How to choose a lens for indoor sports

When shooting indoor sports you've really got to consider the sport you are shooting to make the right decision for your sport. Handball and Badminton will require you use very different lenses, the same goes for indoor soccer or volleyball. The lenses you want to use also differ from your access to the court or playing field.

If you just want to jump to the list of lenses, check out the following article.

Generally you can also state that the lower the level of competition you're photographing the higher the requirements for your gear or the lower the quality of the photos: Local gyms or sports venues are usually poorly lit compared to professional venues. Your local school usually doesn't construct gyms with photographers in mind. So the bigshot sports photographers not only have better gear (We're often talking about the big guns like (400 F/2.8 or 300 F/2.8) or something like a 70-200 F/2.8 (Sony 70-200mm F/2.8 GM II, Nikon NIKKOR 70-200mm F/2.8 S, Canon RF 70-200 F/2.8 L IS USM). What do these lenses have in common? They are all mightily expensive and have a fast aperture.

Now we need to figure out, how to help you improve your indoor sports photography. The process is pretty simple: Take your kit lens and take some images of your sport. Now check which focal length you took the majority of your images at: Is it within the range of your lens or do you need more reach? If it's within your focal range of your kit lens, just get a faster lens at that focal length, there will be a couple of suggestions later, don't worry! If you need something longer, see how far you have to crop in and use a focal length simulator like the DOF Simulator (Which is an awesome tool to simulate any lens!) to try and figure out which focal length you need. Now you should know your needed focal lengths and are ready to buy some lenses.

In my case - I shoot a lot of badminton - I shoot around 35mm when I'm directly courtside at the net and around 135mm when shooting the opposing side of the court. There is not too much variation in these focal lengths, although in smaller venues I also like to use around 85mm from the opposite side of the court or 50mm when I’m at the net.

Now all you need to do is get yourself some good prime lenses at these focal lengths: Prime lenses are usually cheaper that fast zooms and come with even faster apertures: A 50mm F/1.8 prime lens will set you back around $250, a 24-70 F/2.8 zoom will can cost more than $2000. Fast zooms can be had for cheaper, like the Tamron 28-75mm F/2.8 Di III VXD, but those are still for full frame cameras and slower that those more affordable primes (There is one secret weapon and that’s the Sigma 18-50mm F/2.8 DC DN for Sony and Fujifilm APS-C cameras). They are not only slower, leading to more grainy images, but also give you less separation from the background.

We’ve come up with some really good lenses for all focal length:

If you ever think about using a flash for your action shots, please think again and consider that a flash is a major distraction to the players on court!