Just a grab shot of my niece. No, this is not a posed shot, you should see the dirty look I got after clicking the shutter Anyhoo, some have said the 80-400 is not contrasty enough amongst other things.
I also just got my 85mm f/1.8 Nikkor, and have a few shots from it. It is one of those unbelievably sharp lenses. Maybe later I can post some pics from that lens.
Hey Jack, Those shots look very very good to me! I have been thinking about the 80-400 myself, and all you did was make my mouth water.... It's a good thing Christmas is coming!!! Now if I can only exchange some coal for a nice lense!
Jim
P.S. Which side of the family does your nephew come from?
JimFox wrote:
Hey Jack, Those shots look very very good to me! I have been thinking about the 80-400 myself, and all you did was make my mouth water.... It's a good thing Christmas is coming!!! Now if I can only exchange some coal for a nice lense!
Jim
P.S. Which side of the family does your nephew come from?
I still maintain the 80-400 is a killer lens It's unbelievably sharp for a zoomer. I guess I should clarify.....the nephew shown in this post was from my side of the family. The one I shot with the 85mm (which I haven't posted) is from my wife's side. Ok, I think I'm safe now
Jack, nice shots of your relatives,I agree withyou on the 80-400, most of my wildlife work is done with that lens, once you get used to the design the quality of the photos speak for themselves. Michael
Thanks for posting those 80-400VR/D2x shots. This lens is quite good. I am going to Africa next year and this lens was suggested to me in order to minimize lens changes in the dusty environment. I was worried about optical quality of the 80-400 on the D2x, however, it appears to be quite good. BTW, what metering mode did you use?
Michael Law wrote:
Jack, nice shots of your relatives,I agree withyou on the 80-400, most of my wildlife work is done with that lens, once you get used to the design the quality of the photos speak for themselves. Michael
Thanks Michael. There definitely was a learning curve with this lens, but it was worth it.
Thanks for posting those 80-400VR/D2x shots. This lens is quite good. I am going to Africa next year and this lens was suggested to me in order to minimize lens changes in the dusty environment. I was worried about optical quality of the 80-400 on the D2x, however, it appears to be quite good. BTW, what metering mode did you use?
Take care and keep shooting!
Roel, no worries about optical quality on the X, it is stellar, IMO. These shots were spot metered.
jacko wrote:
Thanks Michael. There definitely was a learning curve with this lens, but it was worth it.
Jack
Hi again Jack,
Could you possibly share what learning curve you went through with this lens on the D2x? As you can see, I have the 70-200 VR... other than slower focus on the 80-400VR (which shouldn't be too much of an issue with the CAM2000 AF module on the D2x), anything else to look out for?
I am also curious about the comparison between the 80-400 and the 70-200. I am looking for a lens to shoot wildlife - particularly whales and bears, but birds in flight on the rare occasion. I imagine that the lens would work great for bears but would focus be too slow for whales? What about birds in flight? Would the 70-200 with a TCE14 be a lot better?
Here are a few example shots of what I would like to be able to shoot The first two were shot by my dad with a 28-135 IS lens on a digital rebel. Is a whale dorsal like this a tough thing for the 80-400 to lock focus on? Is that fluke moving too fast to consistenly focus on? I would appreciate your opinion from a D2x point of view. I am entering the nikon DSLR world with the D200 but don't want to speculate on how that camera will run this lens at this point.
I shot the last one with a coolpix 8800. I am sure the 80-400 will do fine with that kind of situation.
I do not mind a learning curve if the destination matches my high hopes!
here are a few examples of nature shots with the Sigma 80-400 OS on a D70.
I think the comparison is valid in this case. My apologies for interfering with Jack's thread.
I had the occasion to thoroughly compare the Nikkor VR and the Sigma OS, and their optical/focus performance is quite similar if not equal. A D2X has an incredibly better performance than the D70.
Since I am pretty happy (for my amateur level) with my combo, I cannot imagine that you could be disappointed with an 80-400 VR on a D2X.
A few examples, all AF, OS (VR) on at 400mm, hand held:
(BTW, all shot in Quebec province, Canada)
http://users.skynet.be/van.hooveld/DSC_3476.jpg
http://users.skynet.be/van.hooveld/DSC_4319.jpg
The lack of "sharpness" in the next one is in fact the mist...
The birds in flight shots are pretty encouraging too.
I want to clarify that I am not going to be using a D2x, rather, a D200. Your experience with the D70 bodes well for the D200 I would guess. But it is a guess at this point.
Anyhoo, some have said the 80-400 is not contrasty enough amongst other things.
I've got some of my nephews shot with the 85, and it kinda shocked me at just how sharp they were. I'm a believer 