Basketball: 85mm f/1.8 in a well lighted gym . . .

After advising someone on this forum to purchase an 85mm f/1.8 lens instead of a 70-200 f/2.8 lens for a beginners indoor sport lens I started thinking about using my own advice. Looking at the focal length used in a dozen shots taken with the 70-200 and later selected for the local newspaper I had noted that 80 percent were in the range of 70-90 mm. So why not just use the 85mm lens? You won’t miss very many shots on account of the lens and you might gain the advantage of wider apertures, faster shutter speeds and potentially sharper images.

I’ve had the 85mm f/1.8 lens for 5 years and had never used it in a well lighted gym. I always went with the 70-200 if there was enough light. Last weekend there was a JV scrimmage game in a well lit gym so I gave it a try. I kind of liked the results and so I used it on a couple of varsity games instead of the 70-200.

The posts that follow this one have the frames I selected for the local newspaper. I am fully expecting someone will be kind enough to step up and comment that the images coming from my $2000 70-200mm f/2.8 lens in my previous posts are way better than the images from my $300 85mm f/1.8 lens in this thread.  So, like, I can show it to my wife.