sports lense for sony a100

[basketballmom]

HELP!
I have been browsing the net and I am sooo confused! I have a Sony a100 with the kit lenses 75-300/4.5-5.6 and 18-70/ 3.5-5.6. I am looking to buy a lense appropriate for low light, high speed sports. I am in charge of photographing our basketball season and want to make sure I get good shots. The amount of light available depends on what gym we are in and more often than not there is low light.

[DonSchap]

Originally Posted by basketballmom

HELP!
I have been browsing the net and I am sooo confused! I have a Sony a100 with the kit lenses 75-300/4.5-5.6 and 18-70/ 3.5-5.6. I am looking to buy a lense appropriate for low light, high speed sports. I am in charge of photographing our basketball season and want to make sure I get good shots. The amount of light available depends on what gym we are in and more often than not there is low light.

Unfortunately, your α100 will not be able to do what you want. Oh, you wish it could, but alas, it has its limitations and low-light is the number one example of them.

The noise is just awful at ISO-1600 and you are going to need the higher ISO to capture anything decent, action wise, on the basketball court, even with an expensive low-light capable lens. (CZ 85mm f/1.4 or CZ 135mm f/1.8) A 50mm f/1.4 lens just will not get you close enough to be worth much.

I've been shooting college basketball games with the α700 & α850 ... and experience has shown that the ISO noise-response on the α700's CMOS Sensor is a far cry better than the α100's CCD Sensor, at ISO-800 on up.

The problem is not so much the light as it is the action. Your shutter speed needs to be at 1/320th second or faster.

My typical settings on the α850 (Full Frame DSLR) with the CZ 135mm f/1.8 mounted are:

Ap: f/1.8
SS: 1/400 sec.
ISO: 800
Metering: Spot
Focus: Spot
Manual Mode (because I do not want anything changing for the worse ... because you only get one crack at most of these)

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You would use similar settings with the α700 w/ the CZ 85mm f/1.4 mounted. You could probably swing this combination lens and DSLR for around $2000. At least you would have a fighting chance of getting your game photography within bounds. If not, return it and buy a Canon sports system. Unfortunately, with Canon bodies, there is no stabilization with their PRIME lenses under 200mm, but at 1/400 sec, it probably does not matter..

Any slower and the players become blurred. The lens' aperture is wide open. It is grabbing all the light it can. Only the ISO of the camera can make a difference at this point and the α100 simply is NOT the tool, I am sorry to say. You can get an α700 for around $700 if you look around. That, dear lady, is a fantastic price for a camera than can deliver a stabilized shot with a PRIME lens at these speeds.

Do not be afraid to pony up the cash, because you are entering into the most expensive kind of photography available to human beings, this side of space flight.

If you are doing it on the cheap ... good luck! But, hey ... if you do find a way, I am all ears!

[inkista]

You're either going to have to resort to flash photography, or get a lens with a large maximum aperture (probably f/2.8 or wider). If you want a zoom lens (vs. a prime), this will cost more. If you want a longer telephoto lens, this will cost even more.

On the Canon side of the fence, our EF 85mm f/1.8 USM is nicknamed "Mr. Basketball", so I'd guess that your closest match among the current new Sony lenses would be the Zeiss 85mm f/1.4. The problem here is that the Canon 85/1.8 is only about $350-$400, which is why it's preferable to getting a $1600 70-200 f/2.8 IS USM. The ZA 85/1.4 is about $1k. I'm not sure you have the lower-priced alternatives we've got, unless there's a used Minolta AF lens you can grab.

Sigma/Tamron make 70-200 f/2.8 lenses in the $700-800 range that might also work for you.

Sports, and particularly indoor low-light sports, is one of the most demanding subjects when it comes to lenses.