Longer lenses for sports?

[jks2]

I have the Nikon D50 with the 28-55mm and the 55-200mm lenses. The 200 doesn't quite reach far enough across the soccer field to shoot close ups of the team. I'm looking at longer lenses, both zooms and fixed length. Money is a concern (i.e. my wife is already mad at me for buying a new camera, much less spending alot of additional money on another lense) so the top of the line stuff is out of my range. I really wanted a lense for around $200 that would pick up where my other lenses left off. I have been looking at the older 75-300mm Nikons, the 70-300mm Nikons, Tamrons, Sigmas, etc. I've also looked at the 200-400mm Tamron and some fixed focal length Nikons, Sigmas, etc. the 300mm to 400mm range. I also want to maintain autofocus and full metering if possible. I've heard good and bad about just about all these lenses, except for the older 75-300mm Nikons.

I lay myself at your mercy and request your opinions on what I should do.

P.S. Soccer season starts on Wednesday so I've got to move fast.

Thanks!

[RichNY]

Have you considered using a teleconverter to use with your existing lens?

http://nikonimaging.com/global/products/lens/af/teleconverters/index.htm

[jks2]

Yes. I borrowed a 2X teleconverter from a friend of mine who has a D70. It is a non AF model so I automatically lose the auto focus. I just switch to the program mode. Two things create a problem for me with the TC. 1) Losing AF and more importantly, 2) You basically double the f/stop of the lense, turning an f4-5.6 into an f8-11.2 which I really don't want to do, even if I bought an AF converter. Plus at that price I might as well just get another lense.

[D70FAN]

For under $200 you might want to look at the Sigma 70-300 APO DG Macro. Since you are shooting daylight sports it should give you the little extra reach you want. The longer lenses (80-400 and 50-500) jump into the $900+ area.

Try sigmaforless.com for decent pricing.

A decent 2X AF teleconverter starts at about $175 and a 1.4X is about $20-$30 less.

[K1W1]

I use a Sigma 70-300 APO every weekend for kids Soccer and other sports. One thing notice is that I actually only use up to around 200mm most of the time then crop the resulting images. I seem to get better results that way.
Unless you spend big money on a 400 or 500mm type lens you have to accept some compromises but overall I have been very happy with the Sigma.

http://static.flickr.com/57/203770936_a1c26d8d6b_b.jpg

http://static.flickr.com/64/191547947_8224677fed_b.jpg