Pentax P70 Sports Photography Score
Pentax P70 has a score of
16 for Sports Photography which makes it a
POOR candidate for this type of photography. If Sports Photography is important for you, we strongly recommend you to consider the Alternative cameras listed at the bottom of this page.
Read our detailed Pentax P70 Review
Pentax P70 Sports Photography Detailed Analysis
Manual Focus Mode
Compact cameras are not great at focusing moving objects especially at low light and your camera may not even fire bacause of not locking the focus, so manual focus mode is very useful at these times.
Environmental Sealings
Most outdoor sports games are held in all-weather, so your camera has to be ready for difficult conditions such as rain and snow. Exposure to dust and water splashes are also very common in sports.
Slow Max shutter speed: 1/1000s
Pentax P70's max shutter speed of 1/1000s is quite slow and it may not be enough to freeze the motion in some cases. Another potential problem may be when you use a fast aperture at very strong light, your camera may overexpose because of slow max shutter speed
9 Focus Points
In sports photography , you keep continuous autofocus (AFC) mode on for tracking the subject and more focus means better tracking.
Not so good Ergonomics&Handling
Pentax P70\s compact body is not very ideal for sports photography as it lacks the external dials and knobs to change the camera settings fast and the ergonomics doesn't help you to have the most stable shooting position.
No Manual Exposure Mode
Even though modern digital cameras features advanced algorithms to calculate the right exposure, they still may fail some difficult conditions. Lack of manual exposure mode in these conditions means lot of shadow and highlight clipping.
No Built-in Viewfinder
In the lack of a a viewfinder, holding the camera away from the body while using live view is not very stable, especial with heavy camera bodies and lenses. Besides, LCD screens are very hard to read under bright sunlight.
No External Flash Shoe
When shooting indoor sports or outdoor sports at low light, an external flash may become very helpful.
No Image Stabilization
Lack of Image stabilization may result in blurry photos especially at long focal lengths.
110 mm Tele Lens
110 mm reach will not be adequate in many sports events.
No RAW shooting capability
RAW files contains much more color information compared to JPEGs, and gives you more room for post processing without significant quality loss. They provide wider dynamic range and option to recover shadow and highlight clipping to some degree.
You may also be interested in these reviews:
Pentax P70 for Portrait Photography Pentax P70 for Street Photography Pentax P70 for Carrying Everywhere Pentax P70 for Landscape Photography