Nikon 300mm f/2.8 VR11
Is this the best prime telephoto lens for sports & wildlife?
I have one lens on my camera. It’s a cheap lens, but also a very good one, optically at least. The Nikon 50mm f/1.8G costs very little and produces fantastic results. I rarely use another lens on the D800, but I’ve recently been hankering after a fast telephoto prime.
I didn’t realise that I wanted one until I stumbled across Tom Mason, a professional wildlife photog and Nikon brand ambassador and his video review of the 300mm f2.8 VR11 (see below), seeing some of the beautiful images it has produced made me add one to my glass wish list.
There’s something about the compression you get from a fast telephoto, coupled with the detail that you wouldn’t normally see with the naked eye that makes the photos look like stills from a wildlife documentary.
Nikon is no stranger to 300mm f/2.8 lenses, and pretty much all of them are excellent. The later ones have VR, but are pricier as a result. You can even get a manual focus 300mm f/2.8 which would do as a great portrait lens, but most will want appreciate the autofocus VR lens for shooting birds in flight, sports and wildlife.
The VR 11 lens was released in 2009 replacing the VR lens from 2004, but the design which uses 11 elements in 8 groups goes back to 1996, that’s a quarter of a century. If it ain’t broke and all that….the VR provides up to three stops of addition speed when you want to maintain low ISO in falling light levels.
The 300mm is the gold standard in telephoto primes, and a workhorse for many professional photographers the world over. On a D850 the 300mm 2.8 gives phenomenal resolution, and is ideal for pitch sports and motorsports, even wide open at f/2.8 where it is beautifully sharp with creamy focus fall off.
Pairing it with a crop sensor camera like a D500 gives an effective 450mm focal length, and the D500’s strong suit of high ISO performance means dawn or dusk photos are as clean as they can be.
The 300mm f/2.8 VR/VR2 has lightning fast autofocus, but weighs in at a hefty 6.4lbs. If you have the means, or just need to have the very best optical performance, there are few better telephotos for the money.
The RRP of a new lens is $5,499 which seems steep, but luckily it can be had for much less in excellent condition used from the likes of MPB for around $3,000 or £3,000 you can get an even better deal on eBay.
Here are some example photos so you can see for yourself the quality on offer. Also check out the Flickr group here.
