Soaptrail wrote:
I have a Z 5 camera and want to get some sort of zoom lens. I already own the 24-70 which is a great lens so I could go for the 24-120 but that is a lot of overlap and I doubt i would recoup much from the 24-70. I see Tamron has its first Z lens with a 70-300 which would be nice but not many true metrics on that lens available, although photos online look nice. I could go for the macro 105 f 2.8 but that is definitely not a zoom lens so Ultimately i would need a zoom lens later on but being able to try Macro photos might be nice.
Any suggestions as I have another season of high school mountain biking to shoot starting in September and given the distances they travel I can get very close to the action or as far away as I want.
I am price conscious and a Nikon 70-200MM 2.8 would be too large for my needs.
Of the 3 on your list, the Tamron is the clear choice for sports. The other two really aren’t sports lenses…the Z 105mm is slow to focus for sports, and the 24-70 f/4 doesn’t have any of the reach you’re going to need (neither does the Z 105mm, FWIW.)
Your Z 5 has IBIS, which will somewhat mitigate the non VR on the Tamron lens. But the max frame rate on the Z5 is sloooow for sports, to be honest.
Lots of Z 24-200mm on MPB, KEH, even Nikon USA refurb these days. But also, pretty slow to focus on the long end, in my experience. Been trying to talk myself into that lens for a while now…just can’t seem to do it. Plus, 200mm is still a bit short for sports.
The other option you might want to consider is the Z50 and the 50-250mm kit lens. if you’re cost-conscious, that is a good place to start for a little more than the cost of the Tamron lens (and certainly less than the FTZ + the F mount 70-300mm combo, which IMHO is just not a very good idea). You’re gonna have to mess around a bit with the AF modes to see what works best for you (Wide AF is probably where u wanna start, not Auto AF, and go from there) but once u got it dialed in, it makes a very nice sports combo (I’ve used it on more than a few occasions for Minnesota United soccer games, and most shots came out very nicely, in spite of the fact that I am NOT a sports shooter, at all.)
