OwlsEyes wrote:
lovely photos dan.h
What a great little bird. I have yet to see this species. I will have to watch for them, as I live in the Northwest extreme of their range.
cheers,
bruce
Thank you. We had a few dozen migrate through the area recently and I was fortunate enough to see them. They are quite small, but gave great close views.
Any of you move from the 200-500 to this lens? I enjoy the 200-500 but it’s a little heavy. Most of the time I want the 500 PF, but the close focus ability catches my eye with the 300 since I also like macro in the wild a lot.
Daniel the 300PF is freakishly lightweight, super sharp. Can you live with F4? But it does take the 1.4 and 1.7 TC's readily. For my backyard shoots it is preferred over the too long 500PF.
40Driggs wrote:
Any of you move from the 200-500 to this lens? I enjoy the 200-500 but it’s a little heavy. Most of the time I want the 500 PF, but the close focus ability catches my eye with the 300 since I also like macro in the wild a lot.
I moved to the 300mm PF from the 200-500mm. When the 500m PF was announced, I decided that I wanted one, and picked up a used 300mm PF for a great price to supplement my kit. I already owned a TC-14E III that I could use with it. I also purchased a used TC-17E II. I'm still waiting for that 500mm PF, but the 300mm PF has completely replaced my usage of the 200-500mm. The AF is faster (hunts more with the 300mm PF + 1.7 TC than the 200-500mm), I prefer the IQ (even with the TCs), and being a lighter weight is a huge bonus. It also becomes obvious when you use the two side by side @500mm (510mm for the PF) that the 200-500mm is not actually 500mm. It's seems to be more in the 460mm - 480mm range, depending on the subject distance. And for times when you can get away with the 300mm PF bare, it's noticeably in a different league. My 200-500mm didn't need AF fine tuning, but did get more consistent with it. My 300mm PF (w/ and w/o TCs) absolutely needed AF fine tuning, and I'd actually call it useless without it.
They both handle differently. The 200-500mm is very forgiving of bad technique (or if you get tired and sloppy). The 300mm PF is less forgiving. I also notice more vibration at low shutter speeds (< 1/200s) with the 300mm PF when paired with my D500. I think the weight of the 200-500mm helps with this (and helps hold it more steady). I can get around the issue by using EFCS and Mup mode. If I'm at that low of a shutter speed, then I'm not trying to capture action anyway. In fact, if I'm taking photos of a static subject, then I've started to prefer EFCS and Mup. It's actually very easy to do this handheld with the 300mm PF. If you have a D850, then you can use Qc instead of Mup. I think many people are attributing this to the previous VR issues, and blame the VR (and maybe rightly so, since it's vibrations). However, when working around the issue, I find the VR of the 300mm PF to be pretty much on par with the 200-500mm.
Something that I found interesting between the two is that I can get away with using a higher ISO with the 300mm PF. It seems to render better detail and contrast, allowing the use of a stronger noise reduction in post.
tnedator wrote:
Also, I'm new, so what's the etiquette guideline for posting pictures. Should I reduce them to a certain resolution. I see some nearly as large as mine, and others seem to be smaller.
There is no rule, but as a reader viewing pictures, I prefer not to have to side to side scroll if possible.
A couple of raccoon kits waiting for mom. It was actually quite dark. The sun had just gone below the horizon and they were in the canopy. Handheld with EFCS + Mup on both.
dwalk wrote:
Visited the Farne Islands recently which are off the coast of Northumberland, England. All taken with the D500 and 300pf.
The photos are all very nice but the tern in flight really stands out as impressive. I take it you're not having too much of a problem with autofocus speed and accuracy with this combination of camera and lens!
