Lens Extender

What Nikon Lenses I Use for My Sports Photography

I have a full assortment of Nikon lenses that I've acquired over the years.  Some of them I use for sports photography.  Some of them never see sports duty.  And some are versatile enough to be used for both sports and other uses. 

My biggest sports lens is the Nikon 300mm f/2.8 AF-S ED-IF. The specific version you see pictured to the right is the ED-IF II version.  Nikon has made many renditions of this lens over the years.  All have very high quality optical characteristics. There are three versions that are optimal for sports, however.  Make sure the version you choose has the "AF-S" designation.  AF-S is the advanced autofocus system incorporated into many newer Nikon lenses.  As a sports photographer, AF-S is important to you because it provides the autofocus speed that sports photography requires.  The current AF-S model Nikon sells today is a vibration reduction (VR) version that's very expensive.  You can find a new version of this AF-S VR lens for sale here on Amazon.com. I found my non-VR lens on eBay, and purchased it used for less than half the price of a new VR model.  This 300mm lens is always with me at soccer games. It's got the reach I need.  Optically, it's second to none.  It's fast enough (f/2.8) to work under low light conditions, including high school stadium lights. And I can team it up with my Nikon 1.4x teleconverter or 1.7x teleconverter if I want even longer reach.

My other work horse sports lens is the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 AF-S VR lens.  This lens is versatile for both sports and other uses.  Many experts believe this lens is one of the highest quality telephoto zoom lenses ever produced.  If you're taking sports photos of kids playing sports on any field smaller than a football field, this might be the only outdoor sports lens you'll ever need.  I emphasize "outdoor" sports because, even as an f/2.8 lens, this lens usually isn't fast enough for sports shots taken in the horrible lighting of school gyms.  But if you only wanted to purchase one high quality, versatile, telephoto lens for your Nikon digital slr, this is the lens to get.  Find it here at Amazon.

The other sports lens I frequently use for indoor sports is the Nikon 85mm f/1.8 lens.  This has become my basketball lens of choice.  The aperture of f/1.8 is fast enough to capture the action in poorly lit gyms. Some might find the reach of 85mm a little too long for their needs.  But it works for me. You can also find this reasonably priced lens on Amazon as well.

If you find the 300mm 2.8 lens above too rich for your blood, try Nikon's 300mm f/4 AF-S lens.  It won't work for you under the stadium lights or very overcast, dark days, but for all other lighting situations it's a great lens. 

If you want just one lens to cover all of your outdoor sports at a reasonable price then check out the Nikon 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 AF-S VR lens.  Be forewarned, however.  This lens will only work for you during the most optimal lighting conditions.  And even then, it won't give you shots where your subject is sharply in focus with the background nicely blurred, which helps to highlight the main subject like the photo below.

I know some of you have Canon camera equipment.  If so, Canon has similar lens choices as described above that you can choose for sports photography as well.

Using Nikon's 1.7x Teleconverter Lens Extender for Sports

Focal length 510mm, aperture f/4.8, shutter speed 1/2000, ISO 500

This photo was shot using Nikon's 1.7x teleconverter attached to my 300mm lens.  This effectively turns my 300mm lens into a 510mm lens (300mm x 1.7 = 510).  As you'll notice from the camera data above the photo, however, the use of this teleconverter also changed the minimum aperture setting from f/2.8 to f/4.8.  Due to the bright day, I was still able to maintain a really fast shutter speed (1/2000) for this shot at ISO 500. 

My previous experience with the 1.7x teleconverter attached to my Nikon 70-200mm lens wasn't very satisfying.  The picture degradation was too much for me (too much softness mostly due to slower autofocus speed causing slightly out-of-focus shots with that lens attached).  I like the results of using this teleconverter with my 300mm lens a lot better.  I capture less too-soft photos.  And I don't have to crop as much in post-processing.  Using the teleconverter attached to my 300mm lens absolutely requires that I also carry my 70-200mm lens for the action that's close to my position.  Although this is a Canon guy, I look something like this when on the soccer field.

Use of a Lens Extender, Again

This post about using lens extenders was so popular from my old blog, that I decided to recreate and update it here.  Here's the original post:

I'd love to own one of those very expensive 400mm, f2.8 lenses for my soccer shots. But I don't. So what do I use instead? I've got a 1.7x Nikkor lens extender that I use with my 70-200 f2.8 Nikkor lens to produce shots like this. This photo was taken at 340mm focal length, 1/2000s shutter speed, and aperture priority f5.6. The 340mm focal length is a little misleading, however. The actual focal length is 510mm. How can this be? My Nikon D70 has a 1.5 times lens multiplier factor. Thus the 70-200mm lens at the 200mm end times the 1.7x extender times the 1.5 multiplier equals the 510mm focal length (200 x 1.7 x 1.5 = 510). That's pretty good reach for soccer. So why wouldn't the professional sports photographers use this combination of lens and extender as well? My setup isn't without some significant sacrifice. By using the extender, I'm losing about an f-stop and one-half of lens speed. Thus the f2.8 lens becomes about an f4.7 (I think??). And I lose a little bit of image resolution. With all of that glass stacked on top of one another, the image quality is bound to suffer. The professional guys use a 400mm f2.8 lens which gives them the long reach, great blurred backgrounds, and the ability to shoot in low light situations (like under the lights during night games). And if the pros want even more reach, they can always add an extender to their 400mm lens if the lighting environment permits. In fact, during my Detroit Lions vs Chicago Bears session last year, many of the pro photographers on the field were quickly adding and removing extenders to their 400mm lens / monopod setup during the course of the game.

Since this original post back in 2006, I've acquired a Nikon 300mm f/2.8 AF-S lens as well as a Nikon 1.4x lens extender to go along with my 1.7x.  I also don't own the Nikon D70 anymore either. For most soccer matches, I team the 300mm lens with the 1.4x extender attached to my Nikon D300 body for longer reach situations.  Concurrently I use my Nikon 70-200mm lens attached to my Nikon D200 for the action nearer to me.  In the future I will test various lens / extender combinations in various outdoor light environments to get a better sense optimum performance.  Of course, you'll be the first to know, once I know.