Tele lens dilemma

armukher · Jul 3, 2009

Hi,

I have a question regarding telephoto lens.

i use a f-75 nikon slr with a 28-80 and a 70-300 mm.

for wildlife i often tend to feel the lack of a 400m or 600mm.

now i dont have the required financial strength to buy a 400 or 600mm tele lens. alternatively i had an idea of buying one of those new compact cameras by cannon / nikon (10-12mp) which have one zoom lens of 30-600 types.

i just want to know would dis be a gd idea? are these lenses any good?

pls let me know.

musicaleCA · Jul 3, 2009

I think most of the time they're including the "digital zoom" (which is another term for cropping...badly) in those measurements.

Garbz · Jul 3, 2009

As MusicaleCA mentioned digital zoom is often used in these. None of these cameras use optical zoom to get the 600mm end, and if they did the camera would be quite large. What you may be able to do is get an old (I mean AI series) 300 or 400mm lens and put a 1.3x or 1.7x Teleconverter on them. You could even try a teleconverter with your 70-300 although typically the viewfinder would get very dark and you would probably lose the ability to autofocus.

With a 300mm f/4 for instance (an old one) and a teleconverter you could get some nice range and performance without the insane cost of a new 400mm lens.

/EDIT: Correction some point and shoots can get the equivalent of 600mm.

HeY iTs ScOTtY · Jul 3, 2009

i too wish could afford paying 2-3x the cost of my CAMERA for a nice telephoto lens haha

Dwig · Jul 3, 2009

Garbz said:
...None of these cameras use optical zoom to get the 600mm end...

Actually, the recent crop of 24x zoom models, like the Nikon P90, zoom to an equivalent of 600mm and greater with purely optical zoom. These are small cameras but aren't in the class of the pocketable compact cameras in terms of size.

Another option for the OP, since digital seems acceptabe, would be to get a modest Nikon DSLR (e.g. D60). The smaller format of these DSLRs would make their existing 70-300 have the field of view equivalent of a 105-450mm.