Had an opportunity recently to take some photos at a sporting event.
In this case volleyball.
I can't think of a time where I've taken photos of any type of sports.
So we're going to look at the photos and see the photography side of it.
This was a high school event, so in that situation I've gonna blur the players in the photos.
Really the main focus is the photography and how I was taking photos.
I did bring quite a bit of gear for this photo outing.
I had the M5, one of the M50s, the 50mm f1.8 STM, and I also borrowed a 75-300mm f/4-5.6
EF lens.
So with the EF lens, that's a good thing.
It's a full-frame lens and also I had the Viltrox speed booster along with that.
Plus, the standard OEM adapter.
So with the speed booster you have that benefit of getting more light to the sensor.
In action situations it seemed like a good chance to try that out and see how it worked.
I was mixing and matching the gear quite a bit so that I could get a good feel for how
each camera worked, how each lens worked.
First let's talk about settings.
With the M5 it has those two custom modes.
I set one of those up for action situations beforehand.
Trying to think of a way to make it work decently well.
I went with auto ISO.
That's a good way to at least have one setting where you don't have to mess around with it.
Because when you do move around with a telephoto lens you're going to get different exposures.
I did adjust those settings while I was taking photos at the game.
Looking at the M5 my final settings were 1/400th of a second f/2.8.
So with the Viltrox speed booster and the telephoto lens at its widest 75, you're going
to get 2.8, which is nice.
Depending on which zoom level you're at, the aperture will change on a variable lens like that.
I had it at -1/3rd exposure compensation.
Because when using auto ISO that does adjust things.
I probably should have gone even lower, but it worked okay.
I was trying to use the smooth zone autofocus.
The larger block, the larger area of focus, but it wasn't working well at all with that
telephoto lens.
It was just way too slow.
I do think I had the M5 set incorrectly, so I was just really focusing single point without
servo, but it worked okay actually.
I think in a lot of situations, which we'll get to, I was just focusing on things I could
manage with this setup instead of like super fast action.
I did shoot RAW photos with both cameras.
I really wasn't hitting the cameras too hard with a lot of frames, so it really wasn't
a big issue.
I was using the low-speed continuous also on both cameras.
Worked just fine!
With both adapters, where I was sitting, it worked just fine with the amount of range
I could get.
I could get very close to the players, see their faces and get some emotion in the photos.
That did work nicely.
With either adapter I didn't have an issue with range and 70-300 (actually 75...).
Using touch and drag autofocus, especially with a long telephoto lens that changes the
weight balance of the camera...
It was not easy to do so I was using it kind of between taking groups of photos instead
of changing it a lot as I was looking at the viewfinder.
I was sitting near the center of the court.
It gave me a good view of both sides.
Trying to get photos of the net-play, or whatever you want to call it was challenging where
I was sitting.
Of course with official games like this if you do want to take photos outside around
the court you're gonna want to talk to whatever organization is running the event so you can
get access to that.
Of course, media passes and things like that are probably what you will need to make it
happen.
Let's go over the challenges I had taking action photos.
The main thing probably was the lens itself, that telephoto lens 75-300...
Slower apertures, but focus itself was not quick and the front where you can manual focus
that actually moves when the camera is autofocusing so it's just not a fast system to use for
action photography.
You definitely want to look at higher-end lenses, so if you use like a 70-200 or just
something that is designed for this purpose definitely have a better time with it.
I mean, it worked decently well considering the cameras, the adapters, the lens itself...
And I did use the 50 a little bit here and there.
It just didn't have enough reach for where I was sitting to get anything super interesting.
All that said, the 75-300 worked decent enough that I'm happy with the photos that I got
from it.
It was challenging, but I took quite a few photos.
Definitely a large amount.
At least enough that I have some that I'm happy with.
Considering the camera, considering the lens I was trying to focus on situations where
the players were not moving a lot.
They're standing, waiting for the ball to start coming in play again.
That's a good opportunity to take photos.
They're taking a little break.
They have a good facial expression, but also not moving around.
Opportunities like that where they're really not running around, really moving around a
lot in an action pose of some type... that's what I tried to focus on.
Another difficult situation is with groups of people.
Trying to take photos of the entire team.
Of some of the bench people...
Also, any situation where there's just a lot of people in the photos.
Try to take quite a frames because you're going to have some person with a weird facial
expression or two people...
It's just going to be a numbers game at that point to get a photo that you're happy with
where everyone has a decent look on their face.
Using a lot telephoto lens has tunnel effect to it.
Where you're trying to do action photography, you're losing where you are in the frame...
where you're trying to focus.
So I do zoom in and zoom out sometimes just to get and idea of where I actually am taking
photos.
That does help a little bit.
Getting people with a smiling face is surprisingly challenging in this situation with sports.
Because that whole idea of "game face" is really a thing where people are very focused
on what they're doing.
They don't have like a genuine happy look on their face, but they're very focused.
With focus accuracy, focus speed I really didn't notice any difference between the Viltrox
and the standard OEM adapter.
I was preferring the Viltrox because it gave me lower ISOs for a given situation.
Worked decent enough that I was using the telephoto plus the Viltrox plus the M5 most
of the time.
So in your editing software of choice, especially with the M5, the M50...
You're gonna want to add some noise reduction to your photos.
I was hitting maybe 2500 with the Viltrox and also around 4000...
6400.... up there depending on where I was taking the photos.
I did use auto ISO so I could have potentially dealt with things better using manual, but
just wanted to make it a little easier just so I could focus on taking the photos and
trying to deal with the slow autofocus.
It was a good experience with taking photos in an action situation.
Trying out gear, learning which settings works best.
Worked out nicely.
I'm decently happy with the photos, and I hope you enjoyed this video.
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Thanks again!
Scott from Photography Banzai