Football shots from the stands

denadog

I rerecently purchased the Nikon D3300. I am trying to get pictures of my son's football game as I sit in the stands. Was wondering, what is the best lens that I can purchase at a reasonable price? The camera came with the 18-55mm f/2.2-3.5 and 55-200mm f/2.2-4. Any help would be appreciated.

bruto

It kind of depends on what you consider a reasonable price. For sports the best choice is a fast lens, but if you look at the price on a zoom that goes to f/2.8 or a prime telephoto that is fast, you may well decide that "reasonable" has left the building.

If you like to stick with Nikon, the 70-200mm f/2.8 is said to be very nice. Of course at around two grand, it had better be. Sigma and Tamron make similar range lenses for about half the price, but that's still not cheap.

If it's broad daylight, you may get away with the 55-200mm. Remember that if you are shooting a full 24 megapixel image, the D3300 has some room for cropping. If you can get a sharp picture at 200mm, you can crop in a lot and it will still be sharp.

When shopping around remember that many AF lenses you see may not have their own motors, and will therefore not auto focus on the D3300. Be careful when comparing.