Best Nighttime sports camera

[mardigraslove]

I've been struggling with taking photos of my childrens nightime football games. I've always used film and am looking tinto changing to digital. They always come out dark or a big blur of light. What features would be best for me? I'd really like to stay under $500.

[jml79]

Honestly, a bigger budget. $ 500 barely gets you in the door let alone a fast lens and high ISO body you want for that type of shooting.

I would suggest $ 1500 might get you a sony A55 or a canon T2i and a tamron 70-200 f/2.8. These are the least expensive cameras I can think of with a modern high ISO sensor and the least expensive fast telephoto lens I know of.

[dlambert]

You need to either maximize your ability to capture available light or augment the light that's available (flash). If there's any chance for you to use a flash for what you're doing, I'd give that a try -- this is sort of the "big hammer" approach, and it's going to give you a better bang for the buck than the next-best solution. If you're working with flash, you're going to have a lot better results with an external flash - I've got a LumoPro LP160 that was reasonably-priced, and can be triggered as an optical slave from any camera -- even a P&S. There's a site called Strobist that's got a couple interesting articles about using strobes to light indoor sporting events -- I'm not sure if any of that info would translate to an outdoor event, but it's worth a read.

If you're looking to get these shots without a flash, there are two ways to maximize your ability to use the light that's available to you. Good high-ISO support in your camera body makes the most of the light your lens can transmit. The best cameras for this are full-frame DSLR's (very expensive) followed by cropped-sensor DSLR's. High ISO support is one area where newer cameras tend to do better than older cameras, and high-MP sensors tend to perform worse than lower-MP sensors, all things being equal.

Finally, as jml79 pointed out, you really want to be shooting with a f/2.8 lens, and this won't be cheap, though you may be able to rent one of these for a game.

To get a sense for what the "big boys" shoot with, check out some of Scott Kelby's archives (ex: NFL Sideline Shoot: Titans vs Colts (and how I got kicked off the sidelines) Scott Kelby's Photoshop Insider Blog » Photoshop & Digital Photography Techniques, Tutorials, Books, Reviews & More). Notice the Nikon D3s camera at ISO 1250 w/ a 400mm f/2.8 lens -- and this is on top of lighting that's probably a lot better than you've got in your stadium.

Shooting action with poor lighting is a huge challenge for you and your equipment, but hopefully you can find a couple winning shots if you experiment with this stuff.