At last, ne Nikon 80-400mm f4.5-5.6G

[D.P.]

Long over due, for many reasons. On paper looks great, lets see how sharp it is at 400mm f5.6. Now the call is in canons court, their 100-40 is even older if IRC.

http://nikonrumors.com/2013/03/04/nikkor-80-400mm-f4-5-5-6g-ed-vr-lens-announcement.aspx/


Not too many FX lenses left to update at it stands, looking forward to fast wide DX primes, and perhaps a 400mm f4.0 prime.

 

[D.P.]

I don't get what you are trying to argue about???? Of course Nikon had a a similar lens to the canon 100-400mm f5.6, it was the 80-400mm f5.6 VR AF-D. Both th canon and Nikon are popular lenses with wildlife photographers on a budget, both Nikon and canon version are very old and were long over due replacement. Nikon has finally at last given a replacement so it will be interesting to see if canon update theirs in the next 12-18 months. Nikon's don't get any praise, they were woefully slow, seems like papas financial issues were to blaim. Nikon also has much mor elicited production facilities so cannot announce and manufacture too many lenses at once.


I really don't understand at all what the heck you are trying to argue with me about except you are claiming 80mm does not equal 100mm which is entirely academic as they are otherwise nearly identical lenses with the same purpose, same performance, and approximately same cost after the same market with similar lens designs. Heck, the old Nikon was never close to being 80mm anyway, more like 90mm afaik.

 

[D.P.]

I haven't seen any reviews of the new Sigma 120-300 yet, but the Sigma seems a much more interesting lens to me due to the faster aperture (as long as it's sharp).
The difference between 300-400mm isn't that much, and I'd rather take the extra aperture latitude, and then if needed just use the lot's of MP's to crop to desired composition.

Beyond the big weight difference you are wrong about 300mm vs 400mm, it is very noticible for wildlife. My wildlife photography made a big jump going from 300mm to 420mm. 300mm on FF is too short for most wildlife, 400mm isn't even that long but very hard to do better without serious money.

Of course the sigma can take TCs so then it a question of IQ of a bare 80-400 vs a 120-300 with 1.4TC. The sigma combo can be stopped down 1 stop to match the slower nikkor and by then is probably similar IQ but at twice the weight.

For sur the sigma is nice but it doesn't compete with the 80-400 except you get more glass for your money which is tempting.

 

[D.P.]

From most reports I have seen the new gen Nikon bodies are pretty impressive focussing at f/8, e.g. a d800 can focus an f/8 lens faster than. Lower end bodies can focus at f/5.6.

I looked at the MTF charts and the lens looks impressive, possibly sharper than the 200-400 and 70-200 lenses!

 

[D.P.]

Although pretty slow I find you can autofocus just fine at f/11 using liveview, even in indoor lighting.

You know that the AF module uses the lens wide open to focus and only closes down the entire when about to take the photo.

 

[D.P.]

That's not what I'm contending, I'm saying that in live view the camera does not focus at maximum aperture it focuses at what the aperture is currently set to, so when your aperture is set to f/11 the camera is focusing at f/11 as if you were using a 2x teleconverter with a f/5.6 lens for example. It's not the same as using the OVF where focus is done wide open.

That is correct but in live view it is using the sensor to do autofocus using a contrast maximization algorithm.

When not using live view the camera uses the phase detection sensors, these do not function if the lens aperture is above f5.6 to f8 depending on the camera. Tis is what I was commenting on, because you don't use live view for fast focusing tasks.


The d7000 doesn't focus at all well at f8, the newer Nikon camera do focus well at f8.