Lens dilemma nikon telephoto

I hired a Nikon 200-500 last weekend, well the one before the one just gone... and it was lovely if focusing on something close-ish (given the focal length) at anywhere and everywhere from 200-500mm.
Now, it may have been just my crappy hand-held technique but focusing on things far away was, in comparison, crap. We're talking focusing at inifinity. It was definitely soft, everywhere. It MIGHT have been heat haze... but I'm not sure. I wasn't terribly blown away by it in these conditions...
I didn't do any AF tuning as I didn't have time, but then I've never had to do it before.
AF speed was ok, but a lot slower than my Tamron 70-200.

If you can get close to your subjects then it'd be great... but not so great far away.

Compared to my Tamron you can definitely use the full range of the lens... Tamron is supposed to be noticeably softer above 500mm... but I definitely had my copy nice and sharp, in a controlled environment in my house at 600mm... I need to repeat this test, however... It definitely wasn't focusing at infinity when it was sharp. I took it outside to stalk some deer with and it wasn't great at distance. No worse really than the Nikon though... But it was in fading light at the end of a winter's day wide open, compared to Nikon in Summer on a nice Sunny day, stopped down to F8/11.

I haven't decided if the Nikon would be a worthwhile investment, compared to the cheap and cheerful Tamron, but like you I would rarely use it, compared to something like my 16-35 F/4 :)
 
Sounds like the lens you tested was either defective or you really did suffer form heat haze.

A lot of professionals have tested the 200-500 alongside the exotic telephoto primes - 500mm and 600mm f/4.0 . The differences are very subtle, even when viewing 100% crops the differences are not immediately obvious. so if you found noticeable softness then it was liekly another variable a play. The Nikon 200-500mm is sharper than the Tamron 150-600.
 
D.P. said:
so if you found noticeable softness then it was liekly another variable a play. The Nikon 200-500mm is sharper than the Tamron 150-600.
Click to expand...

I definitely think it was heat haze. Was a very warm (for this year) day, if not the warmest so far. At about 100m away...

As I said, anything remotely close, 25-40m away and closer was super nice and sharp.
 
Just to come back on the Tamron. I've taken it outside just in front of my house and pointed it at some horsebox about 50-70m away. No problems focusing on that, all handheld at 500/600mm... Plenty sharp. Similarly for a Hydrant sign on a lamp post over the road at 150-600mm only real lack of sharpness comes from noise, (ISO11500 was the most) at 1/1000th of a second.

Bit of Dfine2 and it's a very usable image(s) really.

This lens has impressed me again. I should stop trying to take photos of little owls that are about 2' away from the people in the background, when I'm about 50m away.

I need some nice sunny weather to test it properly again, on something moving.

May head to Croft with it at the weekend. But I bet it's miserable.

No, it's not quite as good as the Nikon, Maybe... if I'm pixel peeping, but it's a lot better than I remember it being the last time I went out with it.
 
Jono said:
I definitely think it was heat haze. Was a very warm (for this year) day, if not the warmest so far. At about 100m away...

As I said, anything remotely close, 25-40m away and closer was super nice and sharp.
Click to expand...

I wet on holiday last year with a brand new Nikon 300mm PF VR and got very mixed results, sometimes excellent but sometimes absolutely dire to the point i swear the lens was completely broken.

There were 2 factors at play here:
!) The lens is so dman light and small it is actually really hard t hand hold stably, strange as that sounds and somewhat unfortunate. Somethign with a bit more weight beuhind is easier to keep still, but not too heavy of course.

2) heat haze and distortion was often really bad in the mountains, even when the temperatures were quite cool . Bare rocks and grass had different vastly different thermal characteristics leading to thermals, plus there was a strong thermocline when looking and up or down.



I was photographing a mother and cubs a few hundred feet higher but 95% of the photos look worse than a disposable 35mm camera form boots. An hour later photographing some friendly nutcrackers and marmots revealed the lenses true quality, every hair biting sharp.

i had never seen heat distortion have such a strong effect but then I remember the very strong mirage effects you can get on a hot road, completely distorting and reflecting light.
 
