In praise of the 200-500/5.6

[David Paterson]

I've had this lens for just over a year and am still impressed by its quality, and its value for money. Today I did a sequence of shots of a herd of deer - they're not such great images but they only exist because I could see them with the lens set at 500mm. With my 70-200 I had previously looked at that piece of hillside (15km away from the camera position) and couldn't see them.

I was enabled to use the big zoom again because of a great repair-job on my ArcaSwiss  tripod head, by Robert (Seapy).He did a great job.

1) 2-frame stitch at 500m
2) Crop of about 40% of a single-frame image
3) 100% crop of the main part of the herd.

[Andrew]

Very fine pix!
I don't have big experience with long "exotic" lenses but 200-500/5.6 is very handy, taking TC-14III very well and shooting hand held is possible...

Attached pic from today morning with TC, gimbal on the bracket, blind, 700/8.
It is Eurasian Nuthatch

[Seapy]

So pleased it's working as intended now.  A change of air perhaps!  A visit to the seaside does us all good.

I love the textures in the wind blown snow, the lighting is nice.

Even at 100% the deer are pretty well defined, you don't mention the camera?  Presumably pretty high resolution.

[David Paterson]

Thanks, Andrew. The 1.4xTCIII is certainly something I will think about.

Robert - I was using my D600. The sensor on my D800 is so filthy it has to go to Nikon for professional cleaning.