Lens recommendation for low light forest shoot

[moozphoto]

Hi everyone. I’m new to the forum but have been following Steve’s work on YouTube and his newsletter for years now and learned a whole lot from him.
I do however need some advice on the following: a few weeks from now I have the chance to go and shoot for a day in a forest photo hut/hide. I own a D500 and have a 500mm f5.6 PF and a 70-300mm VR (the latter I rarely use)

But with the low light conditions I expect to have I would like to bring along a good/fast lens to try and avoid cranking up the ISO too much.

I had a look around & found the following lenses that are in my budget (secondhand):

• Nikon 300mm f4 PF
• Sigma 120-300mm f2.8 (non sports)
• Nikon 300mm f2.8 (non VR)
• ??

I do a lot of hiking and love the 500mm PF being easy to handhold for a long period of time. From time to time I bring a monopod or tripod, but these are more ‘planned’ photoshoots like sitting in a hide or something.

Which lens would you recommend to complement the 500mm for shorter and faster shooting, especially when the light is less than ideal?

Thanks, mooz

 

[Venkatesh VT]

This shot was taken at early morning in a hide at Sattal@India with D 850 +500 PF on a tripod at 1/20 sec ,ISO 800.With a little bit of PP it was a keeper & fit for framing too !

You can only see EXIF info for this image if you are logged in.

 

[ruley74]

For me in that environment, I'd want one of the 2.8 lenses. However I recently had a few days away and I was shooting in a rainforest environment and balancing DOF can also be an issue when shooting wide open to help reduce ISO. I was using my 70-200/2.8 and 400/2.8 and while I got some images I'm very happy with the whole bird is far from in focus.

 

[Yezdi]

For my jungle shoots earlier used to carry my 200-500mm f5.6 along with my 70-200 FL ED f2.8. Recently I use my 500 PF along with my 70-200. If budget is not a constrain even the 300PF f4 is an excellent lens which is always in my bag. You can't go wrong with either of these lenses if you plan to shoot handheld. The 300mm f2.8 (Non VR) is also an excellent piece of glass but heavy at almost 3.1Kgs.

 

[SBurkholder]

You might consider renting a fast lens for the week.

 

[splatbass]

I love the 300mm PF. Use it a lot on a D7200.

 

[Callie]

Dark is dark in a forest and the autofocus will battle if there is not enough contrast. Off camera flash on a bracket help. Check out Moose Peterson on his set-up for hummers, it should work in a forest too. Large f/stops does not render the birds in focus from bill to tail. in front views. So a f/5.6 works well.

 

[DRwyoming]

Which lens would you recommend to complement the 500mm for shorter and faster shooting, especially when the light is less than ideal?

Lot's of good advice above but the key question is what you expect for subjects and how close you can get to them? Any of the Nikkor 300mm f/2.8 lenses are beautiful optically and capture a lot of light but if your subjects are Owls up high in trees or skittish critters you can't get very close to you may find 300mm is pretty short. OTOH, if your main subjects are larger mammals or birds that you can get pretty close to then a 300mm (whether F/2.8 or f/4) could be a great choice.

 

[Woodpecker]

Lot's of good advice above but the key question is what you expect for subjects and how close you can get to them?

Yup, that's the one - and especially the shutter speed that you might need depending o nthe subject.
If you do a lot of hiking - probably also in difficult terrain - I would try to avoid too much weight and size, because that becomes an issue at least mid and longer term. In that discipline the 300PF is hard to beat with its combination of IQ, AF, small size and weight. When I go for a "stroll" I usually take 24-70, 300PF, 500PF and two FX bodies (D750) because I can have both long lenses ready to use without having to juggle with caps and lenses too much. Only occasionally one of lenses get swapped with the 24-70 in case I see something. A TC doens't make much sense as I would have to use it on the 500PF to get additional reach, but at f8 I loose AF speed and most of the sensors, especially if it is dark. If I know it will be bright enough (more open scenario) I might replace one body with the DX (D7200) to have the additional reach with the 500PF without having to use a TC and thus compromising AF.

IMHO you can get a good 300PF that's probably the way to go. This gives you 450mm and 750mm of FX equivalent reach with f4 and f5.6 so that the AF is fully functional and with the AF detection range of you current camera reaching -4EV you should be safe and sound. Yes, 2.8 glass gives you faster AF and more subject isolation, but the question is whether its worth the volume and weight for somebody wanting to hike (light).

