The 300/f2.8 – the All Purpose Lens
While most photographers might say that a 24-70, or 50mm lens is their all purpose lens – let me make the case for the 300mm, f2.8 lens as the all purpose lens.
I’ve loved Canon’s version of this lens (and in particular, the Image Stablized version) since picking it up in 2007. It’s been a workhorse lens, seeing action in nearly every sporting event I’ve shot since.
And it has flexibility. In daylight, for field sports like soccer, I pair it with the Canon 1.4x teleconverter to give me the 420mm focal length that reaches out to, and beyond midfield for action.
Something Different: Swimming and Diving
Since I’ve started blogging, I’ve primarily been covering football. That’s part of the nature of living in the Atlanta area, and more generally the south – high school and college football is the king of sports here.
With the seasons changing, winter sports are starting. Among those is Swimming and Diving. Greater Atlanta Christian has a beautiful swim center that opened last winter for one meet. This year, it will host several. Among the best features of this building is the light. It has some daylight (although not today due to the time of day) but also excellent artificial lights that have a nice soft, diffused output (bounced off the inside of the roof) with a nice consistent color temperature throughout the building. And a rarity in high school structures – it has enough light to shoot natural light at good shutter speeds. It really gives color a great punch.
One more note on lighting – it generally is not accepted to use flash or strobes at swimming. One of the signals for the start is strobe flash.
Diving is a difficult sport to shoot. At this event, only the 1 meter springboard was used, which means most of the divers’ didn’t achieve enough height to clear the background. Some did – which greatly improved the results.
Some strokes photograph better than others. Breast stroke is great to shoot. The key is getting the swimmer with the head fully out of the water and mouth opening to breathe. You can shoot from head on or the side.
Butterfly also photographs well – but only from the front. The best swimmers get high out of the water. You have to be careful not to clip hands and arms.
Swimming also gives a lot of time for off-action shots – like waiting on the start. I liked the repetition here with the second swimmer in the background.
There’s also a lot of downtime for the swimmers – which is a great opportunity for candids as they interact with teammates. I’ll often use my 300/2.8 for candids – it keeps me out of the interaction but allows for tight framing.
