Lens Reccomendations?

[Fire]

Dear Forum,

While I'm decently new to photography and such and have used my Nikon D3100 for a while and realized the limitation it has for what I want to shoot for. I want to shoot shots of my teammates during wrestling matches and such and I use the 18-55mm lenses but it seems to come up short. I want to know if you photography-junkies out there know of any good lens that would do good for the sport of wrestling. It would also be great if you've shot for wrestling as well but that doesn't matter. As of now my only lenses is the kit one (18-55). While it is very good and get shots pretty well I want something that I can zoom closer in on.

If you need more information just let me know!

 

[robbins.photo]

Well it's going to depend on the lighting conditions. I'm assuming your 18-55 is the standard kit lens, do you find that it is able to perform well enough in the available lighting at the wrestling matches? If so I'd probably look at a Nikkor 70-300 mm f/4.5-5.6 AF-S G VR, it's a spectacular zoom lens and a really great investment.

If you've found that your kit lens is struggling with the lighting conditions, then I'd recommend you look at getting something faster - that is to say something with a wider aperture. The 70-200 mm F/2.8 is an excellent lens for this sort of photography. I use a Sigma myself and it gives me great results.

 

[Fire]

The lighting was actually pretty good, I adjusted some settings on it to make it darker (I was shooting in manual) and I shot mostly at f/5.6 and 1/60 shutter and got some pretty fantastic results, its just a majority of my shots when they went across the mat was very far and spacious looking. I looked at your link robbins and used the "will this work for my camera" and it came up as a no, so I think that's out of the question.

 

[robbins.photo]

The lighting was actually pretty good, I adjusted some settings on it to make it darker (I was shooting in manual) and I shot mostly at f/5.6 and 1/60 shutter and got some pretty fantastic results, its just a majority of my shots when they went across the mat was very far and spacious looking. I looked at your link robbins and used the "will this work for my camera" and it came up as a no, so I think that's out of the question.

Not sure what you mean by "looked at my link", I didn't actually post one - and trust me the 70-300 mm AF-S G VR will absolutely work for your camera, I know because I use one on my D5100 all the time. I didn't actually recommend a specific 70-200 mm F/2.8 but their are quite a few options that will work - if you go Sigma make sure it's HSM, if you go with Nikkor make sure it's AF-S G. Just means it has a built in autofocus motor so it will work fine with cameras that don't have a built in autofocus motor, like your D3100 or my D5100

 

[Fire]

Ah. I didn't mean the link, I searched it up my bad and used the amazon thingy and it said it wouldn't work.

 

[coastalconn]

Make sure you are looking at the "VR" version. It will work for sure... You can get them pretty cheap used at KEH... under 300 I think

 

[Fire]

Thanks Coastal and robbins. I was looking at the 70-300mm lens and it just seems like to far out to begin with. What do you think of the "Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED IF AF-S DX VR". A wrestling mat is only 15 feet round and I think the 70-300 would be pretty long for that range dontcha think? I could be wrong, but that's why I'm here! (To learn of course)