Express Action Sports

I am just getting into photography and I have decided to buy a Nikon d80. I will be focusing on most types of photography including sports/action, landscapes and general portraits as well as a little macro.

I am having trouble deciding on the best and most value for money lens setup.

I have been looking at the Nikon 18-200mm VR lens which would be and all round lens that I would probably use solely.

Or would it be better to buy two different lenses: the 70-300 VR and another lens for short distances eg a 18-55 or 18-135.

I am unsure which setup would be more effective and give me the most value for money.

Are the zoom lenses quick enough for sports shots?

My budget would probably lie somewhere between $500-1000 usd.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, Thanks.

As a first time user your best bet is the 18mm-200mm lens. That gets you the 35mm equivilent of a 27mm wide angle lens and a 300 mm telephoto lens and of course everything in between. The long end is ideal for sports the short end for landscapes.

Nikon has an 18-70 and the 70-300 you mention. This is also a good combination and gets you again that wide angle on the short side and a whopping 450mm zoom. The longer zoom of course is ideal for sports photographjy.

However, if you go with this combination you’re looking at carrying two lenses and changing lenses all the time as you switch subjects. Back in my film days I did that all the time and I never thought about it. But then in those days changnig lenses was not an issue.

Today it’s different. Every time you remove a lens you potentially expose your sensor to dust necessitating eventually to have the sensor cleaned. So constantly changing lenses is no longer a trivial thing to do. Instead it’s become a potential risk.

I got around this with my Nikon SLR by having a single lens that covers 90% of my needs and that happens to be the 18-200. I travel with that one and I do most of my images with it too. I don’t do sports but I do shoot wildlife so I later got a longer telephoto for that. I do a lot of macro so I have the 105mm macro as well. Those two lenses usually stay home when I’m travelling overseas so that saves me weight.

Back at home I either do wildlife or macro or general stuff. So at the start of a shoot I’ll put on the lens in a place where there’s no wind or dust like in the house or in the car and I’ll use that lens all day. This minimizes getting dust into the camera.

Anyway, since you’re on a limited budget my suggestion is the 18-200. Later as you get a little better off you can always add a 200-400 for those really distant shots but in the meantime at least you have something that covers most of what you need. In fact with that lens you can take a picture of the stadium and an individual player without ever changing lenses.

One other tip … Tamron has an 18-250 lens for a Nikon and it’s cheaper than the Nikon 18-200 version. But there’s a catch too, it doesn’t have an image stabilizor. So if you don’t mind that catch you can save yourself some money. I personally don’t like Tamron lenses, I feel Nikon ones produce better images, but I’ve known many people who insist that there is no difference. So this is an option for you too.

And to answer your other question, are zoom lenses quick enough for sports shots – yes and no. Yes they are in terms of set up and physical use. You can zoom them incredibly fast to get to your subject and the autofocus is incredibly quick too though the 70-300 could be a bit quicker in my opinion.

At the same time zoom lenses have a smaller minimum aperture, usually around f3.5 or smaller. If you typically work in poor lighting conditions or routinely work with very high shutter speeds, this may not be fast enough for you. It may be desirable to get a dedicated single focal length telephoto in that case that’s f2.8 or faster. But if you do that first of all it will cost you twice what you paid for the camera and it will be very heavy requiring a tripod to use. Fast lenses come at a hell of a price. And of course you’re back to changing lenses a lot.

For my money I prefer my 18-200. It may not be the fastest but it’s certainly captured a lot of images for me, each of them outstanding and it saves me constantly changing lenses for general photography.

I hope this helps a little.