10 Best Canon Telephoto Lens For Sports in 2022 – Reviews

This post was most recently updated on May 5th, 2022

Best Canon Telephoto Lens For Sports

Telephoto lenses are the best way to capture sports because they allow you to get in close without physically being in the game. Canon telephoto lenses can be used to take photos of a number of sports, including baseball, racing, golf and basketball.

Get ready to shoot the action like a pro. Whether you’re shooting sports or wildlife, with a telephoto lens, you will be closer to the action, even if you are farther away.

Telephoto lenses have a longer focal length than a standard lens — and that makes them ideal for magnifying distant subjects. A longer focal length means that you can get the shot without getting close enough to disturb your subject.

Telephoto lenses come in various sizes and focal lengths, but they all share the same basic features: You can use them to capture even the smallest details in your very distant subject. And unlike zoom lenses, telephoto lenses let you take pictures at long distances while maintaining the same angle of view — so they’re perfect for sports photography.

Featuring improved image stabilization, faster autofocus, and a rugged design, the Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS II USM Lens is well-suited for daily use by sports, wildlife, and outdoor photographers.

The impressive optical performance features one fluorite and one super UD element to control chromatic aberrations throughout the zoom range while delivering sharp and clear imagery. Additionally, a Air Sphere Coating has been applied to lens elements to reduce backlit flaring and ghosting for maintained light transmission and high contrast in strong lighting conditions.

Benefitting this lens’s reach is a four stop-effective Image Stabilizer system that minimizes the appearance of camera shake for sharper handheld shooting. Also complementing handheld shooting, this 100-400mm lens has a dust- and water-resistant construction with protective fluorine coating on exposed lens elements that benefits working in inclement conditions.

This is the EF 75-300mm telephoto zoom lens for Canon SLR cameras. This telephoto zoom lens gives you the equivalent of 120-480mm in 35mm photography. It features a DC motor, front group rotating extension system, and inner focusing for fast and quiet auto focus. The EF 75-300 has a closest focusing distance of 4.9 feet (1.5m) throughout its entire zoom range.

This means that at 300mm you can focus on objects as close as 4.9 feet away from the lens! You will find this very useful when shooting sports events, wildlife, or candid portraiture.

This EF telephoto zoom is ideal for travel, action, wildlife and other long distance photos. The powerful zoom puts nearly any subject in your viewfinder!

The EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS III USM Lens from Canon is the successor to the popular L series 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto zoom lens, whose optical construction and overall performance have been improved by using fluorite and five UD elements, including one Super UD element. The result is a lens with high resolution from center to edge, plus reduced chromatic aberration, ghosting and flare.

An Air Sphere Coating has been applied to lens elements to reduce backlit flaring and ghosting for increased image clarity throughout the zoom range. An Ultrasonic Motor (USM) uses ultrasonic frequency vibrations to drive AF with near-silent operation as well as full-time manual focus override for greater shooting control.

A ring-type USM enables high speed autofocusing that’s both fast and near silent, making it ideal for video capture. Additionally, Canon’s internal focusing system means that the length of the lens never changes during operation and its front element does not rotate, which benefits using circular polarizing filters. A minimum focusing distance of 3.9′, along with a maximum magnification ratio of 0.21x, suits working with close-up subjects.

The EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM is the flagship of the Canon L-series lenses known for outstanding image quality. The new optical design has been improved to provide better image quality in the center and periphery, as compared to the original EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM.

This lens uses one fluorite and five UD elements for increased optical quality and reduced chromatic aberration. The lens also features a rear focusing system, an inner focusing system that limits the length of the lens during focus and a ring type USM that provides silent, fast autofocus as well as full time manual focus capability with a depth of field preview.

The EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II USM is dust and moisture resistant and fluorine coated on the front and rear element to repel dust, water spots, grease, fingerprints and smudges.

Advanced Image Stabilization (IS) provides up to 4 stops (CIPA Standards) of compensation against camera shake when shooting hand held while fluorine coating on front and rear elements keeps your images clean by repelling dust, water spots, grease or dirt from attaching to your lens.

The Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III Lens is a compact and lightweight 4x telephoto zoom lens ideal for shooting sports, portraits, and wildlife. The front part of the zoom ring now sports a silver ring for a luxury touch.

The optical system, construction, and exterior are the same as the EF 75-300 mm f/4-5.6 III USM’s. The difference is that it uses a DC motor instead of a USM to drive the AF.

This telephoto zoom lens is compatible with full-frame and APS-C format cameras, and will provide a 112-480mm equivalent focal length range when used with an APS-C body.

