[RGlasel]

Myth #1: The only difference between professional sports photographers and myself is $15,000 worth of equipment.
Busted: All of these photos are taken with a K-30 and a DA 18-135 DC WR lens. Knock a zero off of $15,000 and you still have about $300 left for another lens. What I don't have is the timing sense and sharp eye to properly frame interesting pictures and anticipate when to press the shutter button while the game is in progress. And I don't have press credentials to take my equipment courtside at events that publishers will pay money for pictures from.

Myth #2: You need a fast f2.8 telephoto to get a shallow enough depth of field to isolate a single player.
Busted: The picture above is taken at f5.6. My camera managed to get the ball in focus, but not the player getting ready to receive the pass.

Myth #3: You need at least 1/500 of a second to avoid motion blur.
Busted: This picture was taken at 1/160 of a second. Gravity prevents the basket netting from staying in that position very long.

Myth #4: You will have too much noise if you go higher than ISO 1600 with an crop sensor camera.
Busted: This picture was taken at ISO 12,800. Yes, I used Topaz Denoise at a moderate setting to clean up this picture, but the real problem is that the AF locked onto the black metal railing up in the stands. This high school gymnasium has lighting from the sixties, so I also had to set the white balance, but the colours you see now are true (and the people in the stands are underexposed because they are close to the ceiling and there are no lights up there).

Myth #5: You need telephoto lenses with lots of reach if you want to get shots of action at other end of the court/field/pitch.
Busted: With an APS-C camera, 135mm focal length is enough to go the full length of a basketball court. The DA 18-135 allows me to get the equivalent focal lengths of someone using a full frame camera and a 70-200mm zoom. I was standing on the floor, not up in the bleachers, but it's hard to convey action and movement in pictures taken from well above the game. Which is why getting field level access is so important.

This was my first attempt to shoot indoor sports with a DSLR camera. The biggest challenges are determining in advance what focal length you want for different areas of the court, anticipating where and when players will be in a good position for good pictures and keeping up with the game while you are looking through the viewfinder. Getting the right spot in focus is also a big problem, but with practice if I can get what I want in the middle of the frame, the camera should be able to figure out the rest.

[Steve.Ledger]

To be honest, none of those shots are particularly sharp. They're also a little bit underexposed.
So I think it holds that better and faster glass will give much better results

[danny09]

Impressive shots for your setup. Seems like you need to use a slightly higher shutter speed to freeze action. What were your AF settings? just curious...
Also why did camera focus on the back railing? I guess coz of slightly 'larger' focus points in K30 compared to say a K3?

[Mazhe]

I'm sorry, are you telling us you are at *pro* level with those pictures quality? You should really have a look at Ron Hendrick or the many 50-135 users pictures, and review your "myths"...

Here's a few images from my first basketball game, a charity game between a local police dept. and a Tobacco Road league team. Shot this for a local online publication.

Started with a 50-135 on one body and the Tamron 28-75 on the other. Since I could roam around, the 50-135 was too long, especially for half time and grip & grins so I shot most of it with the 28-75 and a DA 12-24. I measured the lighting with an incident meter at about EV 9 for ISO 100. Since I shoot manual exposure and use Sunny 16 as an anchor, I needed to compensate for about six stops. Shooting DNGs on K5IIs, thers is wiggle room. Most of the time, I was at f4 and ISO 3200 or 2.8 and ISO 1600. Shutter speed stayed at 1/320 except when I shot grip & grins when I could slow shutter and get a little more DoF.

First two are 50-135, second two are 12-24 and last two are 28-75.

[calculator01]

I'm sorry, are you telling us you are at *pro* level with those pictures quality? You should really have a look at Ron Hendrick or the many 50-135 users pictures, and review your "myths"...

This.

[Kerrowdown]

The only difference between professional sports photographers and myself is $15,000 worth of equipment

I'm sure that when you really start looking into it, you'll find that there are a quite a few more differences, apart from just kit.

[RGlasel]

are you telling us you are at *pro* level with those pictures quality?

No, not at all. My point is that cheap equipment isn't the reason why my pictures suck. I saw a teacher taking pictures with a 5D and a "pro" 70-200 f2.8 lens, and while I'm sure his pictures are better than mine, it isn't because of his equipment. I'm sure his pictures are sharper than mine too, but that's not important because when his pictures get posted on a website or printed in the yearbook, no one will notice. People want to see athletes in action, not the fine details of their surroundings.

