I recently visited Southport Rugby Club, which is situated close to my home town, on the Lancashire coast in the North West of England. The club is celebrating its 150th anniversary and I was going to take some sports pictures and portraits of some of the players, that will be used by the club as part of their anniversary celebrations.

The club is one of the oldest in the country and is woven into the fabric of the community, boasting 17 competitive teams, including men, women, and children’s teams of varying age groups.

Working in professional sports photography, and in my role as a Sony European Imaging Ambassador, I am often asked about the lenses I use in my work, and what different lens choice options are available from the Sony line up, that work well not only for professionals, but for amateur sports photographers.

Sony have a great choice of genuine native lenses available based around the Sony E-Mount, which uses a single ‘1 Mount’ system for all the Sony Alpha mirrorless cameras. The E-Mount lenses are compatible with the APS-C, full frame and Cinema Line range of cameras. Any of these lenses can be used on any of the bodies, without the need for adaptors or modifiers. This makes the system very flexible and versatile, with so many lens choice options available for all the cameras in the range.

When I'm shooting with genuine Sony lenses on my Alpha 1, I know I'm getting the best optical and autofocus performance available. This allows me to concentrate more on the image making process and communicating with my subjects. It’s all about confidence, and using Sony native lenses gives me that confidence and freedom to capture great images.

I used three Sony lenses at Southport RFC, the FE 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 G OSS, FE 85mm f/1.4 GM and the FE 200-600mm f/5.6-6.3 G OSS. Three lenses that offer something different in terms of focal length, size and weight.

The 70-300mm is what I would class as a good all-rounder. It's light and small, so I use this lens when I need to move quickly. The smaller form factor is ideal when I need to shoot from public or spectator areas, where I may want to be inconspicuous but still have that great focal length range.

The lens also has an impressive close focusing ability, which is useful for capturing small details, such as branding and sponsors details on players kits and the wide focal length range allows me to follow action over a good area of the rugby pitch and track players as they move towards me, giving me compositional options. Although the 70-300mm is a good lens to have in the bag as an option, it is also a very affordable lens and a good alternative for photographers perhaps on more of a budget.

Shooting with the 200-600mm for field sports such as rugby, gives a fantastic zoom range of 200mm to 600mm when using a full frame Alpha camera. This can be expanded further by putting the camera in APS-C mode, giving a 1.5x crop, and an effective maximum focal length of 900mm without compromising the aperture and losing any light. On the Alpha 1, using the camera in crop mode will still deliver a high resolution 21 megapixel RAW file. The ability to zoom in so close, gives a totally different view of what the spectators would see and enables me to capture images with added impact.

When shooting sports, I know I can rely on the lens to have accurate and fast focus acquisition and to be able to track fast moving subjects. I will often use this lens handheld, as its weight is manageable, and the internal zoom mechanism means the physical length of the lens doesn’t change and the balance of the lens stays the same in hand during zooming.

The zoom ring takes the lens through its entire focal range in less than a quarter of a turn, and this makes the lens easy to work with and enjoyable to use. In the field I require smooth control from a lens, as well as excellent optical performance. The 200-600mm ticks a lot of boxes for sharpness, edge to edge resolution, lack of distortion and performance.

A lens like this gives me absolute confidence. I can trust its focus speed and accuracy, along with its ability to track a fast moving subject.

Occasionally I will want to shoot at slow shutter speeds, for effect or to combat low light. Happily the 200-600mm has a fully featured image stabilisation system, with 3 options, that works in harmony with the IBIS built into Alpha cameras.

All this from a lens that is only 318mm in length and weighs 2kgs!

The 85mm G Master is one of my favourite lenses in the Sony line up. With a maximum aperture of f/1.4, it's a great lens for isolating the subject from the environment. It also produces beautiful round bokeh and is pin sharp.

Traditionally an 85mm lens is a great focal length for portraiture, but I will often use this lens for sport, especially in low light conditions. Its autofocus system is fast enough to keep up with action, and the wide aperture allows a lot of light through to the sensor, allowing me to use low ISO values and fast shutter speeds even in low light conditions.

Even though the depth of field is extremely shallow on this lens when shooting wide open, the innovative Eye AF on the Sony Alpha cameras means I can be sure of accurate focus acquisition and tracking on the eyes.

And as with all the G Master lenses, the 85mm is capable of resolving extremely high resolution images, much more than even the sensor of the Alpha 1 I am using today can capture.

If I had a common theme to take from using these three chosen Sony lenses, it would be confidence. Confidence that these native Sony lenses are designed to work flawlessly with my Alpha camera and will perform well. This allows me to concentrate more on the task in hand and worry less about the optical performance.

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End of article. Thank you Terry Donnelly, Sony & Lush Films for choosing Southport RFC.