Give me a good zoom lens for nikon photography?

Like photographing basketball and volleyball games?

Added (1). Oh, i have a nikon d3100

The Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 vr is a popular professional lens for sports. Not cheap, though at over $2000.

If that is too dear a more prosumer and general purpose lens is the 18-200mm vr f3.5-5.6.
Ok, it is not as fast, but is still capable of great results.

I took this pic with the 18-200…

The Nikon 18-200/3.5-5.6 DX G AF-S ED-IF digital ( vibration reduction included) ( 35mm equiv.---27-300mm!) For something lighter---Tamron 28-300mm f/3.5-6.3 XR VC LD Asp. IF Di ( Nikon mount---go to abesofmaine.com for MORE

Natural light will always be better than the poor artificial light inside building, shooting sport require fast shutter speed.

Poor aperture, poor light condition = slow shutter speed or say hello to the noise because you will need to crank up the iso.

So If you're planning to use the lens mainly for inside you should seriously look for an f2.8 zoom like the Nikon 70-200mm 2.8, Nikon 80-200mm 2.8, sigma 70-200mm 2.8.

If you will shoot outside, the Nikon 70-300vr will work, it's sharp from 70 to 200, but for inside I do not recommend it because of the f4, 5-f5, 6.

I'm guessing that you have a "crop" camera like a D5000. That gives you an advantage because the lens acts as though it is a longer focal length than the range suggests, so a 200mm lens on you camera is equivalent to a 300mm lens on a full frame camera like a D3. But it also means the the wide-angle end like 70mm behaves like a 105mm.

With this in mind, the problem with basketball and volleyball is that lenses which are long enough to catch the action down court are often too long to handle the action when the player are close to your shooting position! With a 300mm zoom fitted to my camera, I normally have to have a second camera around my neck with a shorter zoom lens fitted!

The way around this is to go for a wide zoom range lens. The king of these is the Tamron 18-270mm f3.5-5.6 (equivalent to 25-405mm) followed by Sigma 18-250mm 3.5-6.3 or 18-200mm 3.5-6.3. The Nikon 18-200mm is not a bad option. The Sigmas are a fraction slower (f5.6-6.3 compared to f3.5-5.6) but optically, they are all perfectly OK for the application you have in mind.

The downside is that, at the long end, they are all a bit "slow" for indoor sports, although not really any slower than kit lenses. They are all stabilised lenses, which will help, but even with expensive specialist glass with a constant f2.8 aperture, a monopod is a very good idea.

For sports you want f/2, 8 glass.

Three options; Nikon AF-S 70-200mm f/2.8 $2, 400, Nikon AF 80-200mm f/2.8 $1, 200, or the Sigma AF(s) 70-200mm f/2.8 $950.

One caveat with the Nikon 80-200mm lens is that if you have an entry level Nikon (such as the D3100 or D5100), it will not autofocus as it requires an in-camera focus motor.

The other issue is that compared to the in-lens focus motor lenses, it is a bit slow to focus, but not that bad. It is at least as fast as the Sigma in focus speed, and I have photographed several hockey games with my D90 and the Nikon 80-200mm without issue.

The optics of the Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 are nearly as good as the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 and while it lacks in-lens focus motor and VR, for half the price - it is a poor-man's (or amateur photographer's) alternative.

If you have a D90 or D7000, get the Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8. Otherwise you will be stuck with an aftermarket Sigma or Tamron, or have to spend another $1, 200 for the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8.

The entry-level D3100/D5100 DSLRs without the internal focus motor does not seem as much of a bargain now, does it?