Spartan Bob wrote:
Can anyone tell me what the best camera and/or lens would be to take action shots of football and basketball in low light situations?
Canon 7D Mark II or Nikon D500. Both these are APS-C (crop sensor) models that allow you to use smaller, lighter, less expensive lenses.
Ideal lenses for football (night games, low light):
24-70mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8, 300mm f/2.8, 400mm f/2.8
Canon 200-400mm f/4 1.4X or the new, similar Nikkor 180-400mm f/4 1.4X, both of which have built-in, matched 1.4X teleconverters, would be very good too. But both of them are quite large, heavy and expensive.
Lenses for basketball indoors:
24-70mm f/2.8, 70-200mm f/2.8, 35mm f2 or f/1.4, 50mm f/1.4, 85mm f/1.8 or f/1.4, 100mm f/2, 135mm f/2. Some "crop only" lenses such as 17-55mm f/2.8 might be usable, too, on the APS-C cameras above.
Less expensive, smaller, lighter options that might be adequate for either if lighting isn't too low:
24-120mm f/4, 24-105mm f/4, 24-70mm f/4, 300mm f/4 (note: autofocus is usually slightly slowed with lenses that have less than f/2.8 aperture).
Lenses in both cases need to have high performance auto focus drive systems to rapidly acquire and track moving subjects. Canon USM and Nikon Silent Wave ultrasonic lenses are the best choice. Third party... Tamron USD and Sigma HSM... might serve well, too.
Yes, high performance full frame cameras such as the current Nikon D5 or Canon 1DX Mark II can be used, too.... but you may need longer, bigger, heavier more expensive telephotos such as 600mm f/4.
Notorious T.O.D. wrote:
If you are on a budget and interested in a Canon I would also take a look at the 1D MkIII which is an older Pro level body. You can find excellent condition ones for about $500. It compares will to the 7D and 7D2 as the below chart shows. 10mp but that is fine if you are mostly web posting. Very rugged D series build. Built in vertical grip which I really like vs an add on vertical grip.
Yes, the 1D Mark III is an excellent sports cameras with very good high ISO performance. Just be aware that it uses an APS-H size sensor (smaller than full frame, but larger than APS-C). As a result it is restricted to using full frame lenses (I.e., Canon EF-S lenses cannot be fitted... but there aren't a lot of those that are geared for high performance action shooting.) Also be aware that the larger batteries the 1D, 1Ds and 1DX series (and similar Nikor) use are much more expensive. (Personally I prefer and use add-on vertical grips.... because I can remove them if I wish, to make the camera smaller and lighter for backpacking or bicycling or whatever.)
Also, the 1DIII doesn't have Flicker Free feature. Newer cameras such as 7D II, D500, D5 and 1DX II do offer this new feature that's a great thing to have when shooting under a lot of gym lighting. Those lights actually cycle on and off at a very rapid rate (60 Hz, in N. America). This cycling of the lights is so fast our eyes don't notice it, but our cameras sure do! It causes a very high percentage of images to be badly underexposed and have ugly color shifts. It's not unusual to lose half or more of one's shots in this type of lighting (fluorescent, sodium vapor and a couple other types). A relatively new feature, when it's enabled "Flicker Free" or "Anti-Flicker" that's on some recent Canon and Nikon models will detect the cycling of the lighting and time shutter releases to coincide with the peak output of the lights. I've been using a pair of 7D II for a couple years and can tell you from experience that this feature works really well and vastly reduces the percentage of images spoiled by underexposure... now it's only a few images here and there (instead of half or more of all the images I take, as was the case shooting without this feature).