Professional Sports with 50D

Professional sports can be a bit more tough to shoot, not because of the action or environments but due to the strict regulations that arenas and stadiums place on the type of equipment allowed into a sports venue.

When shooting NFL, NHL, MLB, or NBA games different venues have different policies on what lens length maximum is permitted.

I doubt very much you will get in with a 300 2.8 or 400 2.8, so you are probably wasting your time if that’s what you want to bring in.

However, I have had repeated success at different venues in different states bring a 70-200 2.8 into the venue with me. I’ve had success at NHL, NFL, and NBA games. Also, training camps are a perfect opportunity to bring the larger lenses such as 300 or 400, and not be turned away by the teams.

When I bring my 50D and 70-200 into the venues, I usually just wear it around my neck with the lens and body on my back. I don’t cover it with my shirt or anything, I just don’t leave it in a case. If you bring your camera in a case, and have to open the bag they are more likely to pay attention to your lens. So if you are going to try and bring in a longer lens then permitted, I would probably suggest wearing it around your back and just hoping you can get in!

As for everyone else who will just bring a kit lens or a zoom lens that is shorter (at least when not zoomed) then the maximum the venue permits.

If shooting out doors, you will want to shoot in Av mode and select the widest aperture setting you can with your lens. Additionally, you will want to achieve shutter speeds of 1/500 of a second or more preferably 1/1000 or faster. When you go into a day football game, you will likely find plenty of light to get faster shutter speeds. However you may need to use an ISO of 200, 400, 800 or 1600 in order to achieve this depending on the widest aperture your lens is capable of.

A faster shutter speed will also help reduce the camera shake blur of using a zoom telephoto lens hand held. When using a lens such as a 75 – 300, it will be hard to get crisp shots unless you use 1/500 or faster. Again you will likely need to boost the ISO to do so if the aperture is narrower than 4.0 F stop.

If shooting an out door football game, shoot in evaluative metering, this will achieve great color balance and help to ensure no uniforms are over exposed.

Use AI Servo focusing in combination with continuous shooting for high speed shooting and accurate motion focusing. Make sure the center focus point is used, and try and shoot in a vertical orientation to frame the scene tighter on your subject.

Again, make sure your custom function for iso noise reduction is disabled. This eats up your cameras buffer, and reduces FPS from 6.3 to a crippled rate. Also, we suggest shooting in RAW format so that you can properly edit your photos, and adjust white balance later when on your computer. RAW files allow 15 shot bursts, while JPG allows a greater number. You will need to decide if having more burst shot capability is more important then having image edit capability in post processing.