy // Dec 23, 2009 at 6:44 pm
Not sure what you mean by ‘overly colored’ – perhaps you could send me a “normal” frame and an “overly colored” frame (chuck@sportsphotoguy.com) and let me have a look.
Most likely I would imagine white balance is the real issue. Are you relying Auto WB? If so, you might try setting a Custom WB.
14 JAIME // Dec 28, 2009 at 12:47 am
how did you get your camera on top of the hoop in basketball? and is it possible to do in a school gym?
15 The Sports Photo Guy // Dec 28, 2009 at 7:20 am
Short answer: see the article below on SportsShooter.com:
http://www.sportsshooter.com/news/1062
But the bottom line: don’t skimp on equipment for this – use magic arms, clamps, and safety cables and make sure you have permission before you attempt this. Also be prepared for contingencies like what happens if the backboard has to be lowered mid-game to repair a shot clock or something like that. You don’t want to be the cause of a further play stoppage!
This warrants an article, as I use a variety of mounting locations on or over the post and backboard. Stay tuned!
16 The Sports Photo Guy // Jan 17, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Orest W writes:
I have a Sandisk Extreme IV UDMA 8GB card and this past summer while shooting Macro shots of Tiger Lillie’s in my backyard I noticed an error message on my D300’s LCD while reviewing shots that read ” File does not contain Data”. I had just reviewed the focus on a shot and after my shooting session ended I went back to review the same shots and I got the same message several times which scared the heck out of me. Do you have any ideas about what happened. The LCD displayed a file number but when I selected it for playback I got the error message. Have you run into this yourself. I’m not sure now if it’s the D300 or the card. I formatted the card hoping that would solve the issue. The sad thing is that I lost a bunch of Macro shots I took.
While card failures are rare, they do happen, even when card and camera are operating normally. I’ve found that with the various Nikon bodies I have owned, shooting with nearly-drained batteries can lead to all sorts of problems, including corrupted files on a CompactFlash card.
A one-time error is usually not cause for concern (aside from the images lost). A second, similar error, however, is cause for concern and should be investigated. See if the error occurs with other cards or it is isolated to a particular card.
Many top-flight cards (SanDisk, Lexar, even Calumet) come with file recovery software; unfortunately, these do a much better job of recovering accidentally deleted files than files that have become corrupted, regardless of cause.
17 Timothy // Jan 20, 2010 at 11:35 am
Chuck,
Love the 50mm f/1.4 you sold me a few months back, Thanks.
Today’s question is regarding the AF-S 80-200 f/2.8 with the TC-14/17/20. Do you have comments or suggestions about the use of the TC’s for action photography?
Thanks
Tim
18 The Sports Photo Guy // Jan 24, 2010 at 9:37 pm
The AF-S 80-200/f2.8 is somewhat famously mediocre with the TC-20E (not very sharp at all). The TC-14E, however, was excellent. This lens was also incompatible with my otherwise excellent Kenko Teleplus 300 1.4x (it would mount but just hunt back and forth and never lock focus) so I’d stick with Nikon for this particular lens. I haven’t used the TC-17E but have only heard good things about it.
19 Deadhand // Jan 25, 2010 at 1:22 pm
I have a D90 using a nikon 80 200 – 2.8 af. I am shooting high school wrestling. Thinking of getting a 85mm 1.8 to get some sharper pics. Might have to crop alittle. Settings 1600 iso + or -, App 2.8, 320 to 400 sp, app mode sometime on manual using mono pod. Ah one more thing, on 3d tracking focus.
20 The Sports Photo Guy // Jan 26, 2010 at 6:58 am
An 85/f1.8 would not be bad; a 50/f1.4 would be even better. That’s what I now shoot with for wrestling, along with the 70-200 VR. I’d also recommend using flash set to -1 stop @ 1/320 or 1/400 via FP sync. Even better if you have an SB-600/800/900 that you can mount remotely – see my article on wrestling.
21 Bobcatridge // Mar 5, 2010 at 2:19 pm
I have a new Nikon D300s. I have been using it to photograph high school basketball games. Your site has been very helpful as I refine my techniques and learn my new camera. I have noticed you have lots of information on CF cards but I haven’t found/seen similar type information on the SD cards. Have you tested any SD cards? Do you have any recommendations on SD cards? Thanks.
22 The Sports Photo Guy // Mar 6, 2010 at 11:45 am
The intent behind the CF card tests I’ve done has been to differentiate between the various UDMA-capable cards in order to find those that perform best in the D300 and other UDMA-enabled cameras. While some of these cameras, like the D300s, now support SD cards, the SD specification currently in widespread use does not include a provision for UDMA and thus SD cards all operate at a much slower speed than high-end CF cards.
That being said, I can recommend most any Class 6 or Class 10 SD card from the major manufacturers – SanDisk, Lexar, Transcend, Kingston, PNY, PQi, a-Data, Ocz, have all been used in my D300s and D90 with no problems and are fully capable of recording HD video without problems. For me,
Transcend cards have prvovided the best bang for the buck in terms of performance and reliability.
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