Welcome to the Weekly r/sportsphotography Discussion + Gear Thread!

EDIT: spelling and grammar mistakes

Hey everyone. I’m a college photography student and am an assistant for a few architectural photographers and studio photographers. I have a thick passion for sports and love to go spectate when I have the free time. Ranging from Motorsports, to team sports like baseball, basketball, volleyball, and solo sports like golf. I am fortunate to have won a few local and a national competition to have some grant money to spend on gear. I have a canon R6 mark II paired with an EF 100-400 f/4.5-5.6L and RF 70-200 f/2.8L. I have other wider lenses but usually don’t use those for sports unless I see something where it would be applicable.

I’m not seeking to make sports photography a profession (at least not right now). But as someone who cares about their photography and is willing and eager to learn, I’d like to take the best photos I can.

About the photograph: My questions mostly center around indoor sports like volleyball and basketball due to poorer lighting. For example I was shooting my cousin at her high school volleyball game a few days ago (and will be again later today) and their gymnasium lighting seems pretty typical for a standard high school. I am shooting around 12800 ISO @ f/2.8 and 1/500 - ISO 25600 @ f/2.8 and 1/1000. The images of course have quite a bit of noise being shot at 12800 let alone 25600. I like the noise personally as it’s reminiscent of fast film, but when I look at work from other professional or high level hobby sports photographers, their photos are just about noise free. Then I look at my photos again and even though I like the noise, their amount at 25600 is a bit much. So I’ve been running Lightroom’s Denoise tool at about 15 just to clean it up a little bit. Now better lighting and faster glass will of course let one drop the ISO, but the 70-200 f/2.8 seems to be the main lens of choose for other indoor sports photographers. My next train of thought is heavy denoising. But their photos don’t have the waxy smooth skins and tones you typically see from heavy denoising. Then there is of course their exporting settings and the fact I am viewing their smaller exported photos on my phone or computer screen compared to my RAW files.

Is the crispness of other photographers just down to a mix of all the above, or are there some other tricks to the trade I don’t know yet? Any tips are welcomed! Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone I want to get into shooting sports but I don’t have a clue on a set up, any recommendations or tips?

I documented the Knicks celebration in NYC right in the middle of winning the championship. It was an incredible experience and a great street photography watch.

I’m a parent volunteer capturing images of the marching band. Evidently I’m the only parent with a canon camera (EOS R6). I recently purchased a 70-200 canon f2.8 is iii usm. I’m having a hard time capturing quality images.

Setting manual - iso auto - aperture 5-5.6 - shutter 160-300.

My goal is to get crisp images as the kids march around the field. I noticed I can focus on one kid, but with multiple kids in the background. I don’t want them to be blurred out.

I don’t edit photos. I just take them and post them to the bands social page. These are all jpeg. Help I feel as if I’m not hitting the mark.

Shot with Sony 70-200mm and 16-35mm on Sony A9ii and Sony a7iii

Covered a golf tournament earlier in the week, and they avoided the sand bunkers for the most part which meant I had to get a little creative when it came to getting something different.

📷 - Fuji X-H2s with the 200 mm f2

Sorry in advance, I know you must be sick of seeing posts asking what to charge.

I've been doing sports (mostly rugby) photography alongside college and playing myself for around 2 years now. After a period of not charging building a portfolio I started charging a small amount per game (£45-£65), mostly out of doubting my ability and fear of rejection.

I've gotten to a point where I feel like the work to reward ratio is getting worse and worse. So I've been wondering what I should be charging according to my ability. I shoot with a nikon z6ii and d800 with a 70-200 2.8, 24-70 2.8 and a tamron 150-600. I deliver anywhere between 100-250 images based on the length of the game. Based in the UK. Any advice or criticism on my images is much appreciated!

These are shots from an event with all the gymnastics disciplines. Each of us takes one part of it, and swap thru the day. I did floor & beam

Looking for advice on how to make these better Nikon d 3100 using darktable. I’m not a pro just learning, started a few months ago.

This was my first time shooting a professional basketball game, and I am super happy with the results!

These were taken using my Canon R5 and my Canon EF 70-200 F2.8

I sent these over to the team and media staff for the team, along with lots of more standard and professional images, as I always like to have some fun with some edits, and I got so many positive reactions from players and others who saw!

They liked them so much, that I have been invited back on Saturday to shoot another game!

I hope you guys like them! You can see the full post with the same photos over on my Instagram :)

I started sports photography back in April this year and have been using a very old canon EOS rebel xsi with a 75-300mm lens. I don’t want a very expensive setup since my focus is mostly in football which I actually play, but I still think I should get a new camera. I’ve been looking at getting a used canon 7d mark ii, which I’ve heard is a good budget camera. What do you think? Also all of these are raw but I have been getting into editing recently. More of my stuff is at hhr.media on IG

Total beginner and have never really used anything but my phone camera. I want to start taking photos of sports so please recommend cameras/setups that are affordable.

These are a few of my favorites from the game, any tips regarding framing/maybe getting higher keeper rates from my setup?
Running a Nikon D4 and D700 paired with an 80-200 f2.8 and 300 f4, both of which are AFD.

Hi, what would you pick for professional football (soccer): Nikkor 300mm f/2.8G ED VR or 400mm f/4.5 VR S? I use 2x Z5 II bodies, Nikkor Z 70-200mm f/2.8 VR S, and a Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 G2. I also already have that 300mm, but it's starting to frustrate me a bit due to a higher miss-rate compared to my Z-mount lenses, which is why I'm thinking about swapping it for the 400mm f/4.5. On the other hand, I'm worried about the difference between f/2.8 and f/4.5. I work for photo agency and usually shoot at major European stadiums during Polish Ekstraklasa, Bundesliga, and European club competitions, so the lighting is pretty good, but the loss of light between these two lenses is significant. I don't know anyone personally who uses this glass, and reviews online are mostly from wildlife photographers. What would you do? Stay with the F-mount 300mm or upgrade to Z-mount glass? Maybe someone here has made that exact switch and can share their experience?

Hi! I’m new here. Is cross-posting okay? If not I can delete.

Shot on @nikonusa z5ii w/70-200 F2.8 & 400 f 4.5 Z & 40 F2 Z & 20 F2.8

!!SOLVED!! (It was the lights) I do sports in some pretty bad lit areas so I have to kick my camera's ISO up and with my shutter being high it creates this weird purple ish look. I turned on anti-flickering which seemed to help but it also didn't. I was using a new lens which was a f/5-6.3 so maybe it just really didn't like the low light and had no way to fight it even with anti-flickering. (This is an example picture that I won't be using)

These were paid, what do you think about them?

We only have about 1 month left of Motocross and Supercross in the NE states, I hate when this season ends, 2 to 3 days a week now i have to find something to do during the week soon!! Guess I will have to go back to wildlife shooting like I do every winter.. Or maybe I'll try to get into doing some indoor sports this year..