Nice choice - sorry Peter, didn't mean to not reply to your last e-mail... just got very distracted with things.
 
Your asking a lot to handheld a 500mm at 1/125 even with VR IMHO - it does look reasonably fine to me.

Plus you also need to consider the compression effects of using a 500MM lens - you can't expect the whole frame to be in focus.
 
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yeah, where did you focus? you are not looking at the wall perpendicular so only a smallsliver will be in focus.

If you are hand holding I would aim for 1/600th at 500mm, 1/1000th would be safer
 
Focus point was on the aircon unit , I will test the lens over the weekend if it stops raining. The vr is very good though.
 
I have a 300 f4 and 1.4 TC.

I find that I need at least 1/1000th shutter speed to get sharp shots.
Often it helps to stop down a bit to get more in focus.
This means I'm often shooting higher iso than might be ideal.
But it's much better to have a sharp in focus shot at iso 800 than missed focus or blurry at iso 100.
Took me longer than I like to admit to work that out :)

Remember that wildlife will also move around, another reason to keep the shutter speed up.

Hope you have a great trip, looking forward to seeing your photos.
 
test in garden


Wide open max zoom 1/80 th hand held

5.6 at 1/500th

f8 1/500 2000 iso
 
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Just bumping this thread, rather than start a new one.

What are the long zooms like in low light? I'm still umming and aaring about getting a superzoom to compliment the Sigma 120-300 I have. If I get it it may be used in Central America for wildlife and birding shots, but obviously in woods the light may be quite poor. Has anyone used either the Sigma C, Tamron or Nikon in those sort of conditions?
 
They are what they are really, you are at f/5.6 or 6.3. Hand hold this puts me at ISO 3200-6400 within a regular forest environment. A tripod is obviously ideal but for somethings like birds it can take too long to setup so I prefer a monopod (;)) which gives great results combined with the OS capability of my Sigma 150-600 Sports.

The Sigma Sports handles autofocus in low light very well, one of the reason I picked picked it over the Tamron and C. The Nikon is also supposed to be very good in darker conditions.

While as much as would be good to go faster the best you can do is gain 1 stop if you are prepared to re-mortgage your house.



Something else to consider when you say central America woods, do you mean rain-forest? Because that is a whole different game. I was in the Costa Rica Clouds forest and at f/4 was often getting only 1/50th second shutter speeds. But then I hardly saw anything in the national parks. The trees are so big, tall and dense and the wildlife is scatted over very large areas. The superzooms would be useless here, 200mm f/2.0 on a a crop body is the best bet. However, slightly lower down the volcanoes there was more light and /4.0 or 5/5.6 was workable.


420mm f/5.6 ISO 6400 1/500th (Nikon 300mm with 1.4xTC).
16688768147_00cefa991a_b.jpg



420mm f/5.6 ISO 5600 1/500th
16688767967_64b3de0295_b.jpg


420mm f/5.6 ISO 4000 1/500th
16870200366_9c1608ca29_b.jpg


300mm f/5.0 ISO 900 1/320th
16895124311_d4b19ea71f_b.jpg


420mm f/6.3 ISO 1000 1/500th
16709953059_9dd614acc8_b.jpg
 
TBH last time I went to Costa Rica I took a 70-300, which was fine (especially weight wise which was important) but too short in a fair few situations and way too slow in others. This time we are looking into possibly doing some kind of Belize/Honduras/Guatemala trip so not a dissimilar environment.

I think the Nikon would be my first choice, but with only 500mm to play with its a full stop slower and only 80mm longer than the 120-300 with a 1.4, but probably faster focusing. The sigma sport is out at the moment - if I was getting rid of the 120-300 I would probably jump on it, but it'll be a complimentary lends for those times the other is too short. The fast lens will be used in the forests, when light is a real issue.

TBH is probably just get the sigma C, unless someone came along and said the Stanton was significantly faster focusing in low light.
 
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