Some more shots from my initial testing of my new to me 500 E FL lens....so far I'm loving this...should have had the Canon 500 years ago instead of lugging the big 600 around.
bs kite wrote:
Super shots... very sharp....even with the 1.4!
Looks like you're having fun with the new 500 FL!
Big difference from your 200-500 in AF speed ?
I bet you don't want to handhold that lens.
Interested in reading what you have to say about it after a while.
Congratulations!
Thanks.
I am having fun with the 500FL....ever since I used the Canon 500II for a day last year I knew that for me a 500/4 was the best compromise for weight and reach (of course I needed one of the newest versions to make that work for me). I finally sold off my Canon 200-400 and used the proceeds to buy a used copy of the 500FL.
I actually bought it in order to handhold it as much as possible. I'm very comfortable walking around for a few hours with it and handholding it for shots. I sometimes use it on tripod or monopod when I feel like it (especially at home setup around my feeders) but my goal was to handhold it. I really don't like being tied to tripods anymore as I often am with my Canon 600II so that is why I didn't consider getting the Nikon 600FL (or 800FL).
Surprising to me is that even though it is heavier than my 400DOII, I'm finding the balance of it is easier to handhold or at least equal to handholding the 400DOII (which usually has one or the other TCs on it).
The AF speed is much faster than the 200-500...I'm not sure if it is any faster than my 300PF though...essentially the same. VR is fairly noisy but about the same as the IS in my Canon 600II.
It is very noticeably sharper than the 200-500 at 500 even when I stop my 200-500 down to f/7.1 (its best aperture) and leave the 500FL wide open at f/4. It takes the 1.4TCIII excellently and the 1.7TCII very well. Unfortunately with my D500 the 2xTCII that I own requires +20 MFA and probably should be at ~ +23 - +25 for it to be really in spec. Therefore I'm not going to use the 2xTC much on the D500 (the above shots not withstanding). My D850 which needed negative MFA with my other lenses saved it with the 500/2x as it "only" needs +15 and actually gives a pretty good image...not sure if better than a cropped 1.7x image though??
