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Should I buy a 50D for shooting Basketball and Hockey??

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Gadget Man

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I'm trying to decide if I should buy a 50D for the purpose of shooting hockey and basketball. Currently I have a 20D and a 40D that I use for shooting soccer, baseball and football. Those seasons have ended now and I would like to shoot some basketball and hockey. I tried my 20D for basketball a few years ago and did not like the results. I was using Canon's 85mm 1.8 lens. From talking to parents, they would really like me to shoot their kids playing basketball. My primary complaint was the slow focusing of the 20D and many out-of-focus shots which I attributed to the 20D. I was shooting 1600 ISO with shutter speeds of 1/400th to 1/640th. I haven't tried the 40D for indoor sports except wrestling where they're pretty much stationary. Anyone out there shooting basketball and hockey with the 50D and can post links to your shots? I think there would be a nice market out there doing this. The big problem I hear parents saying is that their shots come out yellow! Hmmm, guess they've never read the manual and heard about white balance. I'm looking for faster focus and good 3200 ISO performance for the gyms that are not well lit, which most are not around here.

Thanks

Gadgetman
 
If you have a 40D, why not trying this first and look how it will work compared to the 20D?

Of what I have seen on the web, the 50D will not be an improvement for the job you are doing (low ISO-capabilities), except perhaps if you need crop the picture a lot.

But then also, buying a 70-200 f/2.8 (IS) for the 40D could be a much better upgrade.

--

http://www.svenrose.smugmug.com
 
By the way, on the focusing issue, I was getting alot of out of focus on the 40D when I shot hockey.

Then, I switch to just the center AF point from all 9 and that really reduced that problem.

--

 
I should have mentioned the other lenses I have also. I have a 24-70 2.8L, a 70-200 2.8IS, and the 100-400L IS. Of course the 100-400 would be too long for the indoors. The 70-200 might be to long, but I may try it out for shooting the other end of the court. When I shoot baseball, I carry three cameras, a 20D with the 100-400, the 40D with the 70-200IS and a XT with a 28-135IS. I would like to have two cameras, the 40D with possibly the 70-200 and maybe a 50D with the 85mm lens. I could use the 24-70L also.

I'm wondering how others feel about using flashes for BB. My concern is that if a player misses a shot, that the mom or dad will complain that my flash made them miss. Of course it shouldn't affect them as I would be off the the side and and they would be looking at the basket and not the camera.
 
Nice shots! Where were they taken from? I've had parents tell me that I could shoot over by the penalty box as there is no glass there. I am going to do some test shots at the three local rinks to see how the lighting is. I've been using the center focus point for the last three years, and I'll be damned how many show the red square right on the player and it is still out of focus. That's why I'm hoping for a better focus system on the 50D. What's really interesting, is I have a friend with a lot of money who bought a 1DM2N with a 70-200 2.8. He went out and shot along side of me at a football game and he had maybe 30% of his shots out of focus. My guess is he was not using center focus and the camera was guessing for him. I never asked him what focus method he was using.
 
Gadget Man said:
I'm trying to decide if I should buy a 50D for the purpose of
shooting hockey and basketball. Currently I have a 20D and a 40D
that I use for shooting soccer, baseball and football. Those seasons
have ended now and I would like to shoot some basketball and hockey.
I tried my 20D for basketball a few years ago and did not like the
results. I was using Canon's 85mm 1.8 lens. From talking to
parents, they would really like me to shoot their kids playing
basketball. My primary complaint was the slow focusing of the 20D
and many out-of-focus shots which I attributed to the 20D.
Click to expand...
I shot basketball last year with a 30D and the 85 f/1.8 lens. I finally got so frustrated with OOF shots, I sent the pair in for calibration (didn't have the problem with my 60 f/2.8) and when it came back I had mostly in focus shots. So, you could have a lens calibration issue instead of a camera issue.

--
Steve
 
Gadget Man said:
I should have mentioned the other lenses I have also. I have a 24-70
2.8L, a 70-200 2.8IS, and the 100-400L IS. Of course the 100-400
would be too long for the indoors. The 70-200 might be to long, but
I may try it out for shooting the other end of the court.
Click to expand...
How can the 70-200 be too long if you're used to the 85???? 70 is wider than 85. I do think the 24-70 would be good for a 2nd body.
Gadget Man said:
I'm wondering how others feel about using flashes for BB. My concern
is that if a player misses a shot, that the mom or dad will complain
that my flash made them miss. Of course it shouldn't affect them as
I would be off the the side and and they would be looking at the
basket and not the camera.
Click to expand...
I have used flash for BB, even from under the net. The players say it doesn't bother them. I would check with the coaches before the game to make sure they don't have a rule against it.

--
Steve
 
Steve
Blue II said:
How can the 70-200 be too long if you're used to the 85???? 70 is
wider than 85. I do think the 24-70 would be good for a 2nd body.
Click to expand...
Actually the 70-200 is much longer than my 85 mm lens by about 3".

