Super tele zooms ?

Sootchucker

Sootchucker

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After getting my first set of half decent kingfisher images yesterday (see bird section), it made me think that I'd love to have a longer tele for my Nikon FF DSLR's. I currently only have a 300mm F4 AFS with 1.4 and 1.7 converters, but the 1.7 looses just a little too much quality.

I am therefore looking at trying to get to 500 or 600mm, but don't have thousands to spend on the Nikon Primes (400, 500 or 600mm - I wish). So was wondering what possibilities exist back on planet earth for around the £1000-£1500 mark. I know the Sigma 50-500 seems to get good reviews, but has anyone used the new Tamron 150-600 zoom on a Nikon body and can chip in ?

Any others I should consider as well ? Thanks.
 
I gave up on small bird photography because I didn't have the funds to buy one of the lenses that in my opinion you need to achieve the best results

No doubt lots of people will disagree and show examples taken with the cheaper models, but I think something like a 500mm f/4 with IS/VR is required to get a nice frame filling sharp photo.

People don't spend that sort of money on expensive primes just for the fun of it and every so called superzoom I have seen just doesn't compare especially at maximum focal length

Guess the answer may be fieldcraft and get nearer the subject or save the pennies, my solutiuon was leave it to the wealthier amongst us. In my case early retirement and cheaper lenses were preferable to the daily grind albeit with the funds to buy a big mutha of a lens
 
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Sootchucker said:
I'd love to have a longer tele for my Nikon FF DSLR's. I currently only have a 300mm F4 AFS with 1.4 and 1.7 converters, but the 1.7 looses just a little too much quality.
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You won't get any better image quality with a 500mm zoom than you get with your existing kit.

You could switch to Canon to use the excellent 400mm f/5.6 L (about £1100). Or there's the AF-S version of the Nikon 80-400mm, but that's close to £2000 and I don't know how it performs with teleconverters. I don't think you have any other options short of something like a 500mm f/4.
 
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With the 300 f4 and 1.4 TC you are at 420mm f5.6 so there is really nothing gained by moving to canon for the 400mm f5.6, especially when you consider the cost of moving when you have a D4 and D800. Looking at your flickr page you do photo small birds quite often, have you thought about trading in one of your cameras and get a second 300mm f2.8 or 200-400mm f4. With a teleconverter you would be at 600mm f5.6 (300mm + 2xTC) or 550mm f5.6 (200-400 + 1.4TC). You could look at the sigma 120-300 f2.8 with a 2x tc. Sigma do 300-800 to, I saw one guy using it on a canon 7D, crazy when you think he had roughly 1200mm effective focal length/point of view! Another option is a dx crop camera just for birds, it would give you an effective focal length/point of view of 630mm. This all of course depends on your budget.

Both of your cameras would benefit from great glass. I currently use a 300mmf2.8 with 1.4tc and 2x tc on a D7100, I'm looking a perhaps changing to D800 as prices have started to come down.

By the way those kingfisher images are great.
 
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If you fancy a zoom, the new AF-S Nikon 80 400mm get some good reviews, in fact I have not seen a bad one

Probably just OK with the TC14Ell, but you would have to check ………. I still prefer primes, the Nikon 300mm ……. but would like the 80 400mm for "bird watching" holidays were aircraft cabin weight limits the equipment you can take.
 
rob-nikon said:
With the 300 f4 and 1.4 TC you are at 420mm f5.6 so there is really nothing gained by moving to canon for the 400mm f5.6, especially when you consider the cost of moving when you have a D4 and D800.
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It wasn't an entirely serious suggestion, but people who haven't used the Canon 400mm f/5.6 probably don't appreciate how good it is. It is totally optimised for photographing birds in flight. It has no IS (don't need that) and it can't focus closer than about 3.5m (don't need that either). But it's very light and very sharp, and the autofocus is very fast. It works well with a 1.4x Extender to give you 560mm f/8 with AF. There is no better birding lens that doesn't cost at least 3 times as much.
 
HDEW currently have the 400mm f/5.6 on offer for £829.

I have not seen it lower anywhere else.

If I could make my mind up between going either Canon or Sony dslr,I think I would have bought it by now.
 
StewartR said:
It wasn't an entirely serious suggestion, but people who haven't used the Canon 400mm f/5.6 probably don't appreciate how good it is. It is totally optimised for photographing birds in flight. It has no IS (don't need that) and it can't focus closer than about 3.5m (don't need that either). But it's very light and very sharp, and the autofocus is very fast. It works well with a 1.4x Extender to give you 560mm f/8 with AF. There is no better birding lens that doesn't cost at least 3 times as much.
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Hi Stewart I don't doubt the canon 400 f5.6 is a fantastic lens as I've heard great things about it, but the OP currently has £5-6k in nikon cameras so moving to canon would lose him a lot of money. It's a shame there is not a nikon equivalent.
 
Rather than transfer everything to canon what about just buying a 1d mk3 used for £600 roughly, 400 f5.6 for £800 and a 1.4 teleconverter for about £200.

If you didn't like it I doubt you would lose much money if any.
 
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