Why don’t manufacturers make 70-300mm f/2.8 lenses?
Asked 3/17/2017
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I don’t see any 70-300mm f/2.8 zooms on the market. Is there a technical reason this type of lens doesn’t exist, or is it mainly a matter of size, weight, cost, and limited demand?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
9y ago
2 Answers
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Manufacturers produce what they think they can sell. It is possible to produce a F2.8 70-300 lens, but such a lens will have a very large front element (approximately 107mm or 4.2"). Lens with such large front elements are quite costly, and customers quite rightly expect almost fanatical attention to optical quality. Correcting the compromises of such a long zoom range would add yet more to the cost. That size front element also means the lens is quite heavy (i.e several pounds, not ounces). All these combine to mean it is something of a niche product.
That said, Sigma makes a 120-300mm F2.8 zoom. It is not quite 70-300, but is close, and has gained popularity with sports shooters. Why have the big DSLR manufacturers not made one? I think because they do not see a large enough incremental market - it is certainly possible.
Originally by user28109. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user28109
9y ago
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Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
There isn’t a hard technical barrier preventing a 70-300mm f/2.8 from being made. The main reasons are practicality and market demand.
At 300mm and f/2.8, the lens needs a very large entrance pupil, which means a very large front element. That makes the lens physically big, heavy, and expensive. Then add the challenge of maintaining high image quality across a wide 70-300mm zoom range: correcting aberrations and keeping sharpness high would require a complex optical design, which further increases size, weight, and cost.
Because buyers of fast telephoto lenses expect excellent optical performance, manufacturers would need to engineer it to a very high standard. The result would likely be a niche product with a high price and limited audience.
A close example does exist: Sigma has made a 120-300mm f/2.8, which shows this kind of lens is possible, but also illustrates the trade-offs—these lenses are specialized, large, and expensive. So the lack of a 70-300mm f/2.8 is mostly about size, weight, cost, and relatively low demand, not impossibility.
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