Bird lens
- Thread starter Dave
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- #2
You should probably ask Steve or one of the moderators to move this to the General Photography forum where you'll likely get more replies.
That said, it really depends on your subjects, how close you think you'll be able to get to the birds, how you want to work in the field and your budget.
For a walk around Nikon lens that's light and portable the 300mm f/4 PF is great and readily accepts a 1.4x teleconverter but you'd better be able to get fairly close to your subjects or they'd better be pretty big (e.g. large Florida wading birds) or both.
The 200-500mm or the third party variations like the 200-600mm lenses available from Sigma and Tamron are pretty versatile and still reasonable to handhold for a while and will work a bit better with smaller or skittish subjects with their extra focal length at the long end.
The 500mm f/5.6 PF is my current favorite walk around lens. You lose the versatility of the zooms and it's certainly bigger than the 300mm f/4 lenses but it's a very nice combo with the D850 where there's no huge penalty to working in DX crop mode when I can't get as close as I'd like (still over 19 Mpixels in DX crop mode) but with the extra angle of view in full frame (FX) or 1.2x crop mode for those larger birds or when I can get a bit closer.
But if you'll have to work from a long ways away or your local birds are skittish or the birds you're interested in are very small the next step is big glass as in a 500mm f/4 or 600mm f/4 but then you're also talking about a big tripod, ideally a gimbal head and a much bigger financial investment as well as reduced mobility while out in the field. I love my 600mm f/4 but it's not a Sunday walk by the pond kind of lens and even with it I can't always get as close as I like even with teleconverters.
Anyway, there's no simple answer to your question but you might start by seeing what kind of images you can capture with the glass you have or perhaps try renting something like a 200-500mm or 200-600mm zoom and take them down to your local wetlands to see how that works for you before settling into a specific lens purchase.
Good luck.
-Dave
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- #3
I love my 500 f/5.6 PF for birds but also have a 200-500 f/5.6 which I got before the PF became available. I have not seen significant differences between images from the lenses (my technique is much more of an issue before I need to worry about such issues). The 200-500 is much cheaper, easily obtained but a good deal heavier than the 500 PF. I would agree that renting or borrowing before you make a decision would be ideal.
The 500PF is a fabulous lens especially when walking. I also attached a monopod and gimbal head for stability. Steve has a great video on using a gimbal/monopod. I also use a 600mm when I am able to use a gimbal and a sturdy tripod. If you are cost conscious, the 200-500 is a very good lens.
D
Deleted member 115
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My Tamron 150-600mm f/5.6-6.3 A011 was a nice lens on my D500 and D850. I think I wore it out, full of dust and the focus became too slow after a couple years to keep up with any flying birds. I ordered a Nikon 500 f/5.6 PF and gave up after awhile and ordered a 200-500mm f/ 5.6 Nikon. It is nice but pretty slow autofocus compared to the Tamron when it was newer. Judging by feel and keeper rates. I'd order a Tamron G2 150-600mm if I had to do it over again. If you can get your hands on a 500 PF and part with a few grand that would be nice. just my rambling opinion.
edit- I am no professional. I prefer hiking to being stationary and don't like carrying tripods very much.
edit- I am no professional. I prefer hiking to being stationary and don't like carrying tripods very much.
I have the 500 PF and the 200-500. The 200-500 is not used much these days because the size/weight advantage goes to the PF. I also have the 300 PF, which is an awesome travel lens (remember when we could fly!?) that really does well with a 1.4 TC. I shoot them both on D500 and D850.
randyrimland
New member
The 500pf is the default lens for BIF
Ben Adler
New member
Very, very happy with the 500 PF on the D500. Significant improvement over the Sigma 150-600C in terms of quality but especially for speed of autofocus.
Username
Member
As others have said the 500PF is awesome on any of the DSLR's and I use mine on the Z6 and Z7 and I couldn't be more pleased with the results I get.
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- #12
I use a Nikon D500 with a 200-500 lens and I’m very happy with them both for bird photography, any issues are usually my own fault.
Ben C
Well-known member
I use the Tamron 150-600 G2 on my Nikon D500. With the crop sensor it is equivalent to a 900 mm on the long-end, and frankly, when shooting warblers during the spring migration it is still not long enough. The 500 and 600 primes are phenomenal lenses, but big, heavy and expensive, and lack the versatility of a zoom. If you only want one lens, a zoom is your best bet as you may find yourself too close to some large wading birds for the 500 or 600. If you're not a professional, I don't think any difference in sharpness between the Tamron (or Sigma) and the Nikon primes will be noticeable, and it would likely be offset by technique anyway.
Capturingtheunseen.com
Well-known member
I don't own the new Nikon 500mm 5.6 so I won't speak to it, but I have owned the Sigma, Tamron (both G1 and G2) and now the Nikon 200-500 5.6. I would rank them with the Nikon the best, then the Sigma, then the Tamron. The Nikon is a bit more expensive, but to me at least the image quality is superior. The better you get at this, the more you will notice the difference. However, having said that, all three will produce good images given proper technique, distance to subject, and lighting. Without all three your images will never be great. Good, maybe, but not great.
