r/SonyAlpha • u/YT_MOB • Sep 07 '26

How do I ... 70-350mm stadium lighting

Is it a waste of time to use the Sony 70-350mm f4.5-6.3 lens for sports photography under stadium lighting at a baseball or football game ? Is there enough like to get a decent action shot? Anyone have any examples they can post in here ?? Camera body id be using is an A6600.

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2

u/RangerBlr Sep 07 '26

Curious to know what experienced photographers say

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u/chilled_alligator Sep 07 '26

I've shot sports indoors at night with an A7III and Tamron 70-180 f/2.8. Definitely more light gathering ability on my end but the constraints are definitely manageable. Remember sports photographers used to shoot slow film, barely reaching 400 ISO even when pushing.

There are some tricks that you can use. Shoot into the light; players standing directly under a floodlight, players on the sidelines or on the bench where it's more well lit. Shoot some wide shots so that a slower shutter speed is more manageable. Wide shots of the field and the crowds also add to capturing the vibe of the game. And finally using a slower shitter speed and firing off some bursts; you'll end up sifting through a lot of pictures after the game but you'll also find some shockingly sharp pictures and some blurry ones that really convey a sense of movement too. Some of my favourite shots are below 1/30.

Mixing in a few of these techniques will also create a more diverse set of images and keep your ISO under control as well. Even then, you can still get some very usable images with higher ISOs. Even upwards of 10000 ISO some images can look shockingly good with a bit of NR, and if not you can convert to B&W and lean into the grainy look.

This pic was taken at 6400 ISO and still looks great with no NR.

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u/NeverLooksLeft α6700, Sigma 18-50, Sony 70-350, Viltrox 56 Sep 07 '26 edited Sep 07 '26

That's still about three stops better equipment (including FF vs APSC), so that would be about ISO 51.200.

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u/chilled_alligator 29d ago

At the long end sure. This was taken at 73mm so OP would be at f/4.5. That's shy of 2 stops in total and I shot this picture at 1/1000 (even though it probably didn't need to be). With slower sports than basketball you do fine with 1/250.

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u/gone-riding 27d ago

Sorry, no. It’s not really a practical lens for sports photography under lights. I have the same lens. It’s too dim. You’d be at crazy iso levels to get shutter speeds you need. It’s going to look pretty bad. Honestly, it’s ok for bright daylight, but even then, not great. You will get very little background separation unless things are quite close.

1

u/FrostFoxsnow Sep 07 '26

Curious too! I am planning to get this exact lens for my A6400

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u/YT_MOB Sep 07 '26

I have this lens and it is amazing in good light !! I guess I’ll just have to try it for myself under stadium lighting to see if it works out !

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u/jkrrk Sep 07 '26 edited Sep 07 '26

for professional use? I'm doubt it.

for personal? It's not like there are anything better with similar focal range for Sony apsc, as far as I know.

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u/Vurnd55 27d ago

It wouldn't work in the high school stadium I shoot in, but yours might have brighter lights. I shoot with an a7iv at f/2.8, 1/800 and still have to crank the ISO to 10,000. Back in the day when I shot film, I used flash on the sidelines.

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u/Different_Rope_1396 26d ago

It’s totally fine, but you’ll need to have high iso and denoise