1.Small --about the size of my Sigma 180mm macro but lighter in weight?
2.Fast focus
3.SHARP - so much so I had to dial down my typical LR sharpening settings.
4.Bokeh is great
5.Light weight
6.VR appears to work well
7.No MA needed that I can tell, right out of the box sharp and hits. I'll do a proper test with Lens Align tomorrow, I've only had it 2 hours
8.Did I mention it's small and light? lol
I foresee this lens getting a lot of use... i am very impressed so far. I do need to figure out the working distances...the two birds were at about 90 ft, I should have shot it around F/8.0 to get them both in focus.
It was very windy out and not a lot of animals around the house but I was able to capture a few bird shots.
I'm going to go attempt to find some burrowing owls tomorrow and if that doesn't work... zoo or duck pond trip.
A few photos from yesterday. I got a tip from a buddy that there was a cinnamon teal which is rare for Florida in a local cow pond. We made the trip over and I was able to snag a few photos. Unfortunately I forgot to check my settings and shot most of the photos at 1/800 of a second. Wish I had been at least double that. Oh well. At least I got a couple decent ones. All taken with the d850 and 500pf. As always comments and critiques welcomed!
1. Yes... my patio door is filthy and needs to be cleaned.
2. My cat would love to be outside eating the quail I'm photographing.
3. Shooting at 1/100th a second hand-held at 500mm is pretty cool. The VR appears to be working well. All four I shot of her are sharp.
Just a snapshot... but... I'm impressed with the lens... to say the least.
Hatch
@Hatch, I think your last one is actually sharper than your first one and comparable to what I got with the D500, as should be the case. I have also tried with the TC-14E III but that did not improve my results.
The last one should be sharper than my 1st, the 2x knocked down the sharpness some. With the 1.4x I would think it is a little bigger in the frame right? Did it impact the sharpness at all?
I'm going to buy the 1.4x here soon. I have the 1.7x and 2x (selling both now) and they don't work well if at all with AF on the 500PF. On my 300PF the 1.7x is great. I haven't tried to dial in the 2x on the 300 yet.
We have coveys of quail that pass through in the morning and evening hours. Yesterday several of them were nice enough to hang out on a ocotillo for me to photograph.
Lessons learned... when in DX mode on the D850, it's not a bad idea to have the "mask" turned on so you can see what is being captured. I didn't...and I was composing what I thought were really nice shots of multiple birds, that was not the case. I was cutting off heads and messing up the comps because I thought everything in the viewfinder was being captured. Tip number two...check your exposure compensation I had it set to -1 from shooting the moon the night before.
All in all.. it was still a fun shooting session, hope you like the shots.
This male has been fishing for chicks that has hatched this past week. This day he fished 4 or 5 times in the span of about 3 hours and each time taking the fish back to the nest. A couple of times he would land eat a bit before taking in to the nest.
