Cannon Digital Rebel: What flash for football photography?

[xbnmx]

We have a Canon Digital Rebel and a 300mm lense, what flash would be suitable to acompany them for shooting football at night? What should I be looking for?

[sarcazmo]

I guess it depends how close you are to the action... But if you're close enough to actually have the flash effective enough, I doubt you'd be able to use it as it might affect the players...

I'd definately spend the money on making sure my lens is fast and I have some good noise reduction software to compensate for the (possibly) high iso images you'll have to take.

[Rex914]

I doubt that the flash would have any effect given that you mentioned a 300mm lens. Hopefully, that's a 300mm f/2.8 otherwise I wish you good luck in pulling nighttime, sports shots off.

[cwphoto]

The most pwerful flash I'm aware of is the Metz Mecablitz 70MZ-5. At that focal length it has a GN of 70 at 100 ISO. If you cranked the ISO up to 1600 then you could potentially get a range of up to 100m with a 300mm f/2.8 lens.

I've never heard of anyone using a flash like this for footy though. Can't you just use the ambient light or is your lens too slow?

[Rhys]

It is possible to get more power out of flashes by building up a bank of flashes. If you put together 4 x GN 30 flashes, you'll get GN 120, assuming they're all pointed in the same direction. The triggering will have to be done carefully though - maybe a bank of solenoid switches and a 3v battery to power them?