A quick day out to my favorite birding spot. The eagles were flying a bit higher than I would have liked so I opted for the extra cropping the D7100 offers.
Shot this one today after picking up a 300mm f4 (which I can't find any threads on here, the non AF-S version) Got it for $220, and the AF isn't absolutely horrible on the 7100. I've never shot anything this long before. Love it!
Btw - anyone know what kind of bird this is? Was one of 3 I saw today lol
tsln wrote:
Shot this one today after picking up a 300mm f4 (which I can't find any threads on here, the non AF-S version) Got it for $220, and the AF isn't absolutely horrible on the 7100. I've never shot anything this long before. Love it!
Btw - anyone know what kind of bird this is? Was one of 3 I saw today lol
David, I'm inclined to agree with Slug69. Both of the Nikon shots are better than the one with the Tamron.
I've never used AF when shooting the moon as I find it very unreliable. The moon is a very bright, low contrast target - not ideal for autofocus. My preferred method is to manually focus in live view and use a cable or remote release to fire the shutter.
gfinlayson wrote:
David, I'm inclined to agree with Slug69. Both of the Nikon shots are better than the one with the Tamron.
I've never used AF when shooting the moon as I find it very unreliable. The moon is a very bright, low contrast target - not ideal for autofocus. My preferred method is to manually focus in live view and use a cable or remote release to fire the shutter.
That colorful shot is the Tamron, but I took one shot and that was with AF. The shots with the 80-400 leave a lot to be desired at the 400mm end compared IMO.
I was just noting that I shot about 50 pics and got just one barely useable shot with AF. The Tamron locked first shot.
David, disregarding AF for the moment, the shots with the 80-400 are much sharper. The Tamron shot, presumably at 300mm? looks just plain soft to my eyes. The 80-400 at 400 is much sharper than the Tamron at 300.
Did you try the 80-400 with better targets for AF to see how it performed?
I'm not trying to be controversial, I'm just concerned you may have returned a perfectly good lens for the wrong reasons.
AF needs a target with a good degree of contrast to be able to pick the sharpest transition from dark to light to be in focus. The moon is not a very contrasty target for the AF system to lock on to.
Also, as a predominantly wildlife shooter, I've found AF accuracy is critical with longer lenses. I've spent a fair amount of time fine tuning the AF to all of my lenses with both the D7000 and the D7100 to get the best out of them. The differences before and after tuning were simply staggering. As a 24MP crop sensor, the D7100 is incredibly unforgiving of AF inaccuracies.
I hope autofocused shots of the moon aren't the benchmark for a lens performance...
I'm very pleased with my copy of the new 80-400mm. Very sharp @ 400mm, which was absolutely not the case with the old 400mm, and the AF has been excellent on the D7100.
Great Nuthatch shots guys! Can't imagine how often they stay still...
Back to the moon. David, do you have a really good monitor and nicely calibrated? On the Dell 24 inch 2008W model I am looking at, the Tammy shot isn't as sharp or have as much contrast as well as having a faint blue blob/ghost to the right of the moon.
I am getting the D7100 in June and have my heart and mind set on the 80 - 400VR2.
