Which zoom lens would be best for taking pictures of surfers?
It depends. I have a little sony cybershot that has a 15 x zoom. It’s a little junky camera, but it can zoom more than my $1700.00 70-200mm. A quick and dirty way to tell how much zoom lens has is divide the focal length by 50 so my 200 is a 4x zoom, see what I mean. To get great detail far away you need a lot of lens. I can shoot wildlife at 10-30 feet and be ok at 200mm but beyond that and it starts to look tiny in my D700. You of course could stand in the water and get as close as possible or maybe the surfers area close to you anyway. My gut tells me to get the 50-200 but only because it’s lighter and easier to handle. I guess the real question is how far away is the subject when your taking your shot. Far away — big lens, no way around it. However the bigger the lens the bigger the price tag, and if you want a fast one — ohh boy there goes some real money. Of course it will weigh a ton too.
