I’m a sports photographer wannabe — shooting soccer matches (for the most part) with a Canon Digital Rebel SLR. Overall, I’ve been happy with the Digital Rebel over the past two years. The Canon’s held up well (knock wood), but I’ve run into a bit of a snag of late. Unfortunately, I had to skimp on the Digital Rebel’s zoom lens going in … and now it seems that I’m paying the price of not paying the price …

I went with a relatively inexpensive used Sigma 70-300mm zoom lens. It seemed like a pretty good bargain for about a year and a half. The Canon Digital Rebel’s internal 1.5X multiplier ensured that the lens was adequate for those distance shots. And while the lens is too slow to work for indoor work (like basketball), it’s done just fine outside.

Until now.

When it’s played well, soccer is a fast moving game. Keeping up with the action takes a steady hand and a fast auto-focus mechanism. While the Digital Rebel’s auto-focus isn’t the fastest thing out there, I’ve had some success at catching the shots. But that all changed recently when my Digital Rebel’s auto-focus went south.

I’m perplexed as to what’s happened. The Digital Rebel’s auto-focus seems to be okay when I use the OEM Canon 18-55mm lens. But when I switch to the 70-300mm Sigma lens, I’m only able to get the auto-focus to work a few times before it conks out. I haven’t had the opportunity to take the rig in to get checked out, but I’m hoping that the problem lies in the Sigma lens, rather than the Digital Rebel.

If it’s the lens that’s bad, I’ll grit my teeth, cut my losses, and manually focus while I save up enough cash to pick up one of those nifty Canon zoom lenses with image stabilization. Although I’ve yet to take a digital photography course, I’m hoping to gain enough skill (and adequate equipment) to shoot as a sideline (from the sideline) …