david vt Loc: Vermont

Hi

As winter moves into Spring here, will be shifting from indoor back to outdoor sports photography. (Jules - I remain jealeous of your weather!). Will be going from indoor/night venues to outdoor mid-day/afternoon venues. Anticipate shooting much more T&F (more F than T) and continue with the XC.

With that, I think I want to add a bit more each to be able to better “fill the frame” and still stay back from the atheletes (there is only so close I want to come to a javelin thrower!!!), and i will have more light to play with shooting in daytime.

Instead of spending on a full new lens, was thinking of added a 1.4x TC to the 70-200 f2.8 lens, which is a great sports lens. It would give me about 420mm “equivalent” at a minimum A of f4. Given the better light, and that I tipically shoot not quite wide open now, would appreciate insights from any members whom might have tried this.

My biggest worry is slowing down the AF too much, as I am capturing athletes in motion. I think I can live with the resulting f4 or perhaps f5.6 to get away from wide open for sharpness, but what do you think?

Thought it might be a relatively inexpensive way to get this extra reach. Will be shooting HH and I suspect at SS 1000+ except on cloudy days.

Thanks in advance.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Your math seems a bit off, unless you're referencing the field of view. Extended by 1.4 at the maximum zoom of 200mm, the effective focal length is 280mm. And yes, at a stop loss of light to f/4.

I've shot a D7100 with the 1.4 Nikon teleconverter on the Nikon 70-200 f/2.8 VR under stadium lights outdoors at HS soccer. The combination is excellent. The 40% increase in 'reach' is modest, but better than nothing if a 300mm f/2.8 lens or f/4 lens is out of reach. Stepping down to f/5 is a better choice if you have the available light and want a touch better sharpness on the extended configuration.

david vt Loc: Vermont

Hi. Yes, my “equivalent” statement was indeed referring to effective FOV, with the 1.5 CF of the D7200 coming into play.

Glad to hear that the combination should work well, especially as your D7100 will be the same as my D7200. I was thinking I might like to go 1/2 or full stop away from wide open for sharpness, as you suggest, as long as it does not give me too much DoF. Will have to try. If I like it, I might pop for the longer lens when/if finances allow. Thought this might, if the performance was good enough, give me a “low cost” longer lens, at least in the short term. The AF speed of the combo is what i was most worried about.

Thanks for the quick reply

Thomas902 Loc: Washington DC

"The AF speed of the combo is what i was most worried about." David your D7200 uses the Expeed 4 image processor... same as the D810 and approximately 30% to 40% faster than the D7100 (Expeed 3)... the real question here is what version of the Nikkor 70-200 f/2.8 VR... VR or VR II there is a difference...

For maximum throughput turn off VR; turn off High ISO noise reduction; Turn off Auto ISO; and any other items that eat cpu cycles... disable face detection; turn off focus tracking with lock-on; set AF-C priority to Release...

Also consider using 12 bit instead of 14 bit RAW... yes buffer size matters in sports especially with the D7200. You'll never notice any image quality lose with 12 bit... especially for daylight sports.

Get closer... know where to shoot to get the best illumination angle if shooting in direct hard sunlight...

This list goes around the block... If you stay with this in time you will ultimately discover that technique is far more important than throwing money at a perceived challenge... word!

btw, David my workaround with the D7200 is to assign the Movie Record button Custom Settings; Controls f9 to Choose Image Area 18x12 (instant 1.3x teleconverter) yes it's only 18x12 rather than 24x16 but it does what you need... and guess what you just saved $496.95... best news is you never have to take your eye away from the view finder... takes about 0.5 seconds to switch back & forth with a little practice... an added advantage of 18x12 (1.3x) is your frame rate will climb from 6 fps to at least 7 fps and possibly higher with a fast memory card... life is good...

btw, your D7200 is an awesome tool, while not the amazing frame rate and buffer size of the D500 it has a greater dynamic range and more acuity owing to it's 24 mega pixels... using 12 bit RAW will up your buffer to a reasonable amount..

Hope this helps...
All the best on your journey David...

david vt Loc: Vermont

Hi Thomas

Thanks for all the tips. FYI, I have the 2009-2015 version of the 70-200, the G VRII version, not the older one.

I saw on a thread a few days ago the comment about using the Reduce Image area to give give an instant 1.3x TC without any loss of stops. Curious about how this works, and you seem to know it, so I will ask. I assume it is just turning off the “outer” third (or so) of the sensor, essentially “cropping” in camera to get an longer FOV. It seems like this essentially creating a smaller “effective” sensor, similar to the way my AFC sensor is a smaller sensor than a FF camera. Do I have this correct?

If so, I guess I don’t understand how this does not essentially throw pixels away, the same way I would if I shot at “my” full sensor and then cropped. Is the result, in terms of effective total MP in the image, the same?

That said, I can see the advantage of using it in terms of, if I am just going to throw the outside pixels away in cropping, why not just turn them off in camera, and get the benefits of faster CPU processing as you outline. Almost seems too good to be true.

david vt Loc: Vermont

Hi Thomas

Oh, one more question. You outline may items to help spead up AF and CPU. Would these also not help when shooting any indoor sports (like BB) vs just outdoor? Why or why not?

Also, the autoISO off seems counter-intuitive to me. I shoot now manual A (to control DoF) and SS (to capture action, but let ISO float within limits, as outdoors shooting XC or other sports, as people move in and out of trees and clouds, seemed faster. Seems you might be doing full manual? If so, how do you adjust to quickly changing lighting?

As always, thanks in advance. I always love looking at your captures.

David

Thomas902 Loc: Washington DC

David in all honesty... you seriously need to stop asking others and start testing your own kit... I've given you my solution, if you don't bother to test it out, oh well... like so many others on UHH who are looking for validation, well sorry I'm not interested (I have too much client work on my plate at the moment), it's now up to you to get off your computer and start taking test images, lots and lots of them... Some day you might actually thank me for pushing you to do your own work instead of leaning on others...

btw, endless testing (with repeated failures) is how I've arrived at my inferences...

Attached below are two images captured at the resolution the 1.3x image size yields... 4800x3200
btw, this is the same size as the images out of a D4... And there are a numerous of Sport Illustrated covers shot with a D3 & D3s... which are only 12.4 mega pixels... enough said.

I wish you well...

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