What Lens to Use for HS Wrestling Photos - EOS R7

[Jhatfield]

Hello,

I am very much a newbie to photography. I have an EOS R7 that came with the RF-S 18-150mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM. I got a camera solely to take photos of high school wrestlers (my husband is the coach). 

When taking photos of fast action wrestlers in a gym, I'm finding out with this lens the aperture is not low enough to keep my photos bright. I have to increase my ISO to a very high level, which is obviously not ideal for noise. I've tried the auto settings just to see what the photos come out at, and while the photo looks better, the shutter speed is too slow to capture the action, those or similar settings wouldn't work for what I'm doing.

What type of lens would be best for keeping my aperture low (I don't think this lens gets as low as I need), so I don't need to increase my ISO, while maintaining fast shutter speeds? I need the light.  🙂  

I have friends with DSLRs that shoot wrestling photos that have f/2.8 70-200 lenses, however the lens world is confusing to me, I am not confident I understand what the lens details mean. Some are older, some newer. I know they make mount converters but it seems a mirrorless lens would lend to better quality when using a mirrorless camera?  

I know nothing about photoshop or other similar software, I'm not opposed to this, but when I take hundreds of photos at a tournament, I don't have time to edit this many photos if it's for lighting. Is it too lofty to think I just want the photos to come out decent right out of the camera? 🙂  

Again, please excuse my newness and naivety. I just need help and I live in a rural area where there little to no photography resources around  -stores, courses, etc., (at least in the sense of a live person to ask questions to). 

Thank you,

Jody

[wq9nsc]

Jody,

Shooting wrestling is definitely not my sport, I have shot a lot of sports but a grand total of one wrestling match as a favor to one of the football players who was in his last match as a graduating senior.

You are correct that with typical HS lighting, you need a wide aperture lens (the lower the f number the wider the aperture and the more suitable it is for low light).  I shot that match using prime (single focus length lens) primarily 135mm f2 and 200mm f2 glass but a 70-200 f2.8 lens is only one stop slower and will work well with reasonable lighting.

Some basic rules I use for all my sports photography:

1.  Always shoot in RAW rather than JPG.  This allows you do do significant noise reduction in post and also correct for white balance and many other issues.  The free DPP software that comes as part of buying Canon bodies does a very good job and I seldom use Adobe creative suite for sports photos.

2. You can clean up noise in post but motion blur is forever so for typically dark HS sports, I set exposure control to manual with the aperture wide open, the shutter speed fixed fast enough to avoid significant motion blur, and let ISO float by setting it to the auto position because lighting is going to vary across the typical gym.  I started at 1/500 for wrestling but midway through bumped to 1/640 which was a good compromise setting.  1/500 was on the edge of creating too much blur.

3. You placement is critical in getting photos and you have the advantage of a good source of expert advice from the coach 🙂  Shooting wrestling was a learning curve for me and I was still figuring out best placement when the meet ended.  My 70-200 f2.8 is my most used sports lens because it is very versatile and has a wide enough aperture with current camera bodies to provide noise free sports images under any reasonable lighting.  The 18-150 that came with your camera is going to be very limiting given its narrower aperture and although I don't have direct experience with that lens, in general a lens that has a very wide focal length range tends to not perform as well in terms of image quality as a similar design with a narrower range of available focal length.

This was my first and probably (hopefully) last attempt at shooting HS wrestling 🙂 

https://rodgersingley.smugmug.com/Senior-Night-Wrestling/n-FhFzWz

Rodger

[Jhatfield]

