I enjoy shooting (trying to shoot) nature shots but feel my 18-200 lens just isn’t giving me the reach I need. I started looking at some of the 400mm and up lenses but can’t justify a 8-10k lens. For the experts, what are the other options? I hear the converters are just as expensive from Nikon. Thanks for the info.
Once you go beyond 300mm you gotta pay to play. I’m not experienced with teleconverters, but, it is a less expensive way to go.
About all you can do is hit up eBay and Amazon (many listings) for deals. I recently purchased an inexpensive 55-200mm Nikor from these folks
http://www.bhphotovideo.com
Note difference between Import and USA versions - same product, but different policies on distr and warranty.
sigma 150-500mm
I HAVE SPENT MOST OF MY LIFE FISHING AND WASTED THE REST OF IT!
You can pick up an Nikon 80-400 vr zoom for around $1200 I believe, that will get you most of the way there and decent quality. I primarily use an older manual focus 500mm f4 lens with a 1.4X teleconverter (effectively a 700mm f5.6) for most of my wildlife/bird photography but that’s probably more than you’d want to spend.
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I’ve got the 70-300mm you can have for $80. It isn’t the superior quality glass that you would get out of a $2K lens, but it will reach out and touch em. Most of my photos are close range - don’t need this lens. It is spanking new.
Teleconverters are a easy way to get more legs out of a lens but you loose from 2 F/Stops and some of the cheaper ones will cost you up to 4 stops… this is an issue unless you are shooting a really bright light. I have a 80-400mm VR and it’s OK… there is nothing like a true fixed glass lens tho…
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quote:
Originally posted by winyah-jayI’ve got the 70-300mm you can have for $80. It isn’t the superior quality glass that you would get out of a $2K lens, but it will reach out and touch em. Most of my photos are close range - don’t need this lens. It is spanking new.
That sounds like a great deal to me…
…because everything is a conspiracy!!!
One person mentioned the Nikkor 80X400. It is a nice lens. I’ve owned it for about 2 years. Specifically, it is the Nikkor 80x400 AF VR ED. It cost right about $1,200 from B&H in New York. The lens will shoot f5.6 at 400mm. What you pay for in top-end lenses is aperture. Aperture can help equate to speed in low light. A 400mm lens which shoots down to f4 would run $8-12,000.
Click on this one to enlarge. This was shot with the Nikkor 80x400mm AF VR ED, (mentioned above), on a Nikon D80. No telescope was used, just a tripod. This is the Space Shuttle in a pass directly over Charleston in Nov. 2010. The distance is about 230 miles. Perhaps you can see the nose to the lower-left, the delta-wings, and the tail to the upper right. As we look, it was moving upside-down and backwards, (tail first–moving right). What we see is the top not the bottom of the craft. The 80X400 is a pretty nice and affordable long f5.6 lens.
Ray Swagerty----Charleston
I normally photograph birds and wildlife, when I can’t fish. You did ask about the Nikkor 80x400 specifically though. Now it is enlarged and cropped, but that is all. Specs: Nikkor 80x400 AF VR ED Zoom tele., (at 400mm), f5.6, 1/500 sec., ISO 640, on a Nikon D80 body. No stabilization at all here–strictly hand-held. With a big 500 or 600mm f2.8 you would do much better, but you pay well over $20,000.00 to do it, (not $1,200.00). You also likely couldn’t hold it, and you’d need a $2,500.00 tripod and head combo too! When you say you want to have some reach, I suppose that only you can define how much reach and how much money. Feb. 9, 2011.
Ray Swagerty----Charleston
rayswagerty@comcast.net