Since I’m writing about lenses this week, let me address the lens question that keeps coming up over and over:
"I’ve read all your reviews and writing about the various Z-mount telephoto options, and I just don’t know how to choose. Can you help?"
Wait, what? You read everything I wrote and you didn’t come to a conclusion, and now you want me to make a conclusion for you? Yeah, that’ll work…
Seriously, here’s the thing that everyone gets hung up on: not knowing what they’re going to photograph. If you know what you’re photographing, you should know what focal length you need, and then you simply pick the least expensive lens (because that’s all you can afford) or the best performing lens (because you want optimal results).
Sports photographers know this, for sure. Every sport that we pros photograph has a different lens focal length requirement to get top notch photos to deliver to your client. We all have our basketball/ice hockey lenses, our football lenses, our soccer/lacrosse lenses, and others for each sport we cover.
To put that into context, in a basketball or ice hockey arena, we’re in a fairly fixed position typically at one end of the action. We need wide angle (and preferably zoom) for the near action, and we will usually bring something to photograph action at the far end or through the transition area, which tends to be something more like a 70-200mm.
With football, while it’s a wider field of play, it used to be that we could move fairly far up the sidelines and move with the line of scrimmage, so 300mm was about right. These days, we’re usually pushed to a smaller area near or around the end zone, and I find that I need a longer lens than I used to, as in 400mm, 500mm, or even 600mm (the latter is what one pro I know who works for one of the big agencies uses). But for teams where I still have full sideline access, a 120-300mm is a great lens with the right range.
Soccer and Lacrosse use big fields and action is often far from you, so I always drag a 500/600mm lens to those events.
The bottom line is that I know what focal length I need for each of the events I cover, and I have the budget to own multiple lenses.
The problem most readers face is that they want the most flexibility possible because they want something that works for virtually every telephoto use they can imagine.
Well, if that last sentence describes you, then I have only three lenses for you need to choose from: the Nikon's 28-400mm f/4-8 VR, 100-400mm 4.5-5.6 VR S, or 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR (and on a Z8/Z9 you always have the DX crop to give you a faux 1.5x boost). Okay, I’ll name two more: the Tamron 50-400mm f/4.5-6.3 VC and 150-500mm f/5-6.7 VC. You probably choose between these five lenses by resolving the conflict of your budget versus your likelihood to actually carry the lens. Lenses that stay in your closet, backpack, or other bag are not useful, and I have no idea why you’d even let yourself get in a tizzy over choosing one.
If you do know exactly the common relationship between you and subject (auto/motorcycle racing, individual sport, full access to positioning a safari vehicle, walking safari, etc.), then you should buy the best lens at that focal length you can afford. For me in Africa (I control position of my vehicle), that’s the 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S. I simply am never worried about my images with that lens. It’s magical at 400mm and f/2.8, it’s really good at 540mm (TC engaged), and I still get a very usable image if I have to stretch to DX (faux 810mm).
If you don’t have the budget to get the 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S, but 400mm is the focal length you need, then you get the quite excellent 400mm f/4.5 VR S instead.
However, the lens you need may require more flexibility because you want it work for differing situations than that fixed safari example I just gave, and we’re back to my 28-400mm, 100-400mm, and 180-600mm answer.
Typically coupled with the telephoto questions I get is “what if I used a 1.4x or 2x teleconverter?”
You won’t like me answer: don’t. Actually, it’s more like “you won’t.” In most situations where you’d decide to use that teleconverter you either (1) brought the wrong lens (e.g. 70-200mm instead of 100-400mm), or (2) you really don’t have time and don’t want to be mounting/unmounting a teleconverter. Unless the teleconverter is built-into the lens and can be engaged by a switch, you probably shouldn’t be relying on one.
All that said, it’s difficult to select a “bad” telephoto lens in the current Z System choices. The worst you can usually do is select the “wrong” telephoto lens (e.g. not the focal length you really needed). This is a really, really important thing to understand right now. There are no “bad” telephoto lenses in Nikon’s or Tamron’s lineup. Yes, they have some differences, but you start your pick by figuring out focal length, then looking at things like weight, size, maximum aperture, closest focus distance, and cost.
Which brings me to this: Why don’t I use the 400mm f/4.5 VR S I suggested you try? It’s a really good lens, probably all that most of you really need at the long end. However, I put up with the weight difference because I value that faster f/2.8 aperture plus the built-in teleconverter, which gives me a more flexible lens. Note that I didn’t write “because the 400mm f/2.8 TC VR S is optically better.” It is, but only by a bit in terms of sharpness. The standout characteristic is the out of focus areas at f/2.8 for the more expensive lens versus the same for the less expensive f/4.5. I actually think that most amateurs probably would prefer the lighter weight and easier handling of the f/4.5 lens, and not really miss the things that I value on the f/2.8 one. And, of course, there’s the price difference, which is considerable.
Most people I consult with on telephoto lenses are overthinking things. They’re too worried about missing out on a small gain and not paying enough attention to how (and whether) they’ll use the lens.
I know I write about “optimal data capture” all the time, and I put that into practice as often as possible for my own work. However, I also need to point out that there’s sub-optimal—which none of the current Nikon/Tamron telephoto options really are—near optimal, and optimal. You get maybe 90% of the way to “optimal” with almost any currently available telephoto choice in the Z System. (I put optimal in quotes in the last sentence because aperture and focal length, if not what you need, would make your choice less-than-optimal.) This wasn’t really the case with the old F-mount, where we had a number of sub-optimal and mediocre choices to wade through.
Finally, note that there are some real “value” choices in the telephoto lineup for the Z-mount. In particular, the surprising 28-400mm f/4-8 whose big “sin” is basically just its small maximum aperture. But also the 180-600mm f/5.6-6.3 VR, which is flexible and gives quite reasonable performance at 600mm. Also, the two Tamron zooms and the Nikon 100-400mm do quite well optically. Notice something about all five I just mentioned? They’re flexible lenses in some way, too.
So I guess my final bit of advice is this: start by pickup up one of these five flexible options. Master your use of it. Then, and only then, would you need to start getting obsessive about whether there might be a better option for you, but by then you’ll know what it really is you need both in focal length and probably in aperture.