Ted R said:While doing some research on a good birding lens for my D200, I have been told that the Sigma 100-300 G 4.0 HSM is a very good lens. Does anyone here have any experience with it on a D200 and also will the Nikon TC's work with it?
Ted R said:While doing some research on a good birding lens for my D200, I have been told that the Sigma 100-300 G 4.0 HSM is a very good lens. Does anyone here have any experience with it on a D200 and also will the Nikon TC's work with it?
Doug Greenberg 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:Thanks for the Advice, can you advise me where I can look to find used lenses. I live in the US.
What do you think of the Nikon 80-400 VR lens? Would this lens be long enough?
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: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.
Ted R said:While doing some research on a good birding lens for my D200, I have been told that the Sigma 100-300 G 4.0 HSM is a very good lens. Does anyone here have any experience with it on a D200 and also will the Nikon TC's work with it?
citreola said: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).
Thanks, Luc
lockbreeze926 said: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?