Buying the best lens for sports photography is essential for anyone who is serious about capturing the fast action of a good sporting event. Whether you're shooting Sunday league football or professional Formula One racing, the principles of what makes a good lens are the same – so this guide should prove handy for sports shooters of all stripes.
Whether you're lucky enough to have a media pass, or you're capturing shots from the peanut gallery, you're going to be a considerable distance from the action. This means you're going to need a decent amount of telephoto focal range. However, we've not populated this guide with long telephoto prime lenses with wide maximum apertures that cost over $10,000 apiece. We have restricted ourselves to mid-priced lenses that will give you the reach you need for most sporting occasions.
We've divided the guide up by lens mount, including options for all major systems. Remember that some third-party lenses are compatible with multiple camera systems (we've tried to note this where useful) and that many DSLR lenses can be adapted to mirrorless systems from the same manufacturer, often with full functionality of autofocus and stabilization. If you need a new camera too, check out our guide to the best cameras for sports photography.
Matthew Richards
Matthew Richards has spent years using and reviewing all manner of photo gear - and in his spare time loves visiting racing tracks to photograph motorbikes. He is Digital Camera World's principal lens reviewer. He has personally tested many hundred of lenses over the last 20 years, and has used all of the lenses in this guide.
For Canon mirrorless cameras, this stunning lens offers incredible reach and stellar image quality. We love the twist-ring zoom and the effective stabilisation.
For Canon DSLRs (and Nikon ones too), this Tamron lens offers excellent value for money, with a balanced build that's comfortable for handheld shooting.
One of the longest lenses for X-mount, this monster zoom can even be extended with teleconverters – though this will restrict the already modest max aperture.
While a prime lens won't suit all sports shooters, this superb recent effort from Sigma demands to be considered. It delivers the goods in exemplary fashion.
While it's shorter than others on this list, the L-mount 'trinity' zoom from Sigma scores big for its constant f/2.8 aperture, as well as ultra-fast focusing.
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Best lens for sport photography: Canon
Canon shooters have a raft of incredible sports lenses to choose from – here are a couple of our favourites for RF-mount and EF-mount. Note that EOS R mirrorless shooters can use EF-mount DSLR lenses via an adapter.
The Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM has long been a favorite with Canon DSLR shooters, with the Mk II edition having a twist-ring zoom mechanism, rather than a push-pull arrangement. The RF 100-500mm for EOS R-series mirrorless cameras follows suit, also inheriting the smooth control ring.
Handling is refined, with a triple-mode, five-stop image stabilizer, a customizable control ring, and an autofocus-range limiter switch. Helped by the inclusion of six UD (Ultra-low Dispersion) elements, one Super UD element, and Air Sphere Coating, image quality is excellent. The image stabilizer lives up to its claims on EOS R and RP cameras, and its effectiveness is further boosted when combined with the in-body stabilizers of newer EOS R-series cameras.
Good sharpness in the long section of the zoom range
Reasons to avoid
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Sharpness is a bit lacking at shorter zoom settings
Tamron’s original 150-600mm was a good lens, but the newer G2 edition is a major upgrade. Two additional Low Dispersion elements are fitted and secondary nano-structure coatings are applied, along with better weather-seals and a fluorine coating on the front element.
New and improved VC (Vibration Compensation) is rated at 4.5 stops, with three operating modes instead of just one. These include static and panning options, plus a mode for tracking erratically moving subjects, The autofocus system is faster,
and a new flex zoom lock can be engaged at any focal length.
Everything works well, especially the revamped autofocus and stabilization systems, and handling is very refined. Outright sharpness is a little lacking in the short to medium zoom sector. Nearly a kilogram lighter than the Sigma 150-600mm Sports lens, the Tamron is more comfortable for prolonged periods of handheld shooting.
Best lens for sport photography: Sony
For Sony E-mount mirrorless, there are plenty of excellent lenses available – both Sony-made and from third-party manufacturers. Here are our reviewers' top recommendations.
We’ve been impressed by the Sony FE 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 G Master OSS super-tele zoom for E-mount mirrorless cameras, but the newer 200-600mm really boosts telephoto reach, with only a minimal narrowing of the aperture rating. It’s also considerably less expensive.
