Best Lens For MMA Video

 

<p >Hey everyone,<br>

I am brand new to the forum and wanted to say hello to all of you and thank you for your help.<br>

I will be buying a D7000 very soon and am contemplating on which lens I should get for my application.<br>

I am an assistant coach at my MMA school and I'm going to be building the website and helping my fighters get good video for their fights. When I coach at fights I'm standing at the coaching corner which is just as close as you can get to the cage. I'd like to place a tripod with the D7000 to record the match for personal use to see what mistakes my fighter made and how they can improve as well as make promotional videos to advertise the school and the fighters better.</p>

<p >Since the lighting at these events aren't the best I've been doing a lot of research and people have recommended the AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G and the AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4G. I want to be able to get the best capture of the entire ring without getting blurry as the fighters get further away from the camera. Also I'm not going to be zooming in to get the best shots, I'm not trying to be a fight photographer. I just want to be able to get high quality recording for my fighters so a zoom lens is not necessary. A prime lens seems more applicable for me. Also I would like to be taking pictures of the school and classes so I can put them on the website. I'm sure both the 35 and the 50 can do both, but I just want to know which would be better for video for my application. Thanks for all your help!</p>

<p ><br />P.S. I've read the other MMA threads about lenses, but the focus was Fight Photography for professional shots and a lot of the recommendations were basically Zoom Lenses to get those nitty gritty photos. Thanks y'all.</p>

 

<p>Simon,<br />What you're proposing is extreme overkill for what you're trying to accomplish.<br />If all you want to do is document what happens inside the cage, all you need is just about any $300 consumer camcorder. In addition to being cheap, you can easily stick it into a corner of the cage. Assuming you don't want it inside the cage, the front of the lens is small enough to easily shoot through the openings where a DSLR lens might not fit. Camcorders are very good with low light. Only thing you might need is an inexpensive wide angle adaptor lens, but that would still cost less than either of the lenses you're thinking about buying.</p>

<p>Thanks so much for your response. Yeah I know it's a bit overkill, but the thing is I'm getting a D7000 for other things as well. I'm trying to kill 3 birds with one stone and this MMA recording would be probably the 2nd bird. I prefer to use the D7000 instead of a regular camcorder. I don't see the point in buying a camcorder when the D7000 already has recording functions that are simply amazing.<br>

<br />The price of the lenses aren't a factor. I just want the know which would be better for recording outside of an MMA ring. Thanks again for the response.</p>