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Birding Lens for D-200 (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Ted R
- Start date
Duke Leto
Without habitat, there is no wildlife. It's that s
Ted, recent threads have indicated that 400mm is about the starting focal length for birding. I personally haven't used the 100-300 sigma but they do do there own set of matching TC's in both 1.4 & 2x powers. The 1.4 should retain AF which would offer you a focal length of 420mm @ f5.6 then add the CCD factor of 1.5x so in excess of 600mm in old money.
I would have thought that if its a zoom you want then there are Sigma zooms that reach 500mm as with the Tamron 200-500 which a few birdforumers have said is a very nice lens for the price.
If you want oem then Nikon do an 80-400VR.
At this moment I use a Nikkor 300/4 and a 1.4X and find this a little short.
Also Nikon TC's only fit Nikon AF-S lenses (unless there modified by a little machining)
Regards
Steve
I would have thought that if its a zoom you want then there are Sigma zooms that reach 500mm as with the Tamron 200-500 which a few birdforumers have said is a very nice lens for the price.
If you want oem then Nikon do an 80-400VR.
At this moment I use a Nikkor 300/4 and a 1.4X and find this a little short.
Also Nikon TC's only fit Nikon AF-S lenses (unless there modified by a little machining)
Regards
Steve
Doug Greenberg
Well-known member
Ted R said:
I just don't think a 100-300 zoom is the way to go for bird photography. As Duke indicated, 400mm. is really the minimum needed for birds, and so you would be forced to keep a TC on the lens, reducing it to an f5.6 with compromised optical quality, no matter how good the TC.
If you want to start out with a budget-minded rig, I would recommend you scan the ebay listings for a good Tokina 400mm. f5.6 SD ATX telephoto. It's remarkably good for an low-end tele, and you can get them for a few hundred bucks. Or, keep in mind that with the D200 you have metering capability with older Nikon AI and AIS lenses. Some of these can be purchased used for amazingly low prices. The Nikkor 400mm. f5.6 EDIF lens is compact, handles beautifully, and is quite sharp even wide open. You can pick these up used for $400 and up. As I have said in other posts, manual focusing for bird photography is not prohibitively difficult in most situations, and the "inconvenience" of MF can easily be offset by the huge monetary savings when it comes to lens purchases.
As for TC's, Nikon's situation here is bizarre. Their current TC's are designed to work only with the AF-S lenses. With older screw-drive autofocus lenses they won't AF unless you physically remove a particular coupling pin. Not for me. I highly recommend the Kenko Teleplus Pro series of teleconverters, which are excellent and affordable and will work with all AF lenses. Keep in mind, though, that if your lens is f5.6 to begin with (as with the Tokina), the AF performance will be slow, and in low light it won't work at all.
Ted R said:
I have this lens (but use it with a Canon body) and think it is very good, though as others have mentioned 300mm can be a bit short for birding. The AF is fast and accurate and the lens works well wide open, though is noticeably sharper when stopped down to f8. If used with a 1.4x tc AF is still good and fast and the zoom range of 140-420mm (at f5.6) is nicer for bird shots.
Doug Greenberg
Well-known member
Ted R said:
If you're interested in say, a Tokina or Sigma APO 400mm., there are usually ones listed on ebay. That's where I'd look. You have to be cautious in this kind of shopping, but a careful ebayer can come up with fabulous deals. I just purchased a near-mint condition Nikkor 600mm. f5.6 EDIF tele (manual focus!) for a very good price, considerably lower than would be the case were it sold by Keh Camera or one of the big New York dealers such as Adorama or B & H.
There is currently a Tokina 400mm. SD ATX being sold on ebay at a starting bid of $249. This is a little high, but compare this to your other options. Also: you might want to check to be sure that the Nikon mount version of this lens will couple properly to a new Nikon body. I think it will, but when I bought my first D100 body three years ago I had to have the Tokina 400 "rechipped" for full compatability. People who used the same lens on a D70 said there was no problem, however.
Finally: if you can afford the Nikon 80-400mm. VR, I say go for it. It's a very good lens, quite sharp at 400mm. (particularly if you stop down the aperture a little), and the VR feature is terrific. There is a similar lens made by Sigma that's a little cheaper. I suspect the Nikon version is a little better optically, but I don't know for sure.
citreola
Active member
I just missed a near-mint Nikkor 600mm f5.6 ED IF Ais (6 year old). It was sold for 2500 euro (3300 dollar), my highest bid was 2250 euro (3000 dollar).I know prices for long lenses are lower in the States than in Europe, but isn't 2500 euro a bit high for this lens? And how much did you pay on ebay (you can PM me).Doug Greenberg said:
Thanks, Luc
Doug Greenberg
Well-known member
citreola said:
Sorry, I haven't been reading BF regularly lately
.I will state for all to hear that I paid $1299. These lenses are going usually for a bit more than this, maybe around $1500. This seller was liquidating an estate and put up a very attractive "buy it now" price. So yes, I do think that 2500 euro is too high a price for this lens.
Let me add that although in very bright light there is a bit of CA from this tele (just as there is with the 400mm. f3.5 of similar optical design), the overall sharpness is terrific. I have gone to shooting my bird photos using RAW recently, and the feather detail of my RAW images using this lens is fabulous.
Lee-Wallace
Member
Ted, if at all possible, I would stick with Nikon lenses only. The D200 deserves Nikon glass. This is just me. I have two D200's and have returned lenses that didn't cut it.
lockbreeze926
Well-known member
I'm still debating adding a DSLR to the digiscoping I currently do and regularly get to the point where I think I understand what I'm doing....and then start to confuse myself and end up not seeing the wood for the trees.
So - I have just read a camera supplier's statement that the Nikkor 80-400mm VR is designed for only a few camera bodies, NOT including the D200. This doesn't sound right to me, but am I failing to see the wood again?
So - I have just read a camera supplier's statement that the Nikkor 80-400mm VR is designed for only a few camera bodies, NOT including the D200. This doesn't sound right to me, but am I failing to see the wood again?
Doug Greenberg
Well-known member
lockbreeze926 said:
This camera supplier does not speak truth. The 80-400mm. VR works just fine on a D200. However, let me throw a few complications your way. One thing that's impressed me about the D200 is that it really reveals the quality of one's lenses (or lack of same). My results with the 80-400mm. VR using the D200 have seemed inferior to what I was getting with my D100. This is because the D200 has a larger sensor and better resolution, and it therefore can reveal the limitations of the VR zoom better than the D100 could.
That said, I do think the 80-400mm. VR zoom is a good walkaround birding lens. It will not produce results that match a top-notch "big glass" fixed focal length tele, but it's quite adequate for most purposes. When using it zoomed all the way out to 400mm., I recommend stopping down to at least f8. The results at f5.6 are not all that great in my experience.
lockbreeze926
Well-known member
Andrew, Doug, thank you for the advice.
I'm not sure I'd want to invest huge wads of currency in a prime lens unless/until I do something drastic like sell a house and move somewhere cheaper, so the "walking around" lens sounds like it may be the one for me. That is, until I start to get frustrated with the lack of reach compared to digiscoping and lust after some serious glass. Then I start getting property appraisals....
Thanks again.
I'm not sure I'd want to invest huge wads of currency in a prime lens unless/until I do something drastic like sell a house and move somewhere cheaper, so the "walking around" lens sounds like it may be the one for me. That is, until I start to get frustrated with the lack of reach compared to digiscoping and lust after some serious glass. Then I start getting property appraisals....
Thanks again.
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