The Nikon 800f5.6 VR AFS

Jan 1, 2010 | Field Reports

800f5.6AFS w25e

The 800f5.6 is simply a spectacular lens! It’s the king of super telephotos in Nikon’s lens line up setting the mark for those lenses to come. The 800mm is one of Nikon’s first lenses to incorporate Fluorite elements along with ED elements. While not a first, the 800mm also comes with a matched 1.25 teleconveter producing a 1000m f/7.1 and spectacularly sharp images! Most who have heard about of the 800mm would expect no less because of its price. This is not a lens for everybody, in fact, it’s a very much a speciality lens. The 800mm is not just for wildlife photography but that is my primary use for this magnificent piece of glass.

This 10lbs hunk of glass has the very narrow angle of view of 2 and with the TC 1.25 attached, it’s just 1. In combination with this is the new VR which reportedly provides 4 stops performance. What is essential with this lens when it comes to getting a sharp image is proper long lens technique. Because of this very narrow angle of view, any movement in the lens, and we’re talking the smallest amount you can imagine will create an unsharp image. At the same time, when using proper long lens technique, the 800mm produces remarkable sharp images without or with the TC-25e. Keep in mind that when working with the 800mm, your DoF is remarkable shallow. This is especially true when shooting at the lenses MFD at 19′ (obtained manually focusing). If you’re shooting with this lens and a D4, be sure to have the most recent firmware for the D4 which has tweaks especially for this combo. Nikon did a top shelf job producing this lens, surely one of the sharpest telephotos (ya, sharper than my old 600VR2) I’ve even shot with!

graph courtesy Nikon

graph courtesy Nikon

Nikon TC-14e

Jan 1, 2010 | Field Reports

02.15.10

The teleconverter, the wildlife photographers best friend but not for the reason most think. The teleconverter is a tool permitting the photographer to narrow the angle of view and isolate the subject better with narrower DOF. These main attributes of the teleconverter seem to get lost with the main obvious attribute, a bigger subject in the viewfinder. One of the drawbacks of the teleconverter is their sucking up of light. You getting nothing back for their hunger, you simply have less light to work with. In the case of the 1.4x, you loose one stop of light and the DOF is only 1/1.4x or 70% of that of the prime lens. The 1.4x was once supplied with the 600f4 but now you have to buy it separately. It was once my main teleconverter but for the last two years, I hardly use it. I have all three, use each when the subject requires it.

The Trio, 1.4x, 2x & 1.7x

Nikon 60micro

Jan 1, 2010 | Field Reports


02.15.10


This is an “old” lens, I got it when it first came out in 2003 and it has served me very well. But it doesn’t get out much. This lens has one purpose and one purpose only, photographing small critters on projects. That means that it get’s out perhaps once a year. You might be wondering why I’ve not purchased the new 60micro. I wish I could justify the expense because it is a gorgeous lens! It’s sharp, AF is fast and it’s easy to hold. But, this version is just as sharp, just not as fast and for my limited need, serves the purpose.

Nikon 50f1.4 AFS

Jan 1, 2010 | Field Reports


02.15.10


Yeap, it’s a normal lens. 50mm is considered the “normal” lens for the FX format. And it’s a f1.4 which makes it a “fast” lens giving you a pretty narrow DOF especially close up to a subject. But when it comes to AF, this is not the fastest lens in the line-up, might me one of the slowest actually. It’s become a favorite knock around lens of mine, in part because of it’s amazing sharp performance and in part because it looks so hot on the D3s. Now that’s silly reason to have a lens but I never said I was totally logical. It is interesting that to get AFS performance (in name only), the front element size was increased from the long standing 52mm to 58mm. While we didn’t get the speed, we sure did get the performance out of the new optical design. You’ll find a whole lot of images on the site doing a search for 50f1.4.

Nikon 16Fish

Jan 1, 2010 | Field Reports


02.15.10


This is simply one hell of a fun lens! Does it serve a purpose? The original fisheye lenses were made for scientific research and pipeline construction inspection, hardly what I use it for. When I grab for the 16Fish, it’s because typicaly I have a scene that is so wide that I need the 180 degree coverage of the 16Fish to get the shot. At the same time, the scene in front of me must be one where there is no straight lines because the 16Fish will not render them straight. When you’re in the cockpit of a plane for example, you want the whole thing and some of the outside world, this is your only lens of choice. If you search the site, you’ll find a number of examples where I had fun shooting with the 16Fish.

Nikon 45PC-E

Jan 1, 2010 | Field Reports


02.15.10

This is one amazing lens and I’m probably the one photographers who owns one. The combination of focal length and design just makes it too far out there for the vast majority of photographers. It is a manual focusing lens with the ability to tilt and shift and while doing so permitting aperture control (that’s what the E stands for). You can use this lens as a standard 45mm manual focus lens but in these days, most are lost without AF. The purpose of the PC-E series is two fold: corrections for doing architecture, straight line photography and extended DOF control. This combination of quality and flexibility puts the price of the 45PC-E up there and out of the reach of most shooters (but you can rent it easily).

“Why do you have the 45PC-E?” That’s a really common question and the simple reason is, it’s the corner stone of my Ultra Wide Pano kit. The 45PC-E is a stunning lens for landscape photography. In this role, it’s manual focus and tilt capability give you complete control of the DOF and point of focus. Having a 77mm front elements means it can utilize all the same filters you should carry for the 24-70AFS and 70-200VR2 which is real convenient for the landscape photographer. But don’t let the PC-E aspect of the lens scare you off. Here’s a 4pg PDF on using a PCE lensthat makes it real easy to make the most of this gem!

Moose's UltraWide Pano Kit 85, 24, 45PC-E w/D3x

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