Nikon unveils 120-300mm f/2.8 monster telephoto in time for the 2020 Olympics

Nikon AF-S Nikkor 120-300mm f/2.8 FL ED SR VR
(Image credit: Nikon)

The AF-S Nikkor 120-300mm f/2.8 FL ED SR VR, to use its full name, is designed for professional sports and wildlife photographers who need long range, a fast maximum aperture AND the flexibility of a zoom. 

The first two we’ve seen plenty of times before, but not very often the third. Nikon does already make an AF-S Nikkor 180-400mm f/4E TC1.4 FL ED VR constant aperture telephoto zoom, but while it does offer longer focal lengths, it’s a stop slower at f/4 rather than f/2.8. This new lens slots in between this and the shorter 70-200mm f/2.8 that most sports shooters keep in their kit bag – and for sports pros offers more flexibility than a 300mm f/2.8.

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Rod Lawton
Contributor

Rod is an independent photography journalist and editor, and a long-standing Digital Camera World contributor, having previously worked as DCW's Group Reviews editor. Before that he has been technique editor on N-Photo, Head of Testing for the photography division and Camera Channel editor on TechRadar, as well as contributing to many other publications. He has been writing about photography technique, photo editing and digital cameras since they first appeared, and before that began his career writing about film photography. He has used and reviewed practically every interchangeable lens camera launched in the past 20 years, from entry-level DSLRs to medium format cameras, together with lenses, tripods, gimbals, light meters, camera bags and more. Rod has his own camera gear blog at fotovolo.com but also writes about photo-editing applications and techniques at lifeafterphotoshop.com