Lens Recommendation for Sports

[dmacgee]

I'm about to start looking for a longer lens for my Maxxum 7D. Currently my longest lens is a 75-300 zoom. I'm looking at a longer lens for Sports photography and wildlife shots. Any recommendations would be appreciated. I'm also considering a teleconverter and would like your comments on this too.

Thanks
Dave

[Urbanaphotographer]

Will you be shooting at night? If you are you're going to need something fast (F/2.8 ) which can get pricey. If not then I would think you'll just want something with quick focusing.

I don't know anything about tele-converters so hopefully someone else can fill you in on those.

[dmacgee]

I probably won't be shooting much at night but I'll add that to my list of considerations.

Thanks

[nsurit]

Originally Posted by dmacgee

I'm about to start looking for a longer lens for my Maxxum 7D. Currently my longest lens is a 75-300 zoom. I'm looking at a longer lens for Sports photography and wildlife shots. Any recommendations would be appreciated. I'm also considering a teleconverter and would like your comments on this too.

Thanks
Dave

If you are interested in doing wildlife you will likely find yourself shooting in low light, so I'd say something fairly fast would be required. The ones I have used with both my film and digital work are the Tamron SP 300mm f2.8 and the 400mm f4. Both of these are manual focus and both are big lenses and require a steady support (good tripod or monopod). If nature is part of your wildlife equation, I'd get a set of auto extension tubes to help get me a little closer with all my lenses. I also can't imagine being without a macro lens. If you don't have one, the Tamron SP 90mm f2.5 is hard to beat. Bill Barber

[badpickev]

Well you have a bit of a quandry here. for sports most often a faster lens is sought after. Something like a F2.8 for F4 at the slowest. Primes are sharper then zoomes so sometimes you can get by with an older slower prime like a used Sigma 400 f5.6. Going with a smaller lens with a 1.4X can make up some of the focal length without much loss.
For wildlife you can use a slower lens which opens up the choices a bit. You can also look at manual focus lenses as used they are a lot cheaper. A great lens is the sigma 50-500, kind of slow, great optics and huge reach.
Teleconverters are a cool group. Never skimp on one. The kenko 300 pro, the Sigma APO's (only work with some sigma lenses), Tamrons SP ones.

You really do not have a lot of choices in the minolta line up. Was just lookng at BH. Tokina 80-400, Sigma 50-500, Minolta 100-400, and Tamron 200-500. None of these are fast lenses F4.5 and slower. For fast you have 70-200 f2.8. In primes you have a Sigma 500 f4.5, 600 f4, a bunch of 200 f2.8 and f4, and 300 f2.8 and f4.

So i would reccomend for wildlife the Tokina 80-400 and sigma 50-500. I do not know about the minolta 100-400. In primes try a 300 F4 first. If you can find some older primes in the F4-F5.6 on ebay check them out. Also look at photographyreview.com for more opinions on lenses.