Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/04/05

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Subject: [Leica] Longish lenses (Leica, and (OT) - Nikon)
From: rdcb37 at dodo.com.au (Rick Dykstra)
Date: Tue Apr 5 04:35:19 2005
References: <000c01c53909$cff5ab80$9e144743@corp.nortel.com>

I've only just seen this one.

Vick, I've taken thousands of soccer action photos, of juniors mainly 
over the last 10 years.  I started with a Leica 400/2.8, which was OK, 
but heavy and I lost many shots that were out of focus.  Having to hold 
the lens in the middle (to manually focus) rather than at then end also 
made life difficult than with an autofocus Nikon AFS 300 lens.  And 
that would be my recommendation - either a 300 or 400 mm lens, of 
either f2.8 or f4.  A 1.4x converter would go very nicely with the 300. 
  400mm is about all one needs for soccer, unless were talking about 
full size pitches, where a 500 is handy with junior players.

A Nikon F5 or similar and a 300mm plus a 1.4 converter and you'll be 
laughing.

If you do decide to stick with manual focus, well it's do-able.  The 
trick is to keep jinking the focus ahead of running players and wait 
for them to run into the focal plane, shooting when the composition and 
focus is good.  Takes practice but can work well.  As I sell the 
photos, I've found the F5 to be invaluable.

Good luck and have fun.

Rick Dykstra.


On 04/04/2005, at 9:31 PM, Vick Ko wrote:

> I am asking for a bit of a poll -
> What are the longer telephoto lens that have good reputation in Leica R
> and Nikon F?
>
> i.e. longer than 135mm.
>
> Usage will be capturing 4 year olds on a soccer field.
>
> Regards,
>
> Vick Ko
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
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>


In reply to: Message from vick.ko at sympatico.ca (Vick Ko) ([Leica] Longish lenses (Leica, and (OT) - Nikon))