Thank you so much for the information. So you used two prime lenses. I have no idea why they are called prime? To note they do not zoom? Why did you choose those lenses to use? I only have a tiny bit of experience with the one lens I own, so maybe it just makes more sense when you have multiple lenses that you just know what you like. I have been shooting in jpeg, only because I have no idea how do do anything with the raw photo. I was saving them in both formats, but then just went to JPEG. Maybe that's a mistake and I should just be keeping the raw version anyway, but I have no idea how to edit photos, or at least haven't taken the time to do so. I like your comment about you cannot clean up blur, that really has resonated with me. As far as placement, I'm learning! My husband is the expert in wrestling, (I'm just around it all the time so it is slowly making sense to me through some form of osmosis, I think) 🙂 and trying to figure out the camera alone has me all sorts of distracted while taking photos when the action happens so fast. It's a learning curve for sure. Thank you for posting your photos, I enjoyed looking at them and am very much impressed with your abilities. Are you in IL? I am right over here in Iowa. I appreciate your lense recommendation, I want to make sure I'm on the right track. This is a dumb question, but are there multiple types of the Canon 70-200 f2.8 that fit my camera, (similar models for each year they release, some just a little newer/possibly tweaked with updates - like a new Toyota Camry is released every year for example, but they are all Camrys, however some have been upgraded in time), or is it like, 'here is the Canon 70-200 f2.8 lens you use for this camera, if you don't have this exact lens it's possible an adapter is available.' So if you have a 70-200 f2.8, it is the exact same lens, manufactured the exact same every year, no changes. Does that question make sense? Thanks again.

[wq9nsc]

I use prime lenses a lot because I like what they provide in terms of image quality and low light performance but they are not nearly as versatile as the 70-200 f2.8 which is why you will see so many of that lens at sporting events.  I usually have a 70-200 f2.8 on one of my camera bodies at sports events.

There are two major "flavors" of the 70-200 f2.8, one has image stabilization and the other doesn't.  Image stabilization helps you get sharp images at lower shutter speeds by minimizing blur caused by camera shake BUT it does nothing for motion blur caused by the speed of the subject.  I prefer IS lenses because I do take some photos of stationary subjects but if cost is a huge concern and you are mainly concerned about shooting athletic events then you won't be needing or using IS at the shutter speed needed to freeze a fast moving athlete.  Some people like using IS because it helps to reduce "jitter" in the viewfinder but I hate that with sports because I don't need the lens trying to make adjustments while I am following the action so I turn IS off when shooting sports.

You definitely want to shoot RAW and it takes very little time to gain a lot of expertise at editing RAW files and the results over JPG captures at a sports event are well worth it.  Ask your husband how he would feel about throwing away a large percentage of his team's talent before a meet and that will give you an idea what you are doing when you capture using JPG instead of RAW.  My now college age daughter is quite sharp and when she was in high school, she helped me edit some of her soccer match photos and she picked up Canon DPP proficiency in about 15 minutes.  DPP has a few things that drive me nuts but overall it is an excellent and easy to use program.

Since you husband is the coach, you can easily gain experience and try different setups by shooting a practice or two.

Rodger

[ebiggs1]

Rodger's advice is once again spot on. Some of the rest above is not because we don't know from where you will be shooting unless I missed it. You can't recommend a lens until you know that. Obliviously the closer you can be the shorter FL lens you will need. If you are restricted to the bleachers on the other hand a much longer FL will be required.

IMHO this is totally incorrect, "try shooting in Tv mode with it set to 1/250, but as long as he says "try" it, I guess its OK to try. When you shoot any sporting event it is best to do what the pros do. The favored settings might be Av mode. auto ISO and Raw. You will select an aperture near the most wide open of your lens, let's say f2.8. You will set  an ISO limit at both the low end and high end. Maybe 100 to 6400. Of course never ever use jpg always use Raw. These are suggestions and may need to be tweaked one way or the other.

You need to post edit. Period! No getting around it if you want the best possible photos. Canon offers you DPP4 for free. You can d/l it from the Canon support site. There are others such as Photoshop Elements which is very reasonably priced for all that it can do. You may ask what about the other settings in my camera like white balance or picture style, etc. don't concern yourself with any of the other settings because shooting Raw you set all that in post as you edit your shots. Raw only records exposure and IQ nothing else. However you editor DPP4 or PSE, etc., will use those settings to create you a viewable image so you may want to pay some attention to them.100% changeable and editable by you in post.

