Thinking of selling my Nikkor AF-S 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR lens

[Roy]

I have both the 500 PF and 100-400 Z. Both work very well with the Z9. I sold my 80-400. The 80-400 was a decent lens, but the 100-400 is noticeably better. Have you evaluated both of these lenses? The 500 PF is great when you need reach, but the 100-400Z is more versatile. When photographing at the ape house of the Brookfield zoo, the 500 is too much and the 200-400 is much more versatile.

Bill

I know its heavy but I love the 200-400mm AFS lens and bonus - its an f4...

 

[O]

I was quite comfortable using the 500 PF on my D850 for a number of years shooting mostly BIF. It is a VERY RARE occurrence when that lens has too much reach for my shooting situation (like when I came across some elk in Canada), in fact I often find myself cropping in on number of my images. The selection of a 500mm length over the 100-400 comes down to what you are going to be photographing most of the time, and how close you can typically get to your subject (how much of the frame are you able to fill?). Obviously the zoom is more flexible, but that flexibility only comes in at 400mm and below (sans TC).

When I decided to start converting my gear over to mirrorless last year, I bought a Z7ii and tried to get used to using the 500 on that camera, but I struggled a little with the AF modes and even the smaller form factor of the Z7ii body. I'm pretty sure that my keeper rate went down, so I found myself reverting back to using my D850 (as my security blanket) whenever I was shooting with the 500 PF.

I really longed for a Z9 for the improved AF modes and sheer horsepower, and I was able to get my copy about a week ago. All I have to say is; WOW, it's a HUGE improvement shooting BIF on the Z9 compared to the Z7ii. I don't think that I will be keeping the D850 around much longer, as I pretty much have no desire to use it in place of the Z9 (for anything). The Z7ii is my smaller, more lightweight backup body for travel and for landscape photography needs.

Regarding the 100-400 vs 500 PF decision, I was really shocked at the fairly negative review of the 500 that Mark Smith put out in his video. That's the first bad press that I have seen on this lens in quite a while. Some people commented that he might have had a problem with his unit. Mark is a lot more experienced than me for sure, but I've always been very happy with the results that I've gotten with that lens, and I think I'm going to be even happier using it on the Z9. As far as the larger size of the Z9 body goes, when I am using the 500 PF it seems very comparable to shooting with the D850. I don't even give it a second thought anymore.

In the short time that I have used in on the Z9 with the FTZ I can already tell that the AF performance of the 500 PF has been bumped up a notch or two. It definitely focuses faster, and my keeper rate has gone way up (getting sharp focus on the eyes is so much easier). I still need to see how it does with my 1.4 TC, but I'm fairly optimistic that it will perform quite well. I attribute all of this to the AF brilliance of the Z9 and it's powerful processing power.

You might look for a (Z9 Discussion...) YouTube video that Brad Hill did with Nikon Canada a couple of months ago. He spoke briefly about comparing the 500 PF to the 100-400 with a 1.4 TC. His opinion was that the 500 PF image quality is better than the 100-400 w/1.4 TC if you zoomed it out to 500mm (not the full 560 reach) so you could do an apples to apples comparison.

So, with all that said, I think you have a pretty good lens already with the 500 PF. Do you find it has too much on a regular basis? If so, maybe the switch to the 100-400 is better for your needs. But whichever lens you end up with, the Z9 will surely take you to another level.

Just my $0.02.
-SCR

I feel your take on the 500 pf and 100-400 is very logical.

For myself i cant see the big concern with 100mm difference, a whisker of cropping makes up for that, after all we dealing with 45mp.
The real measurement in any lens for me is the magnification ratio,
The 500 pf is a prime lens.
The 100-400 has a 4:1 magnification ratio.
Measuring the true performance difference when using a TC is also critical.

My hypothesis is the larger lens mount dia on the Z lenses allows for a little more light gathering capacity, also i presume slightly better corner to corner permanence to work with video, making sharp corner to corner lenses is expensive, increasing the lens mount DIA is a cheap way to enhance permance edge to egde and it keeps costs down or margins up.

What ever works best for your needs is all that matters, checking through your archives and measuring what focal range you mostly work on is often a good guide.

Regardless......... both lenses are ridiculously overpriced for what they are.

The industry has suffered massively in lost global unit sales and i hear still is, so margin is the only way to claw back revenue, and yes we keep coughing up the $.

Light small compact was the catch cry and major complaint before Sony listend and deliverd..........so what happend after that.

 

[Joody]

Thank you everyone for your amazing suggestions & thoughts. So very much appreciated.