How can i .....

[Robusto]

cover greater distance and or work in poor light with sports photography

without spending a small fortune thousands on a fast lens?

Is there any compromise at present i have the 70-300 zukio but in poor light is no good

any suggestions

or do i just have to go and buy the fast lens and spend some savings

[Dougjgreen]

cover greater distance and or work in poor light with sports photography

without spending a small fortune thousands on a fast lens?

Is there any compromise at present i have the 70-300 zukio but in poor light is no good

any suggestions

or do i just have to go and buy the fast lens and spend some savings

Well, if spending a small fortune is a non-starter, perhaps you could spend a large fortune.

Here's the deal: If you want to shoot sports in poor light, you need to pay BIG bucks for the gear that can do it. You didn't mention what body you've got, but in the Olympus system, only the E-3 and the E-30 are even barely adequate for the job. And within the Olympus system, if you need to get more than 200mm at a fast aperture, the only choices you've got are a couple of lenses that cost over $5K. And frankly, those two > $5K lenses are functionally obsolete for sports work because they lack high speed internal focus motors.

Personally, given the fact that within the Olympus system, to do what you want is going to cost you a minimum of $6000 and still not get the type of fast low-light AF performance that shooting sports in low light requires, you might well take the opportunity to look at other systems - because for well under $6000, you could get what you need in either the Canon mount or the Nikon mount, including both a body and a lens, and it will be better at this specific task than what the $6K buys in Olympus land, because of the AF performance of the lenses.

On the other hand, shooting sports and or birds and wildlife in poor lighting is just about the only thing that Olympus can't do as well as these other 2 systems.

So sorry to be the bearer of bad news. But this particular issue is why I finally bit the bullet and went back to Nikon.

[Robusto]

Thanks for your advice so it looks like i will have to stay in the area where its good light

[OldClicker]

cover greater distance and or work in poor light with sports photography

without spending a small fortune thousands on a fast lens?

Is there any compromise at present i have the 70-300 zukio but in poor light is no good

any suggestions

or do i just have to go and buy the fast lens and spend some savings

For those of us who spent $6k on our last car - not our camera - you just have to get better at it. Get closer, find the light, anticipate the action, be more creative... - TF

[SmartWombat]

Unless you can afford fast lenses, you have to crank the ISO speed way up and suffer the resulting noise in the image.