Best Canon RF lenses for sports and action photography

With sport and photography you get to combine two hobbies in one! So what are the best Canon RF lenses for sports and action photography – check out our comprehensive guide in partnership with Canon.

To some degree, a list of the best lenses for sports and action may look similar to the best Canon RF lenses for wildlife photography. In both cases you need a lens that can bring distant subject closer. With wildlife it’s because your subjects are often too timid to approach, with sports it’s because you have to shoot from spectator positions some distance from the action.

But there are differences. With some sports, such as baseball or cricket, you will be some distance away and you know you will need a powerful telephoto lens. With others, such as basketball, soccer or athletic events, you may be a lot closer to what’s going on – and very often the distances can change in seconds, so you may need the flexibility of a zoom.

If you watch any televised sports event, you’ll see ranks of pro photographers wielding giant telephoto lenses – often in Canon’s easily-recognised white livery. These lenses are at the professional end of the scale, so we’ve included a few in this guide to explain what they can do that makes them so appealing to professionals.

There are of course lenses for beginners and enthusiasts too. The Canon RF lens range includes some powerful and affordable lenses for sports and action fans. The prices for these vary, naturally, according to their specifications and features, but we think our guide too the best Canon RF lenses for sports/action photography will have something for everyone – even if you’ve just invested in a new APS-C format Canon EOS R7, EOS R10 or EOS R50.

Don’t forget that these new APS-C cameras can take regular full-frame RF lenses directly and, because of the smaller ‘crop’ sensor, you get an effective 1.6x magnification boost too.

In the meantime, check out our guides to how to make great video recordings with your camera and how to edit videos on a computer, plus the best accessories for video.

---

Here’s the quick list of all our picks of the Canon RF lenses for sports and action photography:

• Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM – check best price
• Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1L IS USM – check best price
• Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM – check best price
• Canon RF 70-200mm F4L IS USM – check best price
• Canon RF-S 55-210mm F5-7.1 IS STM – check best price
• Canon RF 400mm F2.8L IS USM – check best price
• Canon RF 600mm F4L IS USM – check best price
• Canon RF 800mm F5.6L IS USM – check best price

---

1. Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM

At a glance

• Type: Telephoto zoom
• Format: Full frame
• Weight: 635g
• Price: $599 / £699

Professional telephoto lenses are naturally more expensive, but here’s one that’s a whole lot more affordable for beginners and enthusiasts. The Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM covers a wide 4x focal range from short telephoto to near-super- telephoto, so it’s suitable for a wide range of sports, not to mention wildlife photography.

The maximum aperture does drop to f/8 at 400mm, but that’s not bad for a 400mm telephoto, and the electronic viewfinders and Dual Pixel CMOS AF of Canon’s R-series cameras can cope easily with reduced apertures – more so than DSLR cameras. Canon has kept both the cost and the weight down with this lens, and it strikes a good balance between optical and digital corrections and great performance for the money. For anyone taking their first steps in wildlife photography, this is a great lens to get started with.

• Read our full Canon RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM review

2. Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1L IS USM

At a glance

• Type: Telephoto zoom
• Format: Full frame
• Weight: 1370g
• Price: $2,899 / £2,979

Normally we might expect one of Canon’s professional L-series lenses to have a constant maximum aperture, but when you want to design a telephoto with a 5x zoom range, something’s got to give. So while this lens does have a variable f/4.5-7.1 maximum aperture across its zoom range, it is in all other respects a professional L-series lens, with Canon’s trademark white finish, robust metal build and weather sealing, and premium-grade optics.

It might look a lot more expensive than the RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM (above) for only a modest gain in specifications, but in fact this is a much more serious proposition for enthusiast and professional sports photographers, not least because it has a proper tripod mount for extended shooting sessions and improved stability. This is a versatile telephoto zoom with a wide focal range and great optical quality, and also ideal for enthusiasts and wildlife fans.

• Read our full Canon RF 100-500mm F4.5-7.1L IS USM review

3. Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM

At a glance

• Type: Telephoto zoom
• Format: Full frame
• Weight: 1070g
• Price: $2,799 / £3,059

Pretty much every professional photographer will have a 70-200mm f/2.8 telephoto in their camera bag. This versatile lens type can handle everything from professional event and wedding photography to sports and action, where the constant f/2.8 aperture allows high shutter speeds even as the light levels fall, and delivers shallow depth of field and strong background blur to really make your subjects ‘pop’.

Unlike most other 70-200mm f/2.8 lenses, this Canon RF version has a barrel that extends when zooming, but the design means that this lens can pack away into a far smaller space than a regular 70-200mm f/2.8. The optical performance is first rate to meet the standards of the most demanding enthusiast and professional user, and it also boasts optical stabilisation, advanced AF actuators and full weather sealing.

