Best Camera For Indoor Sports Action Shots – We may earn income from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Read more >
Like high-level athletes, sports photography cameras can achieve what their normal competition can’t. Of course, you can shoot sports with just about any camera. David Burnett famously created amazing Olympic photos with a vintage large format camera. But, we can’t all be David Burnette. Others require high-end camera gear with impressive autofocus and fast burst rates. Whether you’re on the sidelines of an NFL game or a PeeWee football show, a good camera can make a big difference in the creative options you have.
Best Camera For Indoor Sports Action Shots
The best sports cameras have the features and customizations you need to capture football, basketball, soccer, hockey, baseball, a hot dog eating contest, or any game you can catch on ESPN 3 at midnight.
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I’ve been writing about camera reviews since 2008, when I joined the staff of Popular Photography. Before that, I worked as a professional photographer covering everything from live music and editorial assignments to weddings and portraits. I have worked as a professional sports photographer in a number of capacities, many of which involve high level Crossfit competitions. I shot them myself with all the cameras on this list, many on sports settings.
In my selection, I focused on bodies with fast burst rates, heavy construction, high autofocus performance, and solid ergonomics.
Why it made the cut: Its mix of accurate autofocus, high burst speed, and excellent ergonomics make this a go-to for action shooting.
I’ve shot with a Canon 1D X II DSLR for years and honestly found it hard to imagine a mirrorless camera keeping up with it. The R3 surprised me in the best way. With this body, Canon introduced a new 24.1-megapixel sensor with a faster reading speed. That allows it to shoot up to 30 fps in full-res with an electric shutter or up to 12 fps with a mechanical shutter.
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Sports photos often require high ISO shooting, and the R3’s sensor has no problem reaching high numbers. I went up to ISO 12, 8000 and still got usable images from it in difficult conditions. That’s because of the lower megapixel count (at least in 2022).
The AF system offers several pages of configuration options. It can take a while to find the right settings dialed in, but once you do, the tracking does a really impressive job of keeping fast-moving objects in focus.
It’s full body DSLR style, meaning it has an integrated grip at the bottom and an additional shutter button for vertical shooting. Personally, I find the R3 to be the most comfortable camera I’ve ever held. And it feels even more balanced when paired with a long lens.
Its low megapixel count and bulk make it a tough sell as an all-around camera, but for sports, it ticks all the boxes.
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Why it made the cut: Nikon makes one camera that can do anything, and that includes sports photography.
The Nikon Z9 is truly a camera that can do it all. The 45.7-megapixel sensor reads at a ridiculously high speed, enabling capture of up to 120 fps, which is equivalent to 4x slow motion video. That combination of fast shooting and high-resolution photo capture is hard for any other camera on the market to match.
The camera has no mechanical shutter at all, meaning all that speed comes with a fully electric shutter. That helps speed things up, but some sports photographers (myself included) prefer the sound and feel of a mechanical shutter for time-lapse photography. It’s not an option here.
The unique rotating screen offers wider viewing angles than its competition, thanks to the ability to tilt vertically and horizontally. That said, it’s a big, heavy camera that weighs about 12 ounces more than the Canon R3, which can be a factor during a long day of shooting.
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Why it made the cut: Canon took some of the R3’s autofocus smarts and put them into a very affordable camera.
Since the days of the original 7D, Canon has made excellent sports-oriented cameras in the $1,500 price range. R7 continues that tradition. It’s one of the first APS-C bodies to come with Canon’s current lens lineup, meaning it’s compatible with new and upcoming lenses.
The autofocus inside the R7 borrows heavily from advanced cameras like the R5 and R3. AF tracking is incredibly accurate when it comes to finding and tracking subjects. The camera also offers several pages of AF options in the menu so you can dial in performance in specific situations. For example, you can tell it to lock on subjects and ignore other things that come into the frame. There’s a learning curve you don’t see on a $1,500 camera, but it’s worth the effort to understand.
Canon built a new APS-C sensor to fit inside the R7, and it delivers solid image quality. It won’t match the quality of the whole thing (especially when it comes to shooting in low light), but it will effectively give your lenses a little reach, thanks to the crop.
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Why it made the cut: It has one of the fastest sensors we’ve ever seen inside, and that translates to real-world performance.
Sony’s A1 doesn’t look too different from the other cameras in its A series, but it contains one of the fastest sensors ever to hit the market. It is an integrated sensor, which means that the computer hardware (including the signal processor and DRAM) is integrated into the same silicon. That increases speed to reduce unwanted effects such as rolling shutter during video capture and temporary blackout of the viewer during image capture.
This fast sensor can pump full-frame images at up to 30 fps with an electronic shutter. It also allows for nice things like flash sync at 1/400th of a second. It’s faster than most other cameras, which top out at about 1/250 or slower. It can be really useful when shooting flash in bright conditions.
It’s not a full-size pro camera because it doesn’t have an integrated grip. That’s limited to a single battery, which won’t last as long as the cells in the Canon R3 or Nikon Z9. But you can add grip to it after the fact. The A1 is also the most expensive model in this range, but you pay for high-end performance.
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Why it made the cut: If you want a camera you can really abuse, then the GoPro is a good choice.
You might not think of GoPro as a stills camera, but it might surprise you with its chops. The black HD Hero 10 easily mounts to any surface (or even a person or an animal) and can withstand heavy punishment. That makes it an excellent candidate for a remote camera that you attach to the accident and not worry about until the end of the shot. It’s easy to control with the GoPro app, so you can open the shutter remotely.
The wide main lens is sharp and captures detailed images, even if the viewing angle is limited. In fact, it opens up options for all kinds of other photo projects like epic time-lapses.
Sports photography is hard. The courses are fast and unpredictable, the settings are unforgiving, and you never know when the wrong ball or player might hit you on your device. Choosing the right camera for sports photography will expand your creative options.
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When we think of sports cameras, we immediately picture shutters flying at high speed. Burst mode is important for sports photography, but it’s not as simple as “faster is better.” The Nikon Z9, for example, is very fast but doesn’t have a mechanical shutter, which some sports shooters prefer to time their shots. And if you’re shooting a full 60 frames per second, you’re going to fill up your memory cards and dig a big hole when it comes to editing. Ultimately, you want something that’s fast but not clumsy. 10-12 frames per second will work in most situations, but it’s good to reach 30 fps for fast action or critical moments where you need to hit high-speed action.
Professional sports photographers don’t usually need high-resolution images. They slow down the camera, eat up memory card space, and take longer to send to their editors. That’s part of what we love about the Canon R3. If you are looking for a pure sports camera, you will never need more than 24 megapixels of resolution. If you want an all-in-one camera, something like the Sony A1 or Nikon Z9 might suit your needs better.
Even high-light cameras offer low-resolution capture options, but that leaves the door open to situations where you choose the wrong setting for a particular situation. I accidentally shot several images of the player in JPEG medium on the client because I was still scheduled
