Mes amis, the plan is to buy a "something long" solution again somewhere next year but can't find a set that checks all the boxes so I'm hoping you can offer some help
The general idea is to buy a dedicated camera and tele lens combo for travel purposes, using it in the homeland for wildlife or zoolife is a secondary priority as this is a dwindling activity. When not in use it will be slung around a shoulder when fooling around with the Sony a7S and 35/1.4 FE which will be my main camera setup with some other short lenses in the bag for the something wide, something fast and something special lens options.
Though I'm mainly a prime lens user a tele zoom might be more practical for a secondary system which needs to be ready to shoot anything from medium to far away distances without fumbling around with TC's and such to reach the intended 400mm. On multiple occasions I had snakes swimming by with only a wide-angle mounted, by the time I had my 125mm mounted it swam too far away to make anything memorable. Same happened with wildlife, birds, planes, etc where I was too late or had too little reach to capture it properly.
I'm open for any suggestions as long as they fit the bill, bonus points when the camera can be used with my other lenses but being capable for its designated tele job is more important.
As a reference to my type of use, the 200-400/4VR was used a lot at 400mm, f/4 and ISO4000 so a f/5.6 solution should be capable of delivering clean images at ISO6400. Also a big fan of the close focus properties of the 200-400 and it's 1:3.7 maximum magnification (MM) ratio, so minimal focus distance (MFD) of 2 meters or preferably less is preferred as wel as a magnification ratio well below 1:4.
I've looked at lenses like the Minolta 400/4.5 AF and Canon 400/4DO I and II which are very compact, weight around 2 kilos and at f/4 reasonable fast for 400mm lenses but their minimal focus ranges are around 3 meters, the Minolta uses a very slow screw driver AF (like AFD), Canon MKI wasn't very good while the MKII model is a little expensive which would be OK if the specs were all spot on. No such lenses in the Nikon camp that I am aware off but a 400/4 PF would be very cool.
In the tele zoom arena a 200-400/4VR is too big, the 80-400 AFS VR misses too many checkboxes (MM 1:5.7) but the new 200-500/5.6 looks very cool though spec wise a little short on things like a MFD of 2.2m, MM ratio of 1:4.5 and weight is a little on the heavy side for secondary use but the option to go to a cool 500m without TC's makes up for those minor issues.
Sony has an updated 70-400 in A mount with an MFD of 1.5m and MM ratio of 1:3.7 and works pretty good on the A7II and A7RII after the 2.0 firmware updates. But the clear winner is the new Canon 100-400/4.5-5.6 IS USM II which is apparently razor sharp at 400mm, focuses down to an amazing 0.9 meter, has a MM ratio of 1:3.2, is weather sealed, made of metal, uses 77mm threads and weighs a very nice 1.5 kilograms. I read mixed performance reports on the latest Sony mirrorless cameras and I'm not really a big fan of the Canon cameras either, for instance the 7DII looks good on paper with its 10 fps and 1.6 crop factor but I doubt it will be usable at ISO6400 plus it misses basic stuff like spot metering on the selected AF point (just wow....) which I use a lot on wildlife.
In the Nikon camp I can't find a proper action camera for the 200-500 either, doing 8 fps is apparently a thing of the past for all the models besides the D4s and on the FX cameras the AF points are still cluttered in the middle which annoyed me greatly when using the D700, D3s and D800E cameras. The latter also applies to the Sony a7II btw but the a7RII has 399 PDAF focus points nicely spread out over 60% of the frame which is how it should be IMHO but at 5 fps and 42MP its no action camera.
So.....there you have it, I'm going in circles again and again so maybe you guys can shed some light on the matter
What am I missing in the Nikon camp camera wise? Are there completely different solutions from other vendors, etc?
In the meantime I'm keeping my hopes up that 2016 will bring me a true action (mirrorless) camera with the speed and ISO performance of a D4s and the AF spread of the a7RII instead of the increasing focus on slow high megapixel offerings.
