Telephoto Lens for wildlife photography

[mwai]

I need a powerful telephoto lens for wildlife photography. I have a 300mm lens and I found it insufficient. I wonder what kind of telephoto lens that people use for wildlife photography? Any recommendation.

Thanks.

[StormChaser]

I use a Sigma 170-500 and that works for me. I also tried a 600 from Sigma but the AF did not work.

[Ron Green]

Not exactly wildlife, but I use the manual focus 300mm f2.8 and 800mm f5.6 Nikkors alone and with Nikon teleconverters for small animal nature photography. Both lenses have had chips added and work with the S2 metering system in all modes.

[Ron Green]

That was a recent 800mm shot, here's an example of the 300mm with 2X.

[mwai]

Thanks for all the info. The photo shot with 800mm is very very nice. I wonder how far you were from the bird?

[quill]

This looks like the area of telephoto knowledge...

I have read that the nikon teleconverters remove autofocus capability from your lenses and that they should not be used with zooms. My question is this:

I have an AF 80-200D and I would like to add a TC-200 to get an effective (200x2x1.5) 600mm for an upcoming sailing regatta shoot. I realize I will lose my AF and my matrix metering. Would I retain these if I go with the latest teleconverter? TC-20E, I think... Or would I just be spending more money. I have no AF-S.

Thanks.

[ballroom_boy]

Hi There

When I was in the market for 2x TC, I realised that the Nikon TC's were not an option for me as I really wanted AF with my fast f/2.8 lenses. I eventually bought the Tamron SP AF 2x TC (same product as the Kenko Pro 300 series, just different label) and have been very happy.

To date, I have noticed no loss of colour or contrast and yes, AF works fine. Under low light/contrast situations, AF hunts a bit, but then again, you do lost 2 stops of light. I am about to purchase Tamron's SP AF 1.4x TC as well (1 stop of light loss) for when I don't want to magnify the image as much. Also, with the 1.4x TC, I should be able to maintain AF with my slower f/3.5~4.5 lenses.

You may want to read this article:

http://nikonlinks.com/lenstest.html

Give the Tamron/Kenko TC's a try - I think you will like them!

Hope this helps.

[quill]

This could be just exactly what I need! Thank you kindly :cool:

Q

The used shop here in Ottawa has both the 201 and the Tamron, so I'll just go in a shoot a couple of shots!

[ballroom_boy]

My pleasure... here are some shots that I took with my Nikkor 80-200/2.8D with the Tamron SP AF 2x TC (all except the one of my mom's cat):

http://openknowledgecorp.com/nature/index.html

And these too:

http://openknowledgecorp.com/butterflies/index.html

Take care and happy shooting!

[Andre]

Originally posted by quill

The used shop here in Ottawa has both the 201 and the Tamron, so I'll just go in a shoot a couple of shots!

What shop is that, Quill?

Thanks

[quill]

Hey Andre,

Well, if you check out Camera Exchange II, they have a Nikon 201 for $250 and a Tamron 2x for $200, I think (condition, age, unknown). But Galaxy Camera has the Tamron for $250 new, so I think that is the way I will go. The Focus Centre only seems to sell Sigma, and Ginn has put me on hold too many times. I hate them! Plus they sell crappy Kodak prints, and do horrible scanner work... woa, don't get me started!!!

Roël - nice shots! I had looked at them all already, actually! Nice to find out the lens used, though. (From your first post...)

I'll let you know how it goes and hopefully start putting some pics up. Cheers,

Quill

[Andre]

Thanks, I'll check out Camera Exchange.

Andre

Originally posted by quill
Hey Andre,

Well, if you check out Camera Exchange II, they have a Nikon 201 for $250 and a Tamron 2x for $200, I think (condition, age, unknown). But Galaxy Camera has the Tamron for $250 new, so I think that is the way I will go. The Focus Centre only seems to sell Sigma, and Ginn has put me on hold too many times. I hate them! Plus they sell crappy Kodak prints, and do horrible scanner work... woa, don't get me started!!!

Roël - nice shots! I had looked at them all already, actually! Nice to find out the lens used, though. (From your first post...)

I'll let you know how it goes and hopefully start putting some pics up. Cheers,

Quill

[quill]

Hi there Roël,

Just to let you know... I tried out the Tamron SP 2x/Nikon AF 80-200 combo and I have to say that the results were very substandard. Not sure if I had a bad one, but the contrast was horrible. AF was fine and sharp/fast enough considering the F5.6 combo. Exposure was off and the camera did not properly understand what was going on. I got a lot of underexposure.

So, I returned the $250 tele and rented a Nikon 300 f2.8 AFS and 1.4x AFS tele for a week at $150 from Ginn's.

All I can say is magnificent! The lens was a ~600mm F4 on my S2 and the images had the sailors floored. I sold dozens of 11x16s off my epson 1280 at custom lab quality.

Just in case you have the option!

The quality of web JPEGs sucks, but the just of it is there:
www.curvedspacestudios.com/sharkworlds/

Cheers,

Q.

[ballroom_boy]

Hi there

That's too bad about your Tamron SP AF 2x TC... mine has performed flawlessly (as you can see in my photos in the above link). You must have had a bad one. The only problem with mine is that sometimes the AF hunts a little, otherwise, I have been impressed.

I've heard the Nikkor 300/f2.8 (or Nikon 300/f4) with the tamron 1.4x is a nice combo. I have been thinking about picking up a 1.4x and a 300/f4. You might have just convinced me!

Take care