will f4.5 telephoto work for night sports?

I want to photograph a night football or night auto race event,

which I have not done yet. The fastest lens I would use is a Minolta

300MM f4.5 MC tele-rokkor HF possibly with the Vivitar 2X macro

teleconverter. Camera is Minolta XG-M.

 

My reading indicates that I should use a f2.8 or faster lens to do

night sporting events. Most of these night events are lit up like

day. Do I really need a lens this fast? What about leaving the

shutter open for 1/4 second or something like that? Plus, it's

likely I'll be using 1600 speed film to compensate anyway, right?

 

Not interested in using flash

 

Thanks,

Dave

Don't waste your film at a night venue with a slow lens. A f2.8 lens is quite often MARGINAL even push processing film to asa 1600 and at times 3200. Leaving the shutter open for 1/4 sec will give you blurred unusable shots. The teleconverter will make matters worse.

I'd suggest getting a used 'shorter'(affordable) lens that is much faster like the 85 f1.7, although you'd have to wait for the shots to appear at your side of the field and the crop will be much wider than you might like, at least you won't be pitching the entire roll in the trash after you get them back. Even with this lens, use some 1600 speed film and if possible, borrow a spot meter and meter on the players skin/faces for accurate light metering so your on camera meter isn't 'fooled' by the out of the ordinary lighting conditions.

good luck dude!

 

check here for used lenses- http://www.keh.com/shop/product.cfm?bid=MI&cid=06&sid=newused&crid=10644611

Maybe you can find a 135mm f2 lens? A monopod and 'still' shots on the football field may be the best you can do with your current lens (and that is without the extender.)

Night outdoor sporting events are almost never well lit from a photographic standpoint - we adapt to the situation though "night vision' (with our eyes opening up) as we adjust to the dark and by just perceiving it as lighter than it is. It's aggravated by the need to try to keep shutter seeds up to stop action or at least minimize the results of subject motion and camera motion as well.

 

Even with 1600 film, the 4.5 is almost certainly going to be too slow, and adding a converter will just make things that much worse, you'd lose two stops immediately.

 

A 1/4 second exposure would require a tripod to avoid camera motion and would almost certainly only provide blurs from any moving subject.

I definately agree with the other folks; I do football games usually at f/2.8 and ISO 1600 to get 1/500 - 1/1000 exposures.

What's the matter with using flash? A decent flash would provide an excellent light source that would enable you to use that slow lens with decent results. I've gotten some great results using 400 speed film and a 55-200 zoom lens with the simple addition of a flash. If you are totally unwilling to use a flash, then I wouldn't even bother shooting night sports. Even at 3200, you'd only be approaching the sharpness of 400 with flash to freeze the action. Also, with fast action sports, even 1/60 is usually too slow of a shutter speed. I'd recommend 1/250 as a minimum for action shots.

 

Regards.

 

~Karl Borowski

Night events look like their lit up like the daytime, to the human eye, but not to film. You want a shutter speed of at least 250th of a second, and you can still get blur of motion. One thing to consider is the direction of the light, higher ISO's can give you a good exposure on the field or the track, but the subjects can still look backlit if the lights are high and close to the subject. I shoot high school football at 250th of a second at f2.8, with fill flash. Otherwise, only the tops of their helmets and shoulders are properly exposed. The only way to see the numbers on their jerseys and their faces is to use fill flash.