will this lens work?

I currently shoot high school football under the lights with a 70-300mm f/4-5.6 tamron lens. I have difficulty when it gets dark and my iso is

at its max at 1600. The shots are real blurry even when I switch to aperture mode. I shoot with a Nikon D70. I came across a used Nikon

Nikkor 180mm f/2.8 ED lens at an affordable price and am wondering if this would be of much help to me or if I should save for a better

lens. Will this lens work with my D70? Will I be happy with it?<div></div>

1/60 is way too slow. You have to be able to get absolutely no lower than 1/400 to freeze the action....for high school.

College and Pros will be much faster. f/2.8 will be 2 stops faster which means hypothetically you'll be able to get 1/180-

1/240....still too slow. I hate using flash but you may have to in this situation.

If I can get this lens for $100.00 would it be worth it or not?<div></div>

I really can't answer that. I'm a Canon shooter so I'm not familiar with Nikon gear, but I will say that it will give you better

results than what you're getting now just because it's 2 stops faster.

If you can get a 180mm F2.8 Nikkor for $100 grab it (or tell me how to). It'll be as good as you can get for low light work. It's as fast as you can get without spending thousands of dollars, and it's an excellent lens.

Sounds like good deal on that 180. It's 'short' for football size field shooting, but atleast in HS you are probably free to move along the side line and end zone freely- except in team areas between 30 yd line usually. You should get sharper images with a prime as well.

I have the D70S and a D300. Huge difference in high ISO noise. Can't wait to get another 300! Keep shootin' and start selling prints on line, save for upgrades.

Are you using manual exposure? Since the lighting is pretty constant, once sky is dark, it's the way to go. adjust aperture to get blurry backgrounds and to keep shutter speed fast enough - 1/400 as mentioned. Adjust exposure later in post. But more cards and shoot RAW, also.

I'm really new to this...but when I switch to shutter priority mode I get a low reading and can't adjust the shutter speed. Or

am I doing something wrong? Give me some tips on how to achieve this. There are only 2 more games left in the season

and I would really like to get a handle on this for next season. Thanks for the response.

John,

First off, yes, get a faster lens. Depending on your budget, I was able to get an 80-200 f/2.8 zoom from KEH for $450 in bargain condition (never any issues, barely a scuff on it and the glass is very clean) and the fast aperture is wonderful for poor light. Definitely get the faster lens. Depending on how bad it is I might also use my SB-800, but I like to avoid flash when I can. (not always possible with high school lighting!)

 

As far as shutter priority and what not, I would use manual mode. You can set your aperture wide-open (2.8) and adjust your shutter from there depending on light. Without flash I'm usually at about 1/250 or 1/320 for a shutter, with it I'm usually between 1/400 and 1/500. These are ballpark values for what I shoot at. It all depends on what you have for lighting. Play around with it to see what you like, and with the 2.8 you'll find you might not need ISO 1600. I'm usually at about 1000.

 

High school lighting varies so play around and good luck. Definitely get the 2.8, you'll see a drastic difference.

 

Gabe.

Thanks Gabe, I'm saving my money and hope to have a new lens for next season.

That's good, John and congratulations. Football can be a real fun sport to photograph.

 

Happy shooting,

 

Gabe.

John, You need to make sure that lens is the auto focus version. Nikon made a manual focus 180mm f.2.8 ED and a later auto focus version. I doubt if you found the auto focus one for $100. The manual focus is a great lens optically but it would be difficult to use shooting football.

Thanks. It ended up selling for $204.00 on Ebay and it was a manual focus. Glad I didn't win it. I'll keep saving and

searching for the auto focus lens. Thanks for the advice!!!

Um . . . I suggest you Hang On a minute

 

I suggest you have a deeper think about what your goals are and have a look at a bit of the maths/physics of it, before you launch out to buy what might be thought a ``cure all`` lens:

 

***

 

The tech specs, for the two images posted are: 1/60s @ F4.2 @ ISO1600 and 1/80s @ F4.5 @ ISO1600, respectively.

 

To my eye, both look a touch underexposed, about 1/2 a stop: especially the second image. But leave that aside for the moment.

 

In the first image you are going to need at least 1/250s to give any real impact of freezing the White Player`s forward motion and the Blue Player`s transverse motion will require about 1/400s, as it seems he is just starting his run: you would most likely need at least 1/640s if the Blue Player were at full speed.

 

Similar Shutter Speeds are required for the second image, although we perhaps could argue the transverse motion of the ball, if rendered as a ``slight blur`` could create the notion of ``intense action``.

 

[is this a shot of a pass or hand off from one White Player to the other? – I am not intimate with the nuances of American Football]

 

 

***

 

But what I am getting to is this:

 

. if this is typical of the LIGHT with which you have to work.

 

. if you decide to get most of the shots head on (mostly forward movement only)

 

. if you decide you are willing to have a little motion blur in some shots

 

Then: even beginning to pull 1/250s @ ISO1600, you NEED an F2 lens - MINIMUM!

 

***

 

So really IMO, you need to think more laterally about this issue:

 

- like pushing the limits of equivalent ISO3200;

 

- a Post Production de-Noise Programme;

 

- staying down your Team`s scoring end;

 

- limiting you shots to ones which are closer to the action;

 

- getting a shorter FL, very fast prime (Like F2 or faster)

 

- cropping into the image in Post production, to get closer to the action.

 

- thinking about Black and White

 

The point is, it is better to have a grainy, (noisy) but SHARP and FROZEN sports image, than a nicely rendered blur.

 

***

 

BTW: I would also have a wager you are getting quite noticeable camera movement shooting at those shutter speeds with that lens.

 

IMO, camera movement, right to left and slightly upward, is noticed in the second shot.

 

The tell being the row of three Blue Players, OoF background. There is a light trail in the helmets. Initial exposure is Camera Right: then the trail moves to camera left and slightly upward.

 

My guess is you were following the movement of the main subject (White Player), who is moving from Camera Right to Camera Left, and, in fact slightly upward from your Camera`s Viewpoint.

 

WW

Thanks for the kind note of appreciation.

 

***

 

Even though your camera is maxed out at ISO1600, there is capacity to shoot one stop underexposed and capture in RAW. In the post production you can bring the exposure up one stop: not ideal, but doable.

 

Noise Ninja is a de noise Programme which gets a lot of positive comment: I have not used this product. There are others

 

If you are thinking of buying a fast Prime lens, you can get a good idea of ``how close to the action`` an 85mm; 100mm; 135mm and 200mm lens will get you, if you take some sample shots with the zoom you have now.

 

In the two examples above you took the first image at 105mm and the second at 145mm.

 

***

 

THREE key factors at getting reasonable to good sporting images at night, without needing to mortgage the house to buy the lenses are:

 

ACCESS, MANOEUVRABILITY and UNDERSTANDING.

 

If you can get ACCESS to the sideline; have the ability to ROAM; and understand what is going on, you can ANTICIPATE where to be to get a good shot with a fast, smaller Focal Length Prime (read much less expensive).

 

and you can always crop a bit closer later, again not ideal: but not as expensive, either.

 

Hope that helps

 

WW

 

P.S. FYI:

 

http://www.photo.net/sports-photography-forum/00RHvi

 

And if you P-Net search (top RH corner): ``Night Football`` there are many more.

 

WW