To be honest, none of those shots are particularly sharp. They're also a little bit underexposed. So I think it holds that better and faster glass will give much better results

The only post-processing done with my pictures was to reduce high ISO noise and adjust white balance. I zeroed out EV compensation in the camera before I started, didn't change metering from centre-weighted and left AF at 11 points. I tried shutter speeds of 1/160, 1/200, 1/250 and 1/320 but that had no effect that I could see, other than requiring higher ISO values. I've seen advice on this board to get faster lenses and increase shutter speeds to shoot sports, and if someone is looking for reasons to spend money, that's fine, but when it comes to action, better photography is 90% technique and 10% optics. Instead of blindly following the accepted wisdom here, I tried a semi-controlled experiment, and in the interests of helping out other Pentax users, posted what I discovered. If it offends someone to have their firmly entrenched opinions challenged, the least they can do is conduct their own tests to prove my five points wrong.

---------- Post added 02-08-14 at 03:28 PM ----------

why did camera focus on the back railing?

I had AF set to continuous, and as I was looking through the viewfinder trying to follow the shot from the top of the key, I assume my camera focused on the wall with the banners instead of the basket.

[Steve.Ledger]

I'm sorry you got so emotional over an honest opinion. It's not about proving you wrong - my comments were based on your results in view of your claims. Pure objectivity really.

[osv]

No, not at all. My point is that cheap equipment isn't the reason why my pictures suck.

i think that everyone agrees with that viewpoint to some extent, because technique can overcome a lot of issues.

one of the biggest hurdles that i found with the k10d and motorsports was the horrible iso performance, which effectively limited the shutter speed... so it is also true that equipment can limit picture quality.

both you and the other poster seriously do need to increase the shutter speed, tho... neither of you has optimized your technique yet.

basketball looks like a focus nightmare to shoot... i wonder if it would be helpful to setup some sort of trap focus situation, right underneath the basket area... let the player come into your plane of focus, instead of trying to track 'em the length of the court every time.

[Nick Siebers]

I'm sorry you got so emotional over an honest opinion. It's not about proving you wrong - my comments were based on your results in view of your claims. Pure objectivity really.

Steve, you maybe didn't read his comments that closely? Because it was pretty obvious that he was NOT claiming to produce pro level work. The opposite, in fact. A lot of you seemed to have totally misunderstood.

[Steve.Ledger]

Nick, I'm not about to enter into an argument you about how I understood the OPs post, that's entirely my business.
Point missed (I think) is that when you post on a forum and make certain claims (eg: "The only difference between professional sports photographers and myself is $15,000 worth of equipment."), be prepared for other forum users to put forward a counter P.O.V.
If the OP's samples supported that claim, I would have agreed entirely and congratulated him. They didn't so I couldn't. Simple as that.

[RGlasel]

both you and the other poster seriously do need to increase the shutter speed, tho

Motorsports has a very different velocity than foot-powered sports. I took 15 shots at 1/320, 64 at 1/160, and 120 in between. I got some blurred fingers at 1/160, but any other blurring you see is a result of objects being out of focus. The two attached photos were taken at 1/160 about 1 second apart. My camera lost focus in the second shot and a faster shutter speed wouldn't make the player's face or the ball significantly clearer in the first shot.

basketball looks like a focus nightmare to shoot

It certainly was for me. I've seen hundreds of pictures where almost the entire court is in the frame, and they are lifeless and unappealing.I wanted to stick with a narrow field of view, and not only do players move up and down the court as fast as they can, but they also move from side to side as quickly as possible. Pictures of the backs of players are of little interest and if you can't get the backboard and basket in the frame when a player is taking a shot, you have more pictures without meaningful context. So you have to pick a corner to stand at and constantly change your focal length, while keeping the subject on a focusing point. You don't have the luxury of waiting for a good shot, you have to use continuous shooting every time the action is in a good zone for your shooting location.

---------- Post added 02-08-14 at 07:32 PM ----------

make certain claims

I guess you missed "Myth #1: " that preceded the sentence you quoted. You might want to check for scroll bars on your browser window.

Simple as that.

[PANGU_yien]

Steve, straight up, you did misunderstand the OP if you're suggesting that was his claim. Read it again and it looks like he's saying people who claim "The only difference between professional sports photographers and myself is $15,000 worth of equipment." should know that it's not true. And when you're read was that far off (or anytime you post online for that matter) it's not limited to "your business".

[Steve.Ledger]

My apologies..