Handling is excellent, with a switchable triple-mode optical stabilizer, an autofocus range limiter, and customizable AF-on/AF-lock buttons. Unusually for this type of lens, the overall physical length remains fixed throughout the zoom range.
The Direct Drive Super Sonic Motor autofocus system is fast, accurate, and ultra-quiet. The optical stabilizer works best in conjunction with in-body stabilizers featured in recent Sony cameras, and sharpness is both scintillating and consistent.
Picking up the baton from Sony’s FE 100-400mm G Master, this lens has similarly refined handling and delivers scintillating performance and image quality.
A retooling of the already excellent DSLR lens, the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports is the complete package for Sony and Leica L shooters. Pairing superb internal optics with an all-around excellent, weather-sealed build, this heavy-duty zoom lens is a big customer, but is really the only game in town for 150-600mm as far as users of the aforementioned mounts are concerned.
Of course, that wouldn't matter if the lens itself was no good. Fortunately, it's excellent. The optical path is a little different from the DSLR version, including 25 elements arranged in 15 groups, and it produces impressive sharpness throughout the entirety of the zoom range. There's some inevitable fall-off in the corners, but not enough to worry about, and it's the sort of thing that will be hidden anyway when you're shooting with a shallow depth of field.
The autofocus is excellent, though you'll need to make sure your camera is set up in the optimal way to take advantage of it. The build quality of the lens is also impressive – while no one is going to pretend this is a lightweight lens, it handles well, with tactile zoom and focus rings and a series of on-body controls for functions like AF speed, stabilization intensity, and in a new addition for the mirrorless version, Zoom Torque control to adjust the resistance of the zoom ring.
Our picks of sports photography lenses for Nikon includes options for Z-mount mirrorless and F-mount DSLRs. Once again, mirrorless users can easily adapt DSLR lenses to work on their camera bodies – and note also that the Tamron SP 150-600mm f/5-6.3 Di VC USD G2 from our Canon section is also available for Nikon F-mount.
Nikon has long made an Nikkor AF-S 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6G ED VR lens – but, while it delivers excellent image quality, the focal length is relatively limited, and it’s relatively pricey. This newer 200-500mm zoom is more affordable and packs in smart additional features. These include a constant-aperture design, and an electromagnetically controlled diaphragm that ensures greater exposure consistency in rapid-fire shooting.
Uprated VR (Vibration Reduction) is good for 4.5 stops and adds a ‘Sport’ mode for improved stability while tracking moving subjects.
In our lab tests it showed good levels of sharpness remain impressively consistent throughout the entire zoom range, and overall image quality is of a high standard. Autofocus and stabilization systems work quickly and effectively.
The maximum focal length falls a little short compared with Nikon-mount Sigma and Tamron 150-600mm zooms but performance levels are very good.
Nikon very much sees this as the Z-mount successor to the popular AF-S 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR lens featured above. It's an ultra-telephoto lens that's highly capable, but also reasonably affordable to amateurs and enthusiasts as well as professionals. That extra-broad zoom range gives the user real shooting flexibility, too.
In our review, we were blown away by this absolute cracker of a lens. It's razor-sharp right the way through that big focal range, and the build makes it lightweight enough for prolonged handheld use. Autofocus is lightning-fast and pin-point accurate – which is really all you can ask for as far as sports photography is concerned. Even when the conditions are challenging, this lens delivers the goods, and it's an eminently worthy successor to the excellent DSLR lens that preceded it.
Best lens for sport photography: Fujifilm
For a while, super-telephoto shooters using Fujifilm's X-mount didn't have a whole lot of choice. However, with the introduction of speedster cameras like the X-H2S, Fujifilm has signified its intentions to be a player in the sports photography circuit, and that has come with expansion of the lens range.
Fujifilm X series mirrorless cameras use APS-C sensors, meaning that a crop factor of 1.5x is applied to the state focal length of the lenses. That means this lens actually covers a monster zoom range of 229-914mm in full-frame equivalent terms – and if that's somehow not enough, it's even compatible with Fujifilm's 1.4x and 2x teleconverters! All this goes to making the X series a viable option for sports photographers, who might not have even looked at it previously.