However, if you especially ask for dark forest to me the main issue would be low light noise and thus a decent High ISO comfort zone of my camera. A dark forest is usually also dense, so the questions whether you are able to overlook distances where 750mm reach make sense - again depending on your preferred "prey". Despite all software tweaks that are possible these days it is still the best to avoid noise in the first place - or at least keep it to the absolute minimum. If it gets too much you will loose IQ no matter what software you use.

So, if your wallet has recovered from buying the lens, you might want to give a thought to getting a FX body, if you have to deal with low light sceanrios regularly. I know the D500 is a fantastic camera but as I'd say "you cant tweak data, but you can't cheat physics". If it comes to real low light is still mainly the pixel size that counts. Two or even more stops of additional low light tolerance in the end can make your day. There is a dark forest guy called @Capturingtheunseen.com who opened two threads here and here around this topic. Maybe you take a look. Would be interesting to hear - soryy, read - what you think. I know there is a money world between a used 300PF and a pro body, but I am already seriously considering changing something, although already use FX format...

 

[Steve]

Lot of great advice - but the biggest unanswered question is distance.

The thing is, I'd rather fill the frame with a 500PF than to crop to the same size with a faster 300PF - the output results will be about the same, but I'll have more detail with the 500PF since I put more pixels on the subject. When a subject is too far away, you're not putting as many pixels on that subject and those pixels are larger relative to the detail on the subject. This means that the noise will also be larger relative to the detail on the subject and look worse than had you filled the frame. For more info, see this article:

The Cropping Epidemic - Backcountry Gallery

I see it all the time – lens jockeys hacking off pixels and tossing them out like they were last week’s kitty litter. It pains me to witness such rampant cropping with so little regard for the consequences – especially since I know how potentially devastating it is to a photo. What really makes...

backcountrygallery.com

The other thing to consider is that maybe an upgrade to your support system would help more than a new lens. In CR, I'm always telling people to use support and sometimes even my most ardent hand-holders will see the light once they try it. A good support system can have more impact on getting a sharp image than an extra stop of light through the lens. Of course, you have to be careful of subject movement, but at least you can be as steady as possible on your end.

Another good suggestion above that I'd echo here is to rent a faster lens. I've recommended that to my CR workshops and have never, ever had a single person tell me they regretted doing the rental.

 

[Woodpecker]

The other thing to consider is that maybe an upgrade to your support system would help more than a new lens. In CR, I'm always telling people to use support and sometimes even my most ardent hand-holders will see the light once they try it. A good support system can have more impact on getting a sharp image than an extra stop of light through the lens. Of course, you have to be careful of subject movement, but at least you can be as steady as possible on your end.

Because of the word "hiking" I overlooked that one totally.
The good thing about the 500PF and its weight is that it allows taking "hikeable" support like a lighter travel tripod or a smaller monopod rather than one of the big tripods used for the big primes. I actually had my D7200 with the 500PF hanging off a branch with a big gorilla pod ... Something I wouldn't try with a D5 and a 500 f4 attached.

@Steve : I don't consider myself as being one of these mega-croppers, I had read the article already but have read it again, and you can be sure I will feel guilty every time I touch the button for selecting the crop tool for at least the rest of the year .

 

[moozphoto]

Thanks all for your answers and suggestions.
For the distance: this is the first time I visit the photo hut so I'm not sure what the distance will be. The site suggests a min. of 250mm and max. of 600mm to give an idea. The animals to shoot are mostly small birds but there are also squirrels and a small chance of a woodpecker or a small bird of prey. A photo of a jumping squirrel would be nice.
As for support: there are wimberley heads attached to a table inside what I will be using.

 

[Calson]

I have the 600mm f/4 and the 500mm f/5.6 PF and my companion lens is the 80-400mm f/5.6 lens. The zoom is easily hand held and the VR is excellent and it covers the range up to that of the prime lens. If I wanted something faster than the 80-400mm zoom I would take the 70-200mm f/2.8 and a TC-14 and TC-20 teleconverter.

With very small subjects the image magnification is important and a 500mm lens provides an image size that is 177% greater than that from a 300mm lens and something to factor in even when using a D850.