I'm looking to get a new zoom lens for my Canon Rebel XTI, I'm fairly new to photography and I want this lens to shoot my brother's college football. The lens I got to borrow was a Tamron 38-300mm. I really liked the 300mm (my current lens is only 85mm) but after putting the pictures on my computer they all look bad. There is no sharpness to them at all. Is that fault of a cheaper lens? Or something I was doing? Would a better canon lens shoot better? I'm traveling to Oregon next weekend for his game and I would like to have a nice lens for the game. Examples:
Camera shake. When you're shooting farther distances, it's hard to get a sharp picture if you're doing it hand held. I just did a google search of football photographers and I got this picture: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/56/132514874_ba850bbc66.jpg?v=0 notice how none of them are holding their cameras. They are all on tri/monopods If you are using a monopod of tripod, then I apologize
There's someone in the forum that does a lot of sports photography who can definitely help you, but I can't remember who it is. I'm sure someone will chime in very shortly for who ever it is. you changed the pictures on me
"cheaper" lenses arent very sharp when shot with the aperture as wide open as it will go. if you still have this lens stop it down a bit and go outside and shoot some more shots. try a high ISO to keep the shutter speed high (at least 1/400).
I'm shooting from the bleachers so yeah it is handheld. I changed the photos cuz the other ones were huge. I don't have the lens here but i'll try to get a hold of it one more time. Otherwise I think i might try to rent a lens. Looking at the Canon 70-200mm f2.8
What ever lens i get will be my christmas present from my dad. We originally decided on the canon but my uncle got us the tamron to try out and said it would be just as good
looks like camera shake in your first photo. general rule of thumb is shutter speed needs to be 1/focal length (times a crop factor if needed) or faster to keep camera shake from happening, ie using an xti at 300mm is the equiv to 480mm when factoring in the 1.6 crop, so you need at least a 1/500 shutter speed to keep from having a camera shake issue.
if your on a budget the 55-250 canon is serving me alright. wouldn't recommend for low light or indoors, but ive been using it out in the middle of the ocean and it works fine. at 250 it isn't as sharp as my tamron 17-50 2.8 is at its highest, but for a budget telephoto it is nice.
take my advice...don't get the 28-300. I could have told you this before you borrowed it because we had 3 of them at work and they were all soft, had horrible color, and broke very easily.