A highly effective stabilisation system serves to make the outer reaches of the zoom range useable – in our testing, we found that when shooting in dull, miserable conditions, the stabilisation system made our results noticeably sharper. And speaking of conditions – the lens is weather-sealed at 19 locations, so outdoor sports photographers have nothing to worry about.
Thanks to the X series' crop factor, this lens effectively gives you a 150-600m focal range, which should be plenty for most sports photography applications. It comes with a string of letters after its name, denoting a physical aperture ring, a linear motor autofocus system, optical image stabilisation and a weather-resistant construction – ticking pretty much all of the boxes on a Fujifilm photographer’s wishlist.
The lens is beautifully engineered, with a high-precision feel to all its controls, and no hint of zoom creep. The optical path includes five ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements, plus a Super ED element. The autofocus system’s dual linear stepping motors enable very fast performance, and the five-stop stabiliser is highly effective.
This high-performance zoom comes up trumps on Fujifilm X-series cameras, delivering excellent performance. The APS-C format boosts the maximum telephoto reach.
Best lens for sport photography: L-mount
Users of L-mount cameras have plenty of lenses to choose from, thanks to the ongoing alliance between Sigma, Leica and Panasonic (with more third-party manufacturers also jumping on board). These are our top picks for the mount – and note also that the Sigma 150-600mm f/5-6.3 DG DN OS Sports in our Sony section is available for L-mount.
Autofocus type: HLA (High-response Linear Actuator)
Optical stabilizer: Yes
Minimum focus distance: 3.2m
Maximum magnification: 0.17x
Filter thread: 95mm
Dimensions (WxL): 108x235mm
Weight: 1,370g
Reasons to buy
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Strong, lightweight build
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Dazzling quality
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Fast autofocus
Reasons to avoid
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Fixed focal length won't suit everyone
While we've mostly covered zoom lenses in this guide, there's a lot to be said for the relatively recent Sigma 500mm F5.6 DG DN OS Sports. This gorgeous prime offers tack-sharp quality in a pleasingly lightweight build, with highly effective stabilisation and super-fast autofocus. If you're shooting sports from enough of a distance for 500mm to be suitable, it's a superb choice
In our review, we particularly appreciated how this weather-sealed lens handles beautifully, with an aperture ring that can be de-clicked if preferred. Pictures have plenty of bite, and the resolving power is enough to handle even the high-resolution sensors of the top-end L-mount mirrorless cameras.
Autofocus type: Two HLA (High-response Linear Actuator) motors
Optical stabilizer: Yes
Minimum focus distance: 0.65m
Maximum magnification: 0.19x
Filter thread: 77mm
Dimensions (WxL): 90.6x207mm
Weight: 1,335g
Reasons to buy
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Excellent image quality
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Weather-sealed
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Super-fast, near-silent AF
Reasons to avoid
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Less reach than others
While 70-200mm is shorter than the other lenses on this list, it's still a useful range for sports shooting – as the 'Sports' designation on this lens attests. The Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 DG DN OS Sports blends excellent image quality with a finely crafted build that befits this lens' status as a professional 'trinity' lens (referring to a set of zooms with f/2.8 constant apertures).
With plenty of on-body controls, the lens handles well, and can be configured to suit your particular handling preferences. Also, in happy news for sports shooters, our testing found that it delivered its best sharpness at the longer ends of its zoom setting – so you can get in close with confidence. The bokeh quality is also absolutely sublime, thanks to the 11-blade aperture, which makes it perfect for throwing out the background and keeping focus on your chosen subject.
Best lens for sport photography: Pentax
Users of Pentax's weatherproof DSLRs have a few good options when it comes to sports photography lenses. Here is a lens we would particularly recommend.
Pentax designed this full-frame compatible lens at a time when the company only made APS-C format DSLRs (where it gives an effective focal range of 230-690mm). The decision has come good with the subsequent launch of Pentax’s K-1 full-frame DSLRs.
