Nikon Lenses for Sports Photography

Email to Park Cameras

Good morning,

I was hoping that you may be able to help me?

On Saturday I came and bought a Nikon D90 as a replacement for my D70s.

I am trying to find out what I should do regarding lenses.

I currently have a AF-S Nikkor 18 – 70 AFS 3.5 – 4.5 ED that came with the D70s and an Auto Focus Sigma 70 – 300mm 4-5.6D that I had with my old Nikon F601 35mm camera.

However I have been looking at a couple of lenses that you sell, some specifically for the D90.

The Nikon 70 - 300mm F4.5-5.6G AF-S VR at £449.99 and the Nikon AF-S 18 - 105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR DX £199.99

However would the Nikon AF-S DX Nikkor 18 - 200mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR II £587.99 do the job of both of these?

Are there any others that you suggest around these price brackets?

I generally take pictures all the time, like most, on occasions, such as holidays, weddings, football matches, motor sport etc. and just wanted to know which would be the best lense / lenses for these events or should I just stick with the lenses that I currently have got?

Also I am already booked onto the D90 course in April with Park Cameras but I just wanted to sort out the lenses before I go on the course.

Any help or advice would be very much appreciated.


Kind Regards

Actual Response

Dear Sir,

thank you for your email.

The 18-70mm lens you currently have is a nice lens and I would consider upgrading this as the least priority. The Nikon 70-300mm VR lens is superior to your current Sigma and I would suggest that you upgrade to this as you'll benefit from the increased focusing speed and image sharpness when shooting the sporting events you mention. The 18-200mm VR lens is good, the main benefit is the versatility but it is not as good quality optically as the 70-300mm VR. A lens is also usually at it's weakest at the extremities of the zoom range, therefore if you are shooting sports you'll likely be using it at 200mm quite often and so the performance will be noticeably better with the 70-300mm.

If there is one lens I would suggest you purchase then it is the Nikon AF-S DX NIKKOR 35mm f/1.8G

I have written an article about 50mm lenses which will be relevant as a 35mm lens on a D90 gives a very similar field of view:

Kind regards,

Gui de Basly
Corporate Sales Executive
Park Cameras Ltd.