What to look for when buying an SLR

The only way to get really good photos at fights is with an SLR.

It would be a waste of my time to rewrite an explanation of all the terms I use so check wikipedia or photography sites like DPReview. If you really can’t understand something, please leave a comment with a question and I’ll do my best to explain it. Also unless I specify exactly what to look for, check sites like DPReview to see how different models stack up in the areas that I mention.

High ISO performance

Although the ring isn’t really that dark usually, we need fairly fast shutter speed to eliminate motion blur. I generally shoot at around ISO1250 for smaller shows or ISO640 for big shows. Reasonably clean images up to ISO1600 and ideally ISO3200 is desirable.

Focusing

A lot of focusing speed and accuracy comes down to which lens you choose but the focusing system in the camera is also important. Generally, the more “high precision” focus points the faster and more accurate focusing will be. On high end cameras, most of the focus points will be high precision whereas on a lower end camera there may be the one center point.

I always choose the focus point myself so I get the focus exactly where I want so for me, I like a camera that makes it easy to set the focus point.

Exactly how I focus will be the topic of a future article.

Frames per second

Like I said when I was talking about compact cameras - the frames per second aren’t as important as you might think. They help a lot, don’t get me wrong but you really need to time the shots yourself. Just because can shoot at 10 frames per second doesn’t mean that the fighters will be punching at the same interval as your camera.

With that said, the faster your camera can shoot the better. I consider 3 FPS too slow, 5 is OK and 8-10 is great.

Lens options

Lenses are the most important part of an SLR setup so the lenses you have available to you is important to take into consideration. Canon and Nikon have by far the best lens selection. As they also make the best bodies for sports, I only recommend Canon or Nikon bodies.

Specifically, to get the best photos at ringside you need to have good, fast focusing f2.8 zoom lenses. From the stands you need fast telephoto lenses in the range of 300mm - 600mm.

Build, ergonomics

This really only applies if you are ringside. If  you are shooting a whole event you really want something that fits in your hand well. I find the lower end camera’s too small for my enormous man hands and the pro level cameras or gripped mid-level cameras perfect. The extra shutter button for the portrait orientation on gripped or pro-bodies is also great for when things are cramped ringside.

Your camera needs to be nice and solid as it isn’t uncommon to get a stray knee or foot and I have seen lower end cameras break because of it. Try to avoid plastic where possible.

Specific camera recommendations will be the topic of a future article.