Motorsport lens help

MMPhotos

MMPhotos

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Matt
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Hi all, hoping for your thoughts on lens choice...

I am the track day photographer for Llandow race circuit in South Wales. I've been doing this since last September and enjoy the work plus the extra little income that comes with it.

I'm now considering a change in lenses and wanted to run through a few of my ideas and gauge some thoughts.

My current (motorsport) setup is a Nikon D300 body with Nikkor 80-200m f/2.8 ED and Tokina 300mm f/4 lenses.

I get really nice results from both of these lenses, I'm especially impressed with the sharpness of the Tokina, especially when stopped down a little. But the Tokina's AF performance is pretty terrible and can't keep up anywhere near as well as the aging Nikkor. The trouble I have is that I find myself having to swap lenses through the day due to focal lengths, depending on where I stand and what I'm photographing.

For cars, the Nikkor is mostly fine. The 200mm is perfect for the majority of the circuit as I can get nice and close, but 300mm + would yield better results in places.

With motorbikes the Nikkor is not quite as useful and I'm having to change between the Nikkor and Tokina through the day fairly often. 400mm or 500mm would be useful also for the bikes.

So, what I think I need is a longer focal length zoom.

In all cases I will be keeping the Nikkor as I shoot the odd wedding, which this lens is perfect for. So the new lens would be a replacement for the Tokina.

My options - within my budget of circa £500 (used) - as I see them are as follows:

Sigma 100-300mm HSM f4 (+ 1.4x teleconverter possibly?)
Sigma 120-400mm OS HSMf.4.5-5.6
Sigma 150-500mm OS HSM f5-6.3

I've not intentionally only listed Sigma lenses. Although they do seem to fit my needs and budget.

Obviously the three of them have their strengths and limitations. I'd really like to hear from those who use the above lenses - especially if they shoot sports - and any other lens suggestions are more than welcome! Sharpness and auto focus performance are key.

Thanks all...
 
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Thanks Scott. Have you used/owned this lens? Can you vouch for its AF speed and sharpness?
 
i have the new os version and its pleanty fast enough for motorsport,
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Thanks for the sample shots Scott. Lovely and sharp for sure!
 
Your gonna need a lens that copes with poor light easily, you havnt got the luxury of editing your shots, or have you? I'm doing Oulton Park on saturday and will be showing the shots taken on the day and selling on the day.

the 100-300mm is a great lens, my mate uses one not sure how if it would work with a TC on mind, will prob loose AF. have you thought about a TC for the 70-200. only been Llandow once and was riding but it didn't look like you would need more than 300mm.
 
I use a Sigma 100-300 f/4 with a Sigma 1.4tc and it's a very capable combination, nearly all my motorsports shots are with this.
My only other advice would be to save a little more and get a used nikon 300 f/4 af-s then add a 1.7tc.
 
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Another vote here for the Sigma 100-300 f4 EX and a 1.4X TC, the Sigma is pretty much made for motorsport IMO and with the TC makes a decent 420mm f5.6, and it retains AF. It's a bit of a lump but built like a tank and very well balanced especially when you have a grip on as well.

The only downside is that many of the 100-300's (along with other Sigma lenses) have a tendency to front focus, so if your body doesn't have MA you'll end up sending both the body and lens to Sigma for calibration.
 
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Thanks for the replies all. I must say that the 100-300mm F4 was my initial preference due to it's constant speed, but didn't want to dismiss the other longer focal length lenses if they were good performers. I hear a lot of good things about the 100-300 so I'll keep an eye out for one :)
 
MMPhotos said:
Thanks for the replies all. I must say that the 100-300mm F4 was my initial preference due to it's constant speed, but didn't want to dismiss the other longer focal length lenses if they were good performers. I hear a lot of good things about the 100-300 so I'll keep an eye out for one :)
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do you use f4 much for motorsport i find i use slowish shutter speed about 100/sec and iso set to 100 or 200 and i normally have to stop the lens down to around f10, so to use f4 the shutter speeds would be way to fast and freeze it dead. even on a dull day at 5.6/6.3 the iso will only be like around 800.
hers some naff weather.
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Well, I made my decision and I'm now the proud owner of this Sigma 100-300mm f4 non-DG lens. I got it for an excellent price on that well-known auction site. My maximum bid was almost £100 more than I paid, so I'm really pleased. I'll be spending that 'spare' cash on a matching Sigma 1.4x teleconverter hopefully.

I've not used it properly yet, but my test shots show that it's super sharp! Thanks again for all the help, merry Christmas and a happy new year :)


Sigma 100-300mm APO HSM f/4 (non-DG) by Matthew Miller Photography, on Flickr
 
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