There’s plentiful autofocus finery with both auto and manual priority ‘Quick Shift’ modes, plus an AF preset facility and four customizable buttons around the middle of the lens.
Other attractions include a tough, weather-sealed construction, HD coatings to reduce ghosting and flare, and a ‘super protect’ coating on the front element.
Autofocus speed is a little pedestrian compared with other lenses on test. Sharpness drops off rather noticeably at the long end of the zoom range – a situation that isn’t helped by the lens’s reliance on in-camera stabilization.
It’s a high-tech lens that’s ideal for both APS-C and full-frame Pentax DSLRs, but it’s pretty pricey and sharpness could be better, especially towards the long end.
Best lens for sport photography: Micro Four Thirds
The Micro Four Thirds mount is used on Olympus, OM System and Panasonic Lumix G cameras – as well as on some Blackmagic cameras, too. The 2x crop factor is a real asset when it comes to gaining telephoto reach.
Like the Fujinon 100-400mm lens, this Panasonic is designed for crop-sensor cameras, but this time of the Micro Four Thirds variety. As such, the size of the image sensor enables an even smaller, lighter construction, along with a 2x focal length multiplier that boosts the effective zoom range to a humungous 200-800mm.
Credentials include Leica backing, aspherical elements, and optical image stabilization, which can work in tandem with the in-body stabilizers of various MFT cameras. The optical path includes two ED (Extra-low Dispersion) elements, one aspherical ED element, and one Ultra ED element.
In our tests, we found that the autofocus is fast and accurate and image stabilization works well, although it lacks a switchable panning mode. Optical performance is highly impressive all-round. Weighing in at under a kilogram, the Panasonic is well-balanced on MFT bodies.
How to choose the best lens for sports photography
When picking lenses for sports photography, you're going to need to prioritise a number of things. A decent telephoto focal length is going to be a given, as sports by their nature don't allow you to get close to the action. And at this range, you're going to likely need a capable stabilisation system to help keep shots sharp, as you may not always be able to rely on being able to use a tripod. Having as wide a maximum aperture as possible will also be handy; sports photography generally requires fast shutter speeds, so being able to open up the lens will help you ensure enough light gets in without having to amp up the ISO.
Fast focusing is a most – a lens needs a powerful system that'll lock on quickly. Also, given the fact that many sports take place outdoors, some measure of weatherproofing is highly advisable.
How we test lenses
We test lenses using both real-world sample images and lab tests. Our lab tests are carried out scientifically in controlled conditions using the Imatest testing suite, which consists of custom charts and analysis software that measures resolution in line widths/picture height, a measurement widely used in lens and camera testing.
You can read our lab test findings, but looking at our full tests (review links are given for all of the lenses in our guide). We find the combination of lab and real-world testing works best, as each reveals different qualities and characteristics. For super-telephotos and other sports-oriented lenses, we aim to test them with fast-moving subjects, and think about the kinds of images users are going to want to use these lenses to capture.
FAQs
What focal length do professional sports photographers use?
There's no single answer to this – as of course it does depend somewhat on the sport being shot! If you're courtside at a basketball game, for instance, you could probably get away with shooting on a 50mm, but most sports photographers don't have that luxury. As a general rule, having at least 200mm to work with is a good idea, with some leeway in both directions depending on the specifics of your chosen sport.
What lens should I use for sports videography?
In general, the best lenses for sports videography are going to be the same as for photography – you still need to prioritise a long focal length, decent stabilisation and fast focusing. There are a few other features you might want to pay attention to – getting something with silent autofocus is a good idea, and you may also want to look for a clickless aperture ring for smooth exposure transitions.
Matthew Richards is a photographer and journalist who has spent years using and reviewing all manner of photo gear. He is Digital Camera World's principal lens reviewer – and has tested more primes and zooms than most people have had hot dinners!
His expertise with equipment doesn’t end there, though. He is also an encyclopedia when it comes to all manner of cameras, camera holsters and bags, flashguns, tripods and heads, printers, papers and inks, and just about anything imaging-related.
In an earlier life he was a broadcast engineer at the BBC, as well as a former editor of PC Guide.