Having a smaller lens hanging off my camera is much nicer than the 70-200 IS.

When I first used the 85mm lens, I was trying to zoom with it as all my other lenses are zooms! It took a while for me to get used to having a prime lens. It is nice to just grab the camera and shot without having to zoom though.
 
I shoot basketball with my 30D all the time. I always struggle with noise at the High ISO. I have considered upgrading to the 50D but can anyone tell me if the noise is better or about the same as my 30D?

I shoot basketball from the stands with my 70-200mm 2.8f IS and get very good results. Using the center focus point only I have to be very careful to keep the subject in the center or it will focus on the background. The focus points are black and hard to see in a dark gym. Is there a way to make the center point red continously so it is easier to see (maybe some hack)?

I can use lower ISO with flash and close down the ap to get more focus depth and clearer picturers, but then you have to worry about red-eye. So I use a flash stand that holds the flash unit about 16 inches away from the lens. Works Great!! No Red Eye. (fixing red eye takes way too much time).

I also shoot down on the floor in the corners or behind the basket (I shoot for a weekly newspaper so my press pass will let me behind the basket). I use my 17-55 2.8f IS lens which seems to work ok. Most HS games will let you use flash, but college generally will not.

I prefer the more natural look of basketball pictures without flash, but in dark gyms, as most HS gyms are, I have to use at least a little flash.

Not to highjack this topic, but would it be worth upgrading to the 50D from the 30D just for lower noise at high ISO?
 
I shot it from the stands. alot of my pics come from behind the glass, even though the glass looks like it was acid washed.
--

 
Brian,

thanks for the comments. Your question about the ISO noise level is one I hope others with this camera will post their shots. One thing I do like about the 50D is the larger files for cropping. I routinely sell 20" x 30" posters and cropping a 20 x 30 poster from a landscape 20D image was leaving me with 71DPI for printing with actually looked pretty good. A 40D cropped the same way leaves me with 87 DPI and I downloaded a 50D image from here and it is giving me 106DPI at a 20 x 30 inch crop. When I shot football, sometimes I can get two crops from the same photo. The 50D should give me about 25% more area to crop from. I am going to go do some test shots at the new gym the school built and then see how they compare to the older gym. You would think that a newer gym would have better lighting.

Lets see some 50D sports shots please.
 
Blue,

Nice action shots! From your previous posts, you have a 30D, how does the focusing accuracy compare to the 50D's? What ISO did you shoot the football game at?
 
Gadget Man said:
I'm wondering how others feel about using flashes for BB. My concern
is that if a player misses a shot, that the mom or dad will complain
that my flash made them miss. Of course it shouldn't affect them as
I would be off the the side and and they would be looking at the
basket and not the camera.
Click to expand...
I would worry a little bit about this. I did play basketball and your peripheral vision does play some part, which could affect the shot with the flash. If I missed a shot or made a bad pass because of a flash there would have been some chewing out going on.
 
Gadget Man said:
Blue,

Nice action shots!
Click to expand...
Thanks.
Gadget Man said:
From your previous posts, you have a 30D, how
does the focusing accuracy compare to the 50D's?
Click to expand...
There is no comparison. The speed and accuracy of the 50D is noticeably better.
Gadget Man said:
What ISO did you
shoot the football game at?
Click to expand...
If you look at the right hand side, it shows the exif for each shot. For that game, I started at ISO 3200 and switched to ISO 6400 later on.

--
Steve
 
You've almost got me talked into buying one. With Amazon offering no payments for a year or no interest for two years with minimum payments, it is almost a no-brainer. With the price dropping from $1399 to $1199, it makes it even tougher. My 8 year old son will be getting my old XT when I get a new camera. He will be assigned to getting the emotional sideline shots that I can't get because I am getting the action shots. We've already got him a photo vest like Dad.
 
Now here's a good question, would you have made the pass or shot had a photographer not used a flash?
 
70-200 is not too long for basketball, it works fine even under the basket, although the 24-70 works there fine too for the wider style of basket shooting.
it's a tad short for the far basket.
Gadget Man said:
I should have mentioned the other lenses I have also. I have a 24-70
2.8L, a 70-200 2.8IS, and the 100-400L IS. Of course the 100-400
would be too long for the indoors. The 70-200 might be to long, but
I may try it out for shooting the other end of the court. When I
shoot baseball, I carry three cameras, a 20D with the 100-400, the
40D with the 70-200IS and a XT with a 28-135IS. I would like to have
two cameras, the 40D with possibly the 70-200 and maybe a 50D with
the 85mm lens. I could use the 24-70L also.

I'm wondering how others feel about using flashes for BB. My concern
is that if a player misses a shot, that the mom or dad will complain
that my flash made them miss. Of course it shouldn't affect them as
I would be off the the side and and they would be looking at the
basket and not the camera.
Click to expand...
 
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