[Jhatfield]

Thank you so much for your advice, much appreciated! Well, I can shoot from anywhere except in the wrestling circle - 😂.  No seriously, I'm lucky because I can sit up to 5 foot away from the circle, so close enough I have to watch out that I don't get run into at times by the wrestlers. I appreciate your recommended settings. As I mentioned in a comment above, I have been shooting jpeg only because I haven't gotten into editing photos yet, but I also have the option to shoot both simultaneously so I should probably at least go that route so I have them. I completely agree that editing would greatly benefit my photos and I'd like to get to the point I'm learning to do that. I'm not opposed to paying for something like photoshop, as long as I know I'm going to have time to learn editing. Do you have a preference in software you use? I'm guessing since Canon is free it may be more limited in offerings, but obviously it's better than what I have now, which is nothing. 🙂  I need to just get in at least learn how to edit the lighting at a minimum. I've only shot two tournaments so I feel I'm just trying to figure out the camera at this point. Not going to lie, the thought of editing gives me a little heartburn because I'm afraid I'll get in there and there will be these unlimited choices on how to tweak the photo - I'm pretty OCD and this is why I wouldn't make a good artist. (Ironically, something both my brothers do for a living.)  But again, I completely agree that editing is more than worth the time and would love to learn. I'm sure once I start, I'll think 'why didn't I start sooner, this is more user friendly than I thought it would be.'

[ebiggs1]

"Second is to use lenses with wider apertures.  e.g. an RF 50mm f/1.2 ..."

Again like I said above we don't know where you will be shooting from. But in your case a fixed FL lens, like a prime lens, is probably not a good choice. I doubt you will be using its available f1.2 aperture either unless you can get very close to the action. Like a few feet or so. At this point it makes a 70-200mm f2.8 a good candidate. 

Rick's suggestions are also spot on.

[Jhatfield]

Thank you again. The little I do know about lenses, I agree in that I'm leary on a fixed lens choice. (I'd hate to make that investment and then regret it, for the purposes of photographing wrestling, anyhow.) Even if I'm close, the wrestlers move around a lot in the circle, and sometimes the option of zooming in to get a good face shot is appealing. People I've talking to taking photos at wrestling meets seems to have a zoom lens, not a fixed lens. I don't think a fixed lens is wrong, but might limit me more in what I'm trying to capture. I really appreciate your recommendations. 

[ebiggs1]

OK, kido, here's the scoop on editing. Canon's DPP4 is no lightweight. It can do almost anything that a photographer needs to do. It can't do the very much more intense and involved edits like multiple layers and masks. etc., like Photoshop, the industry standard, can. Editing is as difficult or as easy as you want it. You already u/l the photos to your computer, correct? Well simply let DPP4 do that for you. If you like what you see you are done. That's all. Using Raw can be that simple!  However, if you see that a certain crop would make the shot a lot better just do that. Again done. Of course there can be serious edits that you can take as far as you want, Like color balance, exposure, sharpening, and such and such.

When you save the photo from DPP4 you can tell it what you need. Like you want to make a full beautiful print or email it or a FB picture, etc. Another beauty of Raw is if you do tons of edits and come to the conclusion you don't like what you've done its OK. Raw does not ever change. You never alter the original Raw file. This is not true with jpg as it destroys the original each time you do any edit, even tiny edits, or even just simply save it.

You see there is no good reason or even a bad reason to use jpg. Not even as a second save on you camera.

[Jhatfield]

Thank you so much! Dumb question, but then does the DPP4 allow you to save the photo in jpeg once done editing? I was thinking that you can't use the raw format to upload photos to Facebook, etc, so just trying to figure out how to get the more-user friendly file once done with editing?

[shadowsports]

Hi Jody,

Conversion to .JPG.  Yes, DPP will allow you to convert RAW edited or unedited filed to .JPG.  

This is referred to as "batch processing".  You can convert 1 or more images.  Time depends on the size, number of images and the processing power and amount of memory installed on your MAC or PC.  A modern PC will be quite fast.  

Give it a try.