Why hire a sports photographer?

To be fair your phone does have an amazing camera. It takes great photos. It has technology like HDR, zoom and tons of megapixels. The problem is that your phone, despite being amazing, has a tiny sensor with tiny pixels. This limits the amount of light it can gather. With the need for fast shutter speeds that sports require and the often low light your results are going to be less than stellar. The other problem is that your phone is using a digital zoom. Essentially it is cropping out a huge amount of pixels to "zoom" in. This brings your resolution down, again leading to less than stellar results.

Your child's field sports are simply too far away to get great results. Sure you can share a shot on Facebook, but if you want to print it for your home or office its not going to end well in most cases. Your child's indoor sports, while they seem well lit are often dark as caves to a camera sensor. Your eyes adjust to poor lighting, your camera's sensor just can't. When we start talking about middle and high school gym sports like basketball and volleyball, you are going to end up with blur, dark shots, and likely poor resolution images.

So why not use your old DSLR?

You should, you will likely get better results. For middle school I suggest putting your camera on shutter priority if you aren't familiar with all the settings. Then set it to 1/640 of a second and start shooting. Depending on the kit lens you have your photos will be dark but serviceable. There will likely be some motion blur in the hands, feet and ball. The reason is your kit lens has a small aperture (opening that lets in the limited light) and you will need to bump the exposure up in software. This is going to lose some resolution and introduce some grain but that is inevitable.

So you are asking what about buying a better lens? You can buy for example Canon's EF 24-70mm F/2.8 Mk III, new this will run you about $1,649.00 at B&H as of today (Their new RF version for their mirrorless camera is in the $2,100.00 Range). This is a big investment to make and used values for the EF lens hover around $1,000 to $1,300.

There are other reasons to hire someone.

We want our kids to see themselves through our eyes. As the strong, capable and sometimes fierce competitors they are on the field, court, track and mat. A photographer can help you achieve that goal. They have the experience and equipment to get the shot.

In this fast paced distracted and busy world we all struggle to be present for our kids. At their events is no different. They look for you in the stands even if you don't notice it. They look when they make the shot, goal or tackle, and when they don't.

If your head is behind your phone or looking at the last photo, you aren't there. In the moment. Cheering them on and consoling or bucking them up with a look.

Should everyone hire a youth sports photographer? Maybe not but its something to consider if you haven't before.