A DC autofocus motor provides fast, smooth, and quiet autofocus performance that is especially beneficial to video shooters and can also be manually focused using an AF/MF switch on the side of the lens barrel.

For improved image quality and reduced flare, a Super Spectra coating has been applied to one element of this lens.

When I first purchased this lens, it was because of its zoom range, 300mm! I was shooting with a Sigma 70-210mm f/2.8 and was looking for something with more reach without sacrificing too much in image quality. The Sigma is a great lens, but the f/2.8 aperture is rarely used considering how heavy the lens is (and by extension, how heavy my camera bag is when it’s in there). The Canon 70-300mm L is the perfect compromise!

On top of that, this lens has advanced Image Stabilization (IS) which will help reduce shake and blurriness caused by hand holding the camera. It’s especially useful when paired with a crop body since the crop factor reduces image quality due to the smaller sensor size. If your camera has IS built in, then this will be further reduced or eliminated as IS does not stack on top of each other. The IS system on this lens also has 2 modes–mode 1 for stationary shots and mode 2 for panning shots such as cars moving left or right from you or wildlife running from you.

For a prime lens, this lens is very sharp and produces nice images at all focal lengths. In addition to that, it focuses quickly and accurately for most.

Designed to meet the needs of the advanced amateur or professional photographer, the Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM telephoto zoom lens is a high performance L Series lens with outstanding image quality and ultimate operating ease. Its constant f/2.8 maximum aperture means fast, accurate shutter speeds under changing lighting conditions and excellent background blur (bokeh).

The Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM telephoto zoom lens uses fluorite UD lens elements to correct chromatic aberrations while two high-precision molded glass aspherical elements virtually eliminate distortion and spherical aberration throughout the entire zoom range. They also help achieve sharp, clear images at all focal lengths even at close shooting distances. The new rear focusing system with an FTM (Full Time Manual) focusing ring enables manual focus adjustment during AF Mode.

The Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L USM telephoto zoom lens also has three mode focus range selector, which allows full time manual focus in one mode and automatic switching between two others; a ring type USM (Ultra Sonic Monitor).

The Rokinon 14mm F2.8 Ultra Wide Angle Lens is one of the most interesting and useful wide angle lenses on the market. This lens features a large aperture range from F/2.8-22, a removable petal lens hood, and a minimum focusing distance of just over 10 inches. The Rokinon 14mm Ultra Wide Angle Lens is designed for full frame cameras and will also work with APS-C cameras as well. With APS-C cameras it will give you an effective focal length of 21mm.

This 14mm wide angle lens has been constructed with three ED glass elements and two aspherical lenses to minimize chromatic and spherical aberrations. The lens is also multi-coated to reduce flare and ghosting from reflected light. It has a minimum focusing distance of just over 10 inches which makes it ideal for dramatic close ups as well as endless depth of field for expansive landscapes.

This 14mm lens provides an approximate 114° angle of view on full frame cameras and 90° angle of view on APS-C cameras. This means that you can use this lens for everything from astrophotography, landscapes, architecture all the way to more creative applications such as portraiture and close up photography.

This lens has been around a while and while it’s not the best lens out there, it’s a great value. It’s easy to use, versatile and has a good quality build.

I’ve used this lens for everything from portraits to wildlife and I’ve found that it has just enough telephoto reach to get the job done without weighing me down too much.

The IS (image stabilization) is good but not great. If you’re shooting handheld in low light, you’ll still need to crank up the ISO unless you have the ability to stabilize your camera on something stable (table, fence, car hood).

The auto focus is pretty snappy and it never seems to hunt.

Probably my favorite feature is the range of focal length that I can get by changing lenses super quickly. Sometimes I’ll switch back and forth between this lens and my kit lens (18-55mm) several times in one session. It’s nice to be able to go wide angle then zoom in within seconds if necessary.

With a large zoom range of 100-400mm, this lens is excellent for sports photography, as well as nature, travel and wildlife photography. The lens focuses as close as 5.9 feet (1.8 meters).

Two Image Stabilizer modes compensate for camera shake by shifting a lens element to reduce blurring. Mode 1 stabilizes up-and-down shake that occurs when the camera is panned horizontally to follow a moving subject; Mode 2 compensates for all directions of movement.

Two high-refraction lens elements and new Gaussian optics virtually eliminate secondary spectrum aberrations. This means that even at the minimum focus distance of 5.9 feet (1.8 meters), any color fringing in the image is minimal, providing high resolution with little chromatic aberration (color fringing) throughout the entire zoom range.