• Read our full Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM review

4. Canon RF 70-200mm F4L IS USM

At a glance

• Type: Telephoto zoom
• Format: Full frame
• Weight: 695g
• Price: $1,599 / £1,719

The Canon RF 70-200mm F2.8L IS USM is a great lens, but not everyone will need its f/2.8 constant maximum aperture, and many photographers might appreciate the lighter weight of this f/4 alternative. This RF 70-200mm F4L IS USM. It boasts all the advantages of the f/2.8 version, but with a smaller maximum aperture of f/4 rather than f/2.8 which, in turn, means it’s more affordable for occasional users and those on a budget, and a lot lighter to carry around. For many photographers the drop in maximum aperture from f/2.8 to f/4 will be an acceptable compromise, and its still a constant f/4 across the zoom range, so you won’t get any changes in ISO or shutter speed as you zoom in and out.

5. Canon RF-S 55-210mm F5-7.1 IS STM

At a glance

• Type: Telephoto zoom
• Format: APS-C
• Weight: 270g
• Price: $349 / £429

Canon’s new APS-C RF camera range has hit the ground running, with three models already, including the EOS R50, EOS R10 and EOS R7, with the EOS R7 being particularly well suited to wildlife photography. You can of course mount full frame RF lenses directly on these cameras, and this works especially well with telephotos, where any extra magnification from the APS-C crop factor is welcome.

However, not everyone wants to carry around the extra weight of a full frame lens or, indeed, pay for a larger lens than they need, so the new Canon RF-S 55-210mm F5-7.1 IS STM is a great option for sports fans using these smaller cameras. It’s very light, it’s cheap to buy and it’s designed specifically for the smaller APS-C format sensor, where it delivers an effective focal range of 88-336mm, so it’s got some real reach, too. Ideal for sports and action photography, in other words.

6. Canon RF 400mm F2.8L IS USM

At a glance

• Type: Telephoto prime
• Format: Full frame
• Weight: 2890g
• Price: $11,999 / £13,119

We’re including three of Canon’s professional super-telephoto prime lens in this roundup as a little context to show what the professionals use. This series of lenses will be instantly recognisable from TV coverage of sports events all around the world. The RF 400mm F2.8L IS USM shows what is possible optically with a maximum aperture three stops faster at 400mm than the RF 100-400mm F5.6-8 IS USM at the top of our list. This doesn’t just produce better background blur, it allows much faster shutter speeds in low light.

This lens does weighs in at almost 3kg, but that’s standard for lenses in this class and naturally it comes with a tripod collar, which supports the weight of the lens rather than placing all the strain the camera mount. In effect, the lens supports the camera, not the other way around.

7. Canon RF 600mm F4L IS USM

At a glance

• Type: Telephoto prime
• Format: Full frame
• Weight: 3090g
• Price: $12,999 / £14,179

Where a zoom lens can cover a range of shooting distances, a prime lens offers only a single magnification, so you choose them according to the sports you’re photographing and the shooting position you need to work from. The RF 600mm F4L IS USM could be just about the right focal length for sports like cricket, for example, where the action takes place mostly at a fixed distance and spectators are kept some way back.

Like the Canon RF 400mm F2.8L IS USM, this lens is a serious professional purchase, though you can get the same 600mm reach with the Canon RF 600mm F11 IS STM, which we also recommend for wildlife photography. The f/11 maximum aperture of this lens does limit its usefulness in low light, but in bright outdoor conditions, this lens can offer the same magnification as the RF 600mm F4L IS USM, if not quite the same speed and optical quality.

8. Canon RF 800mm F5.6L IS USM

At a glance

• Type: Telephoto prime
• Format: Full frame
• Weight: 3140g
• Price: $16,999 / £19,099

If you need the maximum possible magnification, there is another pro Canon super-telephoto even longer than this one – the RF 1200mm F8L IS USM. However, for most sports photography, an 800mm lens is perhaps as far as you would ever need to go. Whether you need this lens or the 600mm or 400mm pro lenses will depend on the type of event you are covering and the positions you are able to shoot from.

Long-range supertelephoto primes are ideal for fixed position shooting, while if you are moving about and photographing subjects at different distances, a telephoto zoom will be easier to work with. If you need the 800mm focal length but can’t justify the outlay, there is an alternative. The RF 800mm F11 IS STM may have a much smaller f/11 maximum aperture, which might lead many to rule it out straight away (wrongly, we think), but it offers huge magnification and good optical quality. It might not have the speed or performance of the L-series 800mm, but this low-cost super-telephoto is a great way to get into sports photography.

---

Further reading
The best Canon RF lenses for wildlife photography
Ultimate guide to tripods
How to capture fast-moving birds and animals