Gear Change

[Bigvin]

Thought I'd try in here because it's more used than the nature forum.

I've just came back from a weeks safari in Kenya and am now thinking about a change of gear.
I currently have a Nikon D800, Sigma 120-300 2.8 OS with 1.4x and 2x teleconverters.
The main issue I had was the weight, the Sigma is a bit of a beast to carry and when you're restricted to 15kgs on your baggage things get a bit tricky.
The 2.8 did come in handy on a number of occasions due to shooting in the early morning and late evening but I was wondering if any of the new bodies had a better ISO performance than the D800 which could compensate.
The idea of me getting the D800 originally was to have the ability to crop massively due to not being able to afford the longer lenses, this worked ok til now, but the file sizes also created an issue with the amount of cards needed to last a week or more.

I was thinking possibly a D500 combined with a Nikon 80-400 or Nikon 200-500. Would this give an improvement to my current setup?

I plan on a few more trips to Africa as well as some other wildlife holidays in Canada and such so was wondering where I go from here?

Cheers for looking in.

 

[gramps]

D500 with a Nikon 200-500 is becoming a popular choice, you will take a hit with MP (21 verses 36) but the extra 'reach' will help compensate and the speed of the D500 could be really useful for safari ... from user experiences the 80-400 seems to have the better IQ of the two but of course loses you the 100mm

 

[Bigvin]

What about the low light performance of that combo? Any good?

I'm just about to go read up on the D500 thread.

 

[StewartR]

I've just got back from a 2-week wildlife trip to Spitsbergen and the majority of the photographers there were using a Canon 7D Mk II and a 100-400mm Mk II lens. As was I. I had the choice of absolutely anything in the toy cupboard but that's what I took and I think it was the right decision. Assuming that you'd want to stay with Nikon, the nearest equivalent would be the D500 and the AF-S 80-400mm lens.

I think the portability of the 100-400 and 80-400 is a big plus factor. The 80-400 seems to me to have better build quality than the 200-500, and optically I'd be surprised if it were inferior.