suteetat wrote:
I just picked up my copy today and decided to take it to a park not very far from the store for a couple of hours in the early afternoon so not exactly an ideal time. Also I did not fine tune the lens at all.
All the pictures were taken with D850, NEF. I adjusted the picture a bit in PS but did not add any sharpening.
Suteetat! AWESOME! First outing and a beautiful owl! You are blessed with king mojo! I remember trying for 18 months to find my first owl. Wonderful capture too.
Looks like no problem with the VR either. Not a concern of mine though. I do feel
the 300PF and 500PF are VR challenged because of resonance and the resident weigh of these super lightweight lenses. It is much easier to counterpose vibration with mass that these lenses just don't have. The designers knew this, also they knew all lenses are compromises, and chose to advantage the higher shutter speed VR where these lenses will be used most.
Thern wrote:
In the Netherlands 5 years is common there are even stores giving 6 years.
Hmmm....3 years was all I could claim (from a Official Nikon retailer) only just 2 years ago, unless it's changed recently?
I need to investigate this, perhaps I'm missing out on a couple of years?
OwlsEyes wrote:
Wow.. I envy anyone who can just go into a park near a camera store and find an owl to put their lens on. This type of opportunity often requires a long hike through a bog, or suiting up for a hike in the the snow during the dead of winter. Thanks for posting the shots.. they both look good.
I spent about 3 hours in the woods today with my copy and did all my shooting with a D500 (ISO3200 to ISO800). I'll post my thoughts and samples after I get some time to edit... I definitely made some interesting observations today... just about all were good
Luckily we have 3 good size parks right next to each other and that pretty decent amount of birds beside the usual pigeons. Next month, another national park not too far from Bangkok will be opened so hopefully I will have more chance to try the lens some more.
By the way, when I picked up the lens, the store has this in stock.
MedicineMan404 wrote:
Suteetat! AWESOME! First outing and a beautiful owl! You are blessed with king mojo! I remember trying for 18 months to find my first owl. Wonderful capture too.
Looks like no problem with the VR either. Not a concern of mine though. I do feel
the 300PF and 500PF are VR challenged because of resonance and the resident weigh of these super lightweight lenses. It is much easier to counterpose vibration with mass that these lenses just don't have. The designers knew this, also they knew all lenses are compromises, and chose to advantage the higher shutter speed VR where these lenses will be used most. ...Show more →
Thanks.. luckily I can almost always counted on this owl for a little photography session
I did some shots at the infamous 1/100s just to see what happened
With TC14e iii
100% cropped taken a minute or so after, 1/400s, f/8 iso 720 owlet cropped 2 by Suteetat S, on Flickr
May be 1/100 looked less sharp but it is hard to tell. The owlet is not exactly stationary either, he always looked up, down, back, all over the place. Many shots had obvious movement artifacts
at this speed. I was shooting af-c, continuous low.
Hello...
What follows are some thoughts and pictures from about 3 hours of shooting between 6:45 am to 9:00 am. The following photos were made at various focal distances 5 meters to 40 meters, and between iso's of 800 to 3200. All images were taken at f5.6 so you can see the bokeh when presented with a busy background. I will post the EXIF so you can see the ISO for each picture. In addition, images were take with my D500, all continuous single point, from a tripod w/ sidekick gimbal, and VR Sport Mode activated. Finally, with respect to pictures... please don't judge my photo skills based on these. With the exception of only one shot presented, I would not have used my 500mm PF for this subject. This forest allows me to get pretty close to whitetail deer because these deer are not hunted, and the park experiences regular traffic from early morning joggers and cross-country skiers.
My thoughts... First, AF is super fast even in these dark and streaky woods. I was surprised by the speed.... it is faster to go from infinity to minimum focus than my 200-400mm f/4. Second.. wow is it sharp! Not just sharp, but sharper than any other lens in my bag... I do not own any of Nikon's sharpest optics, but all of my lenses would be considered "professional" (whatever that means). Third... VR is a problem at around 1/125... confirmed multiple times. It is for this reason that I shifted to VR sport mode. While you don't get as many stops of VR, the final image was better stabilized in sport mode than the more "jumpy" normal mode.
Final point... I had erroneously stated that the kirk foot would not work on my lens... I was wrong. I needed to really tighten the knob on the kirk foot and it locked in as one would expect.
Ask any questions you have... tomorrow, I'll be off to the beaver pond where the light is even less contrasty and the subject should be in motion... will follow up tomorrow evening.
regards,
bruce
Beautiful Bruce. One thing that really standout for me for 500PF in comparison to 200-500 is the quality of the bokeh. I think 200-500 is very nervous and can be down right harsh. Strong back light through foliage is probably the worse for 200-500.
I know I’m going to catch a lot of flack for this, but a lot of the photos that were recently posted on this thread, are not what I would call “ Super Sharp”
ps. I am one of those who pre-ordered this lens and spent a lot of time shooting with a Canon 600 mkII and a few 500’s V1’s
kbarrera wrote:
I know I’m going to catch a lot of flack for this, but a lot of the photos that were recently posted on this thread, are not what I would call “ Super Sharp”
ps. I am one of those who pre-ordered this lens and spent a lot of time shooting with a Canon 600 mkII and a few 500’s V1’s
Al
I will agree with you there but I've also seen some on this thread and elsewhere that show the lens to be as sharp as can be. Just look back at Lance's shots in this thread. There are all sorts of variables that can give us some less than razor sharp examples. I think sharpness (looking at the MTFs and some of the posts on here) should be the least of anyones worries about this lens.
After using the 300/1.7 all morning yesterday I'm starting to wonder if my $5K CDN would be better put towards something else....still have my preorders in for now....
arbitrage wrote:
I will agree with you there but I've also seen some on this thread and elsewhere that show the lens to be as sharp as can be. Just look back at Lance's shots in this thread. There are all sorts of variables that can give us some less than razor sharp examples. I think sharpness (looking at the MTFs and some of the posts on here) should be the least of anyones worries about this lens.
After using the 300/1.7 all morning yesterday I'm starting to wonder if my $5K CDN would be better put towards something else....still have my preorders in for now.......Show more →
Geoff
I totally agree. Some of the shots posted here and on the web are insanely sharp, and after seeing some of the early reviews
I’m even more convinced that I made the right decision to buy this lens.
All I’m saying is that.....some of the shots posted here taken with that lens that were described as super sharp.....are not.