Yezdi
Well-known member
I use the D850 mainly for larger animals and my trusted D500 mainly for birds. That said, my most used lens currently is the 500mm f5.6 PF which is just awesome. Its light and can be hand held for longer periods of time. I also own the 200-500 which also gives fantastic results, with great IQ, but significantly heavy. If your subjects are close enough I sometimes use the 300mm f4.0 PF which too is a fantastic lens coupled with a 1.4 TC. So in short there is no one lens to fit all situations. I would suggest you to try renting a few lenses to first see how to works out for your type of shooting.
D
Deleted member 115
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The G2 was a couple hundred more than the Nikon last time I was looking at them. Sharp and fast focus
I use 500 PF wirth my D500/d 850 & hoping against hope that Nikon would announce a 600 PF 5.6 or 500 Pf 4 .If not then i am planning for a 500 E 4
I also have a Tamron 150-500 which was ok only for day light shooting.Once of my favorite walk around camera is Sony RX 10 IV.It is amzing for its AF even at 25 FPS.The donly down side is that it is 1 " camera
I also have a Tamron 150-500 which was ok only for day light shooting.Once of my favorite walk around camera is Sony RX 10 IV.It is amzing for its AF even at 25 FPS.The donly down side is that it is 1 " camera
Pistnbroke
Active member
I use Tamron 100-400 with a D850 and find it equivalent to the N200-500 in terms of sharpness but its a lot lighter and cheaper particularly grey
uday@wild whiskers
Member
Hey Dave, like many other participants, I also use the Nikon 200-500 f5.6 with D7200 and am very happy with it. The only drawback is it's weight. One really needs to start strengthening your arms/shoulders/back muscles to keep on using it 
I am now using the Nikkor 500mm PF f/5.6. Ordered it right before the pandemic hit . Received it 4 months later at end of June. This lens is fantastic. It was worth the wait. Low light situation are not problem for me. I was using the AF-P 70-300mm f/4.5-300 FX version on my D500. It takes great photos but needed more reach. I had always planned on getting something longer but wasn’t sure at the time what to get. I am now . I focus mainly on birds.
Jaguar240
Member
Looking for advice Please,
I’m looking for a bit of advice on equipment, I have a Sigma 150/600 Contemporary I was thinking about investing in a 1.4 Converter, then thought if a Nikon 200/500 as I have a Nikon 1.4 converter already.
I’m interested in wildlife & landscape. I use a Nikon 810 . or should this question be posted somewhere else in Forum
I’m looking for a bit of advice on equipment, I have a Sigma 150/600 Contemporary I was thinking about investing in a 1.4 Converter, then thought if a Nikon 200/500 as I have a Nikon 1.4 converter already.
I’m interested in wildlife & landscape. I use a Nikon 810 . or should this question be posted somewhere else in Forum
You'll lose reliable AF operation on your D810 if you run the Sigma 150/600 with a 1.4x TC as it pushes the wide open lens aperture above f/8. I can't speak for how much the image quality will degrade with that lens and its matching TC but you'll almost certainly degrade the quality a bit by adding the TC, how much depends a lot on the quality without the converter.
The Nikon 200-500mm is OK from an image quality standpoint with a TC-14 iii but again you'll be pushing AF operation right up to its limit on the D810 with a wide open lens+TC aperture of f/8 leaving only the center most AF points operational and then only in good light for high contrast subjects. I tried the TC-14ii and TC-14 iii on my Nikon 200-500mm f/5.6 lens and it was very marginal from an AF performance standpoint with a lot of hunting back and forth but once focused the image qaulity wasn't terrible though it was noticeably degraded compared to the lens without TC attached. I tried this on the D5, D850, D800 and D500 and though it came closest to decent AF operation on the D5 it still wasn't great. FWIW, I ran the same tests on my 500mm f/5.6 PF lens and the results were very similar in terms of degraded AF performance though the IQ held up a bit better on the prime lens vs the 200-500mm zoom.
Personally I wouldn't run a TC with an f/5.6 or slower lens at a least on a DSLR. On a mirrorless camera or a DSLR run in Live View mode you'll likely have better luck but don't expect much in terms of AF performance when adding a TC to an f/5.6 or slower lens on a DSLR focused in optical viewfinder mode. If you'll use the lens+TC combo as a manual focus lens it might satisfy your needs but don't expect much in terms of AF performance especially for fast moving subjects.
Jaguar240
Member
Thanks for your advice, so which lens wouldyou pick ? Sigma cont/sport 150/600 or Nikon 200/500 ?
Thanks
Thanks
Well, I did pick the Nikon 200-500mm until I swapped for the 500mm PF. But I've got a friend and great photographer that swears by the Sigma 150-600mm so it's really a personal choice.
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