which Telephoto?

I'm leaning towards a purchase of the 180 f/2.8 in autofocus.

 

Indoors, I shoot mainly with the 85mm f/1.4 with a 135 f/2 in the

bag. I owned the 200mm AIS, but was too long for a lot of gyms in my

area, and f/2 was even slow.

 

Outdoors, the 180 is what I will lean on. The few soccer matches I

shot, the 200mm focal length was just about right on my F100, but

I'm not skilled enough to shoot well in manual focus. I'm thinking

my existing 135mm and the 180 on a D1X will work even better.

 

How does the 180mm work for High school tennis?

 

Maybe later I can return to AIS in 300 or 400 for baseball and golf.

It all depends on how close can you get. I love the 180 2.8 a couple of steps can get me the shot only because I have free range on the tracks where I shot. If it's outside the fence and decent light I use my 300 F4. But it's just not fast enough inside, wish I had the 300 or 400 2.8

sigma 120-300 dg 2.8 could work nicely.

I've been very tempted to swap my older manual focus 180/2.8 Nikkor for a 180/2.8D AF Nikkor rather than using an 80-200/2.8 or 70-200/2.8 VR Nikkor. With the zoom I'd need the VR to help steady the heavy lens for handholding. But the 180/2.8 is light enough that I could manage to handhold it steadily.

 

And a Nikon body with a strong enough AF motor to handle the non-SWM lenses could autofocus just about as quickly as an AF-S Nikkor. The F100 and D1X should be able to autofocus very well with the 180/2.8 AF Nikkor.

Having owned one, Nikkor 180 f2.8 AF is terrific on F100, but might be too short for your outdoor soccer games. Should work great for tennis though (but so will your 85 f1.4 and 135 f2.) I'd say go with a 300 f2.8 or 120-300 f2.8 for soccer and baseball.