topic Re: R10/18-150 a good starting point? in EOS DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras

R10/18-150 a good starting point?

marqaco1 — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 10:52:58 GMT

Hi! Quick questions: would I be ok with starting sports photography as a hobby to grow into with the Canon R10 and 18-150 f3.6-6.3 lens? I have no money yet for an f2.8, so looking at my options and not getting any good answers really yet https://tutuapp.uno/ .

Re: R10/18-150 a good starting point?

stevet1 — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 20:06:18 GMT

marqaco1,

I sure hope so. That's what I'm shooting for too.

Steve Thomas

Re: R10/18-150 a good starting point?

kvbarkley — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 21:18:03 GMT

If you are in good light and relatively close to the action, yes. i.e., not at night or in the nosebleed section.

Re: R10/18-150 a good starting point?

Tronhard — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 21:56:18 GMT

The term 'sports photography' covers a wide range of genres: from close by table tennis, through to basketball in rather dim arenas and field subjects like baseball or fast games like football or soccer. One lens is not going to be effective in all of those circumstances. So the variables come down to:
how close you are to the subject and that will dictate the focal lengths you are going to use
how much light there is and that will impact the aperture range

Thus, there is not single definitive solution: it depends. The critical factor right now is obviously budget, and as a starting point the RF-S 18-150 is going to offer as wide a range as you will get. As my colleague @kvbarkley indicated, much depends on where you are going to be and for that lens you need to be close. The aperture of f/2.8 will be more critical where light is limited, so can one infer that you are looking at indoor or evening sports?

Since you are obviously getting started on this photographic journey, I suggest you use this lens to learn about metering and the controls that let you get correctly exposed images: the so-called 'holy trinity' of:
Shutter speed: that controls the movement of the subject and the camera
Aperture: what you will get in focus and thus what you are telling your viewers is important
ISO: the amplification of the energy received by the sensor to record a correctly-exposed image. This is like turning up the gain in your stereo - making it louder will give more volume but also introduces more noise.

The combinations of these can offer a multitude of variables to get a correctly-exposed image, but each combination will render a different effect on the image. So, consider this period as a grounding in the basics of good photography and save up for lenses like the RF 24-240 or RF 100-400 for field sports. Also, look at the work of others in the genre and see how they work and what kinds of lenses they use to get their results:
I would recommend looking at videos by Brigham Young University:
How to Photograph Basketball - BYU Photo (youtube.com)

Re: R10/18-150 a good starting point?

p4pictures — Thu, 19 Sep 2024 22:04:06 GMT

I have the EOS R10 and the RF-S 18-150mm lens, it can certainly be used for sports, but this will depend on how close you are, and if the sport is outdoors or indoors.

Here's couple of examples from when I first took it to a local quad bike race. These events are quite small scale, but that means I can get remarkably close to the track and competitors. Using vehicle subject detection with the spot detection on, the camera would easily find the rider's helmet and track them.

RF-S 18-150mm @ 18mmRF-S 18-150mm @ 150mm