Steve Perry Offline Upload & Sell: Off
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Sorry, the only thing the 200-500 and 500 F5 have in common is the focal length. The 500 F4 is both faster and sharper. (And my understanding is that the 200-500 is not quite 500mm at the long end)
Additionally, having F4 available is a far greater advantage than most people realize (or want to realize). First off, you gain a stop. Just think about how much cash people would spend on a new 24MP camera if it came out today and was a full stop better then the D5. Heck, that's one of the big arguments for full frame over DX - you end up with about 1 stop better noise performance.
Beyond that, you have your backgrounds. F4 gives a much cleaner background than F5.6 does. I personally hate busy backgrounds, so F5.6 is not my favorite place to be. If you couple the 200-500 5.6 with a DX camera, the situation gets even worse because now you have to be back further than you would with an FX camera and you end up with even more DOF.
F4 also gives you better utilization of your AF sensors. People are mislead by this because of the camera's ability to focus down to F8. However, not all sensors can do F8, and not all of them are fully functional at F5.6 either. Many of the cross type sensors will revert back to liner sensors if you use anything slower than F4. So, F5.6 makes you sacrifice AF accuracy and reliability over an F4 lens.
So, no, I don't think the 500 F4 has anything to worry about.
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