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Birding with 80-400VR and D700...

Posted: Sun 8 Mar 2009 21:49
by Stany Buyle
On different fora I was reading various comments about this great lens going from "this piece of junk..." over "unsharp..." to "excellent" and "best lens for handhold nature photography". I am one of those users who is extremely happy with this Nikkor...
I have this lens since a couple of years and had underwhile a 300 F4 as well, I sold the 300F4 because fixed focal teles are soo limiting...(subject too far, subject too close...), upto that the 300F4 is soo slow focusing and only a tad sharper than the 80-400VR @ F8...
For birding there are (much) better options indeed, but you have whether to carry a tremedous heavy piece of glass, barely possible for handhold shooting (200-400VR), a fixed focal like 300mmF2.8 with TC, 400VR F4 or 500VR F4 or even better the 500-800 sigma...Up to that all those options are extremely expensive...

Anyhow, I like the combination of versatility, weight, compactness, VR and sharpness, even @ 400mm...

Some samples:

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and a 100% crop (changed the WB here)
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and a 100% crop
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Handhold @ 400mm
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And with enough patience, for birds in flight, even not that difficult. The focus limiter can do wonders... For birds in flight, especially fast moving birds, a new version with AF-S would be very handsome...

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and a 100% crop
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and a 100% crop
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The possibilities with the 80-400VR became much better with the appearance of the D3 & D700 (and D300) because of the much improved IQ @ higher iso and because of auto iso. I always use M mode with a shutter speed of 1/1000 sec or faster, F7.1 of F8 and auto iso. This works very well...

Thanks for looking.

Thanks for sharing..

Posted: Tue 10 Mar 2009 04:18
by lenz
Good shots. Only the goose a bit blur. But passable for A4 print with some PP.

Re: Birding with 80-400VR and D700...

Posted: Tue 10 Mar 2009 05:17
by MitalPatel
Hi Stany B
i would say those are really gr8 pictures
i am fan of 80-400 because of its light weight and nice imagequality with the price tag.

i have posted some shots previously cropped though but i really enjoyed them very well and my bird list keeps growing with the d300 and 80-400 combo i have.