70-200VRII + TC-20 E III on D300...
Posted: Sat 13 Feb 2010 09:38
Ives brenders drove 220km to bring me his 80-400VR and his D300 to enable this users review as a complement of my great experience with the 70-200VRII+ TC2.0 E III on my D700. Thanks Ives!
I had quite a bit of difficulties doing a users review with this combo because of very unusual weather conditions in our region, much snow and freezing -3 upto -10 °C during the last weeks. Taking pictures of birds in flight in this low temperature next to very strong wind coming from over the sea is no fun...
Last two days weather was getting a little better and I was able to make some decent pictures and shoot enough to write my thoughts about using the 70-200VRII+ TC2.0 E III on D300.
My findings, impressions and enthusiasm on this zoom-TC combination on a D300 are quite different than those on the 70-200VRII+ TC2.0 E III on a FX format camera, which I called a "magic combo".
The results I get with a 70-200VRII+ TC2.0 E III on D300 are quite "average", and even quite poor wide open...
Even though I have this impression already for several days, I was hesitating to write it down, while the poor results could have been te result of the terrible weather conditions, a user mistake of mine or having lost the habit of working with D300... (I had a D300 after I returned my first D3 for reasons of weight, size and PUFlash but returned to D3 after approx 6 weeks. TMHO the difference in IQ between D3 and D300 is very significant, and not only @ higher isos...)
By coincidence I got the latest copy(n°321) of Chasseur d'Images yesterday with a very detailed review of the 70-200VRII on D300, D3s and D3X, a test done by real experts and their finding explained my rather disillusioning results of the 70-200VRII+ TC2.0 E III on D300...
Whereas the 70-200VRII @ 200mm and F2.8 gets a comfortable "8+" -quote while used on a D3s and a "9" -quote while used on a D3X, it only gets a "6.3" quote while used on a D300 @200mm and F2.8. At F4 and 200mm the 70-200VRII mounted on the D300 gets a "7.6" and a "7.8" @ F5.6.
Further more and according to this Chasseur d'Images 70-200VRII-test(Chasseur d'Images n°321), at shorter focals the 70-200VRII mounted on a D300 gets 8-8.5 -quotes until F16 where diffraction starts to degrade IQ significant.
Another interesting thing in the Chasseur d'Images 70-200 test is a comparison with the 70-200VRI on the different cameras. While the improvement of the new 70-200 version is clear in the test results on FX cameras, the VRI scored higher on a D300 body than the new version does... This could of course also depend on the person who was writing the 70-200VRI review those days...
I had quite a bit of difficulties doing a users review with this combo because of very unusual weather conditions in our region, much snow and freezing -3 upto -10 °C during the last weeks. Taking pictures of birds in flight in this low temperature next to very strong wind coming from over the sea is no fun...
Last two days weather was getting a little better and I was able to make some decent pictures and shoot enough to write my thoughts about using the 70-200VRII+ TC2.0 E III on D300.
My findings, impressions and enthusiasm on this zoom-TC combination on a D300 are quite different than those on the 70-200VRII+ TC2.0 E III on a FX format camera, which I called a "magic combo".
The results I get with a 70-200VRII+ TC2.0 E III on D300 are quite "average", and even quite poor wide open...
Even though I have this impression already for several days, I was hesitating to write it down, while the poor results could have been te result of the terrible weather conditions, a user mistake of mine or having lost the habit of working with D300... (I had a D300 after I returned my first D3 for reasons of weight, size and PUFlash but returned to D3 after approx 6 weeks. TMHO the difference in IQ between D3 and D300 is very significant, and not only @ higher isos...)
By coincidence I got the latest copy(n°321) of Chasseur d'Images yesterday with a very detailed review of the 70-200VRII on D300, D3s and D3X, a test done by real experts and their finding explained my rather disillusioning results of the 70-200VRII+ TC2.0 E III on D300...
Whereas the 70-200VRII @ 200mm and F2.8 gets a comfortable "8+" -quote while used on a D3s and a "9" -quote while used on a D3X, it only gets a "6.3" quote while used on a D300 @200mm and F2.8. At F4 and 200mm the 70-200VRII mounted on the D300 gets a "7.6" and a "7.8" @ F5.6.
Further more and according to this Chasseur d'Images 70-200VRII-test(Chasseur d'Images n°321), at shorter focals the 70-200VRII mounted on a D300 gets 8-8.5 -quotes until F16 where diffraction starts to degrade IQ significant.
Another interesting thing in the Chasseur d'Images 70-200 test is a comparison with the 70-200VRI on the different cameras. While the improvement of the new 70-200 version is clear in the test results on FX cameras, the VRI scored higher on a D300 body than the new version does... This could of course also depend on the person who was writing the 70-200VRI review those days...