The best Canon cameras and lenses for sports photography

Sports photographers need robust, reliable camera equipment to ensure they never miss a beat. Fast, accurate AF and a high-speed drive are essential, as are intuitive fingertip controls that mean you never have to take your eye off the action.

So, which Canon cameras are best for sports photography? And what lenses do professional sports photographers recommend?

"For me, the essential lenses for sports are the RF 400mm F2.8L IS USM, the RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM and a short zoom," says Canon Ambassador Jorge Ferrari, who now shoots exclusively with Canon EOS R System mirrorless cameras and lenses. But, as the in-demand sports, action and commercial photographer also reveals, the best lens ultimately depends on what the objective is for a particular event. "Let's say I'm covering a rugby match, for example," Jorge continues. "I would put a 400mm or 600mm lens on my Canon EOS R3 because the tight action shots would be my main focus. But I'd switch to a 70-200mm or 24-70mm lens for the prize presentations, because my priority has changed.”

“We pride ourselves on how quickly we can move pictures,” he says. “One of the blue ribbon events that everyone gauges themselves against is the 100m final. We’re now able to take a picture, then transmit it, ftp it to a server, get it edited, captioned and delivered via our software to all our clients in less than 30 seconds. And that’s fast.”

Here, Jorge and Richard, together with Canon Europe Product Specialists John Maurice and Mike Burnhill, offer some recommendations and insights into the cameras and lenses that can raise your sports photography into a different league.

The flagship professional model in the EOS R System range raises the game for full frame mirrorless camera performance. Its rapid RAW continuous shooting speed of up to 30fps with full AF/AE tracking is enabled by a back-illuminated stacked sensor and AF readings taken at up to 60fps

“This is basically the next generation of sensor technology, which allows slightly bigger pixels and much faster readouts of data than our previous cameras,” explains Mike.

“It has many benefits, one of which is a reduced rolling shutter effect, so you get less distortion on fast-moving objects. Swinging golf clubs appear straighter, for example. Without the faster readout, tennis balls and baseballs can distort into egg shapes when they’re travelling at speed, and even a football can end up looking more like a rugby ball.”

Object-tracking has also been taken to the next level with the option to detect and track racing cars and motorbikes as priority, and there’s a new Flexi Zone AF where the AF area size and shape can be customised – for instance you might opt for a block running horizontally across the frame to capture the winner of a sprint race whichever lane they were in.

With its amazing in-body image stabilisation (IBIS), the Canon EOS R3 can deliver an industry-leading 8 stops of IS when paired with certain telephoto RF lenses, giving unparalleled flexibility and image clarity at long focal lengths, even when shooting handheld.

Another standout feature of the EOS R3 is its completely silent operation when powering through 30 frames per second, adds Richard. “Silence is extraordinarily important in quite a few sports, including golf, tennis and snooker, and particularly helpful whenever’s there’s live television coverage.

“It’s allowed us to gain better access and get pictures that we would have struggled to capture before. With golf for example, the players would previously have been wary of you, and you might have been moved on. But now the cameras don’t make a noise, the players trust that we’re not going to disrupt them.”

While the Canon EOS R3 takes the gold medal for speed and sensor design, the Canon EOS R5 runs a close second for sports photography. The ability to shoot continuous bursts of 45MP stills at up to 20fps, record crisp 8K video and capture revealing 4K 120p slow-mo means the EOS R5 has much to offer photographers looking to capture sport in creative ways.

“Professional sports photographers rely on the EOS R3 for filing purposes,” explains John. “The camera is designed to help photographers achieve perfection in terms of capturing the action and then get images with a small file size to a destination quickly. The EOS R5 provides something different though. It’s more portable, and the 45MP sensor gives you greater cropping potential and the ability to display work at very high resolution.”

Both the Canon EOS R3 and EOS R5 are capable of capturing sublime sports photos and videos, but the Canon EOS R6 Mark II makes life that little bit easier for hybrid shooters, suggests John. “The camera has a dedicated switch, enabling you to move rapidly between the two modes.

“The EOS R6 Mark II is a very good all-rounder that’s perfect for covering amateur sports and semi-professional shoots. It features our advanced subject detection autofocus that recognises horses, planes and trains, and it’s able to track people’s heads as effectively as the EOS R3.”

If sports and action videos are your main focus, then the smallest Cinema EOS camera is highly recommended. Featuring the same class-leading intelligent subject detection and high-resolution full-frame sensor as the Canon EOS R5, the Canon EOS R5 C adds professional video features such as Waveform Monitor, False Colour, Timecode and 12-bit Cinema RAW Light recording.

APS-C cameras can be an advantage for sports where you’re forced to shoot from further away. “The benefit of the Canon EOS R7 is reach,” confirms John. “If you’ve not got particularly long lenses, the crop factor of the EOS R7’s smaller sensor is going to make distant runners, cyclists and surfers appear larger in the frame. You can shoot sports with the Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM for example, and it’s going to look as though you’ve got a 112-320mm f/2.8 lens in terms of framing.”

While a super-telephoto lens is essential for situations where you physically can't get close to the action, a 70-200mm zoom lens is ideal for (almost) everything else. "You can do a bit of tennis, a bit of Formula 1, a bit of football – almost anything!" enthuses Jorge, who uses the Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM. "I don't think you can cover any sport without a 70-200mm lens.”

The RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1 L IS USM packs a sport-friendly selection of focal lengths into a lightweight L-series zoom. On an APS-C camera such as the Canon EOS R7, the sensor crop gives you the same field of view as 160-800mm on a full-frame camera, and there aren’t many sports that you would be unable to cover with that setup.

“Sports often take place in vast arenas, so choosing a wide-angle lens and getting in close to the action means you’re able to capture the athletes in their environment and create images with lots of impact,” says John. “You could be close to a group of players huddled together on a football or rugby pitch, for example, but also pull the stadium into shot and create a stand-out shot as a result.”

The fast-aperture 400mm f/2.8 is a classic sports photography lens, providing outstanding optical quality and the perfect angle of view for popular sports.

The bright maximum aperture isn't just useful for freezing action. "It also gives you that nice background blur that separates players from the supporters in the background," says Mike.

This is a lens that’s well-suited to monopod and handheld shooting, as it sets new standards for lightweight design in its class. The Canon RF 400mm F2.8L IS USM offers up to 5.5 stops of optical stabilisation and it can also be combined with the Canon RF 1.4x and the RF 2x extenders to give you even more reach when you need it.

Stepping up to a super-telephoto 600mm f/4 lens gives you extra reach with outstanding optical quality and legendary L-Series performance.

This workhorse telephoto lens combines the flexibility of a zoom with the fast maximum aperture, focusing speed and optical quality of a prime lens. It’s also compatible with the Canon RF 1.4X and 2x extenders, adding to its versatility.

“I can’t tell you how good this lens was when covering the Ryder Cup,” Richard says. “The weight and handling make it so easy to use. I was using it handheld without a monopod, and at 300mm the quality is so good that you wouldn’t know it’s a zoom at all – you’d think it was a 300mm f/2.8 prime.”

Richard has also used the lens mounted to a Canon Robotic Camera System CR-S700R – a remotely operated pan, tilt and zoom power head. “We use this head predominantly for athletics, installing it in roofs and anywhere that we are unable to have a photographer physically above a sport looking down.

If you’re just starting out in sports photography, then the Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM offers lots of reach in a compact package. It’s an easy lens to handle, weighing just 635g and measuring 164.7mm in length.

You can also use our lens selector to find the perfect match for you and your